Going On Food Safari

A few years back, I had the opportunity to head up into the East Texas woods, to a small town named Woodville, to do a storytelling concert at Heritage Village. It was refreshing to get out of the city for a couple of days, breathe some air that didn't smell of truck exhaust and do some country food exploring!

This time of year, most small towns within a couple of hours drive of major metropolitan centers have put on the dog to attract the tourist shopping dollar, and that includes the small food shops. As you head out on your travels this summer, be sure to keep your eyes peeled.

My first meal in Woodville was at just such a country establishment: the Pickett House restaurant, on the grounds of the Heritage Village. The place is famous, with people flying in to the small airport down the road just to have lunch or dinner there.

The service is classic family-style, with diners sharing long, comfy benches at wooden tables and servers bringing heaping plates and bowls of fried chicken (best on earth), chicken and dumplings, mashed potatoes and gravy, garden-fresh greens, vegetables and cornbread. They even have syrup pitchers full of fine pure cane syrup to top the cornbread. And to top it all off: blackberry cobbler that needed no ice cream atop to make it a sublime dessert. I was almost too full to tell stories!

Now, none of this is food I couldn't have made at home, but none of what I've made at home was quite as good as what I had there. These are recipes that have been around for decades, cooked by people who know them by heart.

That's the very essence, to me, of country restaurant dining. These are not your huge chain joints, with recipes meticulously and scientifically crafted by a staff of food scientists. Instead, these are mom or dad's (or grandma's) recipes, tweaked and tested over time and served by people with real pride in what they're turning out. The vegetables are likely grown within a stone's throw of the back door, and the meats might have mooed at you on the way into town.

After you eat your fill, set out in search of food treasures! Down here in Texas, one of the most coveted items is mayhaw jelly, made from the grapelike fruit of the same name. It comes in colors from golden-yellow to red, depending on the time of year and age of the vine, and each color shade has its own slightly different sweetness and flavor. There are also fig preserves (marvelous mashed onto a buttered English muffin), blueberry preserves, apple jelly and butter, and dozens of other flavors of fruit preserves.

Pickling is another favorite country tradition. Just on this trip, I found pickled asparagus, okra, tomatoes, onions and even a jar of bread-and-butter pickled garlic cloves. If it grows in a field, you can guarantee someone pickles it.

Use your nose, too. If you smell bread baking, chances are you're near some sort of bakery. Just be sure it really is a bakery. A few years back, a good foodie friend of mine walked into a woman's kitchen uninvited thinking he'd found an artisan bakery tucked away on a side street.

Where should you look for these treasures? Ah, that's the really fun part! I found my mayhaw jelly in an antique store, and the fig preserves in the souvenir shop at Heritage Village. The pickled asparagus came from the counter at a meat market (where else would I stop on a tour?) and the blueberry jelly came from the back counter at a hardware store. They were made, of course, by the owner's wife based on her great-grandmother's recipe.

You can use your "food exploring," therefore, as a reason to plunder through every junk store in your destination town, ostensibly in search of quality additions for your holiday tables.

Did I mention the 2-foot-tall wood and glass candle lamp I picked up for $1 at the antique shop? Silly me.

You never know what you'll find when you go "hunting," and that of course is two-thirds of the fun of it!

Got a comment? Question? Recipe to share? Drop me a line anytime!