MISSISSIPPI'S PREMIER ONLINE MAGAZINE

How many times have you licked your lips after a particularly tasty lunch or dinner and said "That's the best (fill in the blank) I've ever eaten"? We've all had a few dining experiences that really stand out, but it doesn't have to be a meal eaten at a four-star restaurant to qualify. Sometimes, the best meals are actually the simplest. Five South Mississippi writers share their memories.

Best Meal I Ever Ate

Tall stack

I grew up right next door to my grandmother, who always had something great going on in the kitchen. “Mama Mae” was forever delighting us with casseroles, gumbo, pot roasts, and baked-from-scratch cakes. There was a lot of time and love in her dishes, and I enjoyed all of her labor-intensive creations. But the food that made my mouth water the most was probably the simplest recipe on her menu: pancakes. As a little kid, I often hoped the whim would strike her to whip up a batch of flapjacks. She was a sweet lady, but for some reason I worried making the request would be impolite, so I waited on luck.

One afternoon, Mama Mae asked if I would dust the elaborate legs of her dining room table. I was small and could more easily maneuver at lower levels. The task, she said, would earn me a quarter. I was about to tell her she didn’t need to pay me, but an idea hit me. After I collect my quarter, I thought, I’ll turn around and ask her if I could buy her pancakes. 

I smiled the whole time I worked under that table. As I spritzed Endust and worked my little cotton cloth up and down those table legs, I imagined a tall stack of pancakes swimming in Blackburn’s syrup.

When the mission was accomplished, she placed a quarter in my open palm. I kept it open, held it up to her and asked, “May I buy some of your pancakes?” She smiled at me and went straight to work on my heart’s desire. I heard her on the phone telling friends while I consumed the entire stack. When I was finished, she pressed the quarter right back in my hand.

- Karen Blakeney

The Quest

Debra Allison was my best friend throughout junior high and high school, so we had lots of adventures together over the years, but the one memory we keep talking about 30 years later is our Spanish Club field trip to New Orleans when we were in 10th grade at Gulfport High. There must have been 30 of us on that trip, and we split into small groups to roam the French Quarter. We got there early on Friday morning, and I remember how quiet and lovely it was, still a little cool and misty. The narrow streets were deserted except for us excited teens and a few produce distributors making deliveries to restaurants.

After coffee and beignets at Cafe du Monde and a trip to a museum, we all met up for lunch at Pancho's, a cafeteria-style restaurant that had a dining room that looked like the courtyard of a Mexican hacienda, with fake windows and balconies and artificial flowers. I might think it was tacky if I saw it today, but at the time, I found the decor charming.

We went through the line and piled our trays with food. When we wanted something else, all we had to do was raise a little Mexican flag on a pole on the table and a waitress would fetch it for us. Our table couldn't get enough of the sopaipillas, squares of dough that puffed up and were hollow when deep fried, like a beignet, but without the powdered sugar. We raised that little flag so many times that the waitress just started bringing us baskets of the hot, delicious pastries.

Debra and I both got a chile relleno, a cheese-stuffed poblano pepper dipped in a frothy egg batter and deep-fried. We enjoyed them so much that we tried to cook them ourselves a few weeks later at my house. I remember blistering peppers on the stove burners to get the skin off. They were OK, but not as good as the ones we'd eaten at Pancho's.

Debra and I drifted apart after high school, but we now keep in touch through e-mail and Facebook. When we reconnected a few years ago, that field trip to New Orleans came up, and of course, those chile rellenos. It turns out that we have both been on a decades-long quest to find chile rellenos as good as the ones we remember from Pancho's in New Orleans. Debra now lives in San Diego, where there must be hundreds of Mexican restaurants, and I've eaten at Mexican restaurants across the country, and that's what we both order. It's amazing how many ways there are to make chile rellenos. They're usually good, but we're always a little disappointed. It was a combination of things - the food, the atmosphere, the company - that made that humble meal so special. We'll probably never find a chile relleno that lives up to our memories, but we won't stop trying.

- Robyn Jackson

Gift from the sea

Eating, to me, is very near a religious experience. Hence, any interruption of such is likely to bring on the curmudgeon side of my personality, which involves the elimination of cell phones, noisy children, and the ubiquitous television set, an unnecessary apparatus which has unfortunately begun to make its appearance in some restaurants much to my chagrin and continued irritation. 

My wife and I travel quite often, resulting in eating in wondrous as well as strange places ranging from the sweltering Costa Rican jungles to the quiet elegance of the Grand Hotel in Point Clear, Ala. Still the marvel of it all is that food, if properly done, will offer itself in the oddest locations as exemplary of the culture of its origin, at once delicious and appealing to the senses of taste, smell, and vision in a unique intermingling not paralleled otherwise.

My preferred foods are those which originate from the water, but the requirement of delectable seafood lies in its preparation and seasoning. Otherwise, one is presented with rubbery, tasteless, insipid morsels not fit for ingestion by the more civilized palates. Subsequently, one of my favorites is paella, which, if done correctly, serves as an amalgam of shrimp, squid, clams and mussels tossed in with rice, peppers, cloves, onions, peas, garlic, and a lot of other good stuff including a touch of saffron, which turns the rice yellow and gives the paella its distinctive taste and aroma.

I order paella whenever I see it on a menu, which has led to some surprises and disappointments, probably as a result of substituting something in place of the expensive saffron and having the concoction not measure up to what it should be.

On a back street in Acapulco, Mexico, exists a small eatery called the Europa. Not much larger than a sizable closet, the Europa boasts an incredible wide-ranging menu and assortment of desserts sufficient to elate the most sweet-toothed enthusiast among us. And therein is found the prince of paellas. The owner is a Belgian with whom I tried to converse in Spanish until it became apparent that neither of us understood what the other was saying. We agreed on English, in which I requested the paella and found it to be unsurpassed among the many paellas of my life.

I will be returning to Acapulco in a few weeks where the Europa will be one of my destinations. My order has already been decided upon.

- Louie Galiano

Is it soup yet?

I have eaten a lot of good meals in my time, but all of the best meals have been prepared with love. The bistro, the cafe and the restaurant all fill a niche, but pale in comparison to those meals prepared with loving hands and a loving heart. The warmth and compassion can be felt with every bite and in every meal that is prepared this way, but in no meal can it be felt as it is felt in soup.

Although the hands that stirred the pot had lots to do with it, I would be remiss to not mention the fresh garden-grown ingredients that went into the soup. Corn that had very recently felt a breeze blow through its tassels now became part of this loving mixture. Tomatoes that had ripened to perfection under the care of the same hands that now prepared this soup, made the creamy red sauce that filled the pot. Potatoes grown just yards away from the kitchen and an assortment of beans and peas all went into this great meal.

Grandmother’s homemade soup would warm your soul on those cold days and renew your spirits on those warm ones. Her soup is “The Best Meal I Ever Ate,” and could best be thought of as a metaphor for life. Sometimes the world is cold, as was the temperature on some of those homemade soup days, but Grandmother’s love transferred into that soup and vanquished all of that. Her love was felt through something she did and not just something that she said. You see, love is a dish best demonstrated, and that soup meant, “I Love You.”

- James Welch

On a roll

Some people might have to think a while on what was their favorite meal, but not me. My mom cooked the way so many Southern cooks do, with a flair for incredibly wonderful dishes that never disappoint. Everything she made was delicious, but my all-time favorite was stuffed cabbage.

Birthdays with Mom included your personal selection cooked for lunch or dinner, accompanied with a dessert to mark the occasion. It’s difficult to recall one particular time that was better than another, but I do remember how much I looked forward to sitting down with the family to celebrate and dine on outstanding cuisine.

Stuffed cabbage is basically steamed leaves of cabbage topped with seasoned ground meat and rice that are rolled into tight little packages of delectable goodness baked in a sea of slightly sweetened Ro-tel tomatoes flavored with garlic, onion powder and more chopped cabbage. It’s fairly labor intensive to prepare, and I always felt a little guilty for not requesting something a little easier to assemble. Mom made it without complaint.

Known for her dessert recipes pulled from a vast collection of magazine and newspaper clippings and dog-eared cookbooks, Mom would have to ask what I wanted for dessert, because I could never stick to just one favorite. Whether it was her banana pudding made from evaporated milk and Nilla wafers or sour cream coconut cake or chocolate pie with homemade crust and luscious meringue, I really didn’t care. Any meal cooked by Mom will remain my best meal ever.

- Kristen Twedt

SIMPLE PLEASURES - April 26, 2010