In the last three days I’ve visited two renowned Southern restaurants.
The first is the Busy Bee Cafe, featuring southern soul food, particularly its famous fried chicken. Founded in 1947, the cafe was frequented by many civil rights leaders, including Martin Luther King, Jr., back in the days when Atlanta was a locus for anti-segregation activism. The cafe remains the same since then, and has been visited by many other famous and famished customers, whose pictures line the walls.
You can get an idea of food from the to-go menu on the site, though it lacks certain items (e.g., red velvet cake). Here’s the modest exterior:
The interior. It’s a happy and friendly place. Who wouldn’t be happy when they’re about to tuck into a plate of fried chicken?
My dinner: fried chicken, fried green tomatoes, a fantastic carrot souffle (I have no idea how they make it), accompanied by corn muffins and washed down with “the table wine of the South,” sweet iced tea. It was a fantastic meal. The carrots and tomatoes were succulent; the chicken juicy and fried to perfection. The Busy Bee serves 2000 pounds—a full ton—of fried chicken each week.
I was too full to eat dessert, so ordered the banana pudding with vanilla wafers (a classic southern dish) to go. The “small” size weighed over a pound, I’d guess!
Here’s a long excerpt from several television shows about the cafe, including the first by chef Emeril Lagasse:
Yesterday I lunched (not the right word for Southern food!) at the Barbecue Kitchen in College Park, about two blocks from my hotel. Note the chimney for venting the wood smoke. Don’t ever go to a BBQ joint that doesn’t have a chimney, because they’re not smoking over wood.
Lunch: chopped pork with BBQ sauce, creamed corn, sweet potato souffle (note the marshmallow sauce), a biscuit, sweet tea, and peach cobbler for dessert. All of this was only $7.65!
More photos of eats in the offing. . .
I would not go to the southern USA even if offered an all expense paid trip.
Why? It has a bad history; but a great many places do.
The people are generally nice and the food is good. The southern Appalachians are beautiful. The beaches are wonderful. The Gulf is wonderful. The southern hardwood forests in Autumn: Magnificent.
Great place to visit in mid winter. I have relatives in LA, GA, FL, and TN, so maybe I’m biased.
That’s too bad, you are missing out. (And I wonder why you have that attitude?)
I’ve been going to the Southern States ever since I was young. I’ll never forget first encountering what real, cultural friendliness and hospitality was like. It made a huge impression on me.
For the majority of my time in the southern states, the people have been wonderful, the weather and scenery gorgeous, the food delicious.
As the narrator in Pat Conroy’s novel The Prince of Tides asks his sister’s psychiatrist after she says that the American South is hideous, violent, and wicked:
“Yes, but do you like it?”
I think the South can be barbarous and benighted, too. But, damn, I do love it so. Plus, it’s the region that has New Orleans in it. As long as that quirk of geography remains, I’ll keep going back.
Southern food may not be the most elegant nor the healthiest…but it is absolutely some of the most satisfying and indulgent. No, you don’t want to eat like that all the time…but, if you don’t eat like that at least some of the time, what’s the point in living?
b&
On this one Ben, I’m with you 100%! 😀
Wow. What Prof. CC, Emeritus, posted–at only $7.65???
Well, you can use the savings to pay your cardiologist.
It’s still the same way in Richmond, Va. There are places around here where there isn’t a SINGLE healthy item on the menu. No joke.
So?
I’ve never been to an ice cream parlor where there was anything healthy to eat — even the “FroYo” places only sell things loaded with sugar. Fairs and the like with have booths or mobile vendors, many of which sell only unhealthy food. And, hello? Candy stores?
There’s absolutely nothing worng with such indulgences, or with establishments that cater solely to them.
If you want a real travesty…well, that would be all the “convenience” stores, the 7-11s and the Circle Ks and the Qwik Stops and the like, often with associated gas pumps, to be found on most street corners in America…and where lower-income Americans buy a disproportionate amount of their food…and which don’t sell anything healthy.
Or, hell — what’m’I thinking!? The typical American grocery store which only stocks healthy foods on the perimeter walls, and which devotes all the interior aisles to unhealthy shit that constitutes most of what winds up in shopping carts.
That’s what you should be upset about: the regular eating habits of Americans. The occasional luxuries are something to be celebrated, not subjected to shame. Those “nothing healthy” restaurants only become a problem when people overindulge…but you’d say the exact same thing about somebody who only ate at ice cream parlors, right?
Cheers,
b&
Speaking as a (non-native) Texan, most of the barbecue places I go to don’t have the smoker inside the building. It’s out back behind the restaurant.
I’m sure that’s just an omission of convenient brevity on Jerry’s part. He made a point of inspecting the outdoors smoker at the barbecue place in Prescott. He expressed satisfaction with the barbecue…good stuff, though not necessarily award-winning. I don’t remember him mentioning it in his report of his visit in Arizona, which is about right…a good meal, but not a noteworthy one.
b&
I agree about the omission of brevity. Just adding my 2¢ about another quick way to check that a barbecue place is more likely to be good (or at least not a place to actively avoid).
Hmm. After reading this post and all the comments, I may just stop for some smoked brisket on the ride home tonight.
I’m from the southeast, and I see every day the effect of the “southern” diet and lifestyle. They call it soul food because that’s all that’s left of you when you’re done eating it.
Yes, but we don’t need comments on this thread about the unhealthiness of what I’m eating. I don’t eat like this every day.
Richard,
Prof Coyne’s post is highlighting a couple of soul food restaurants. If he were doing a health-related post on the “southern diet” he’d have to be including all the fast good and chain restaurants (and great many available snack foods from grocery stores, etc) that are contributors to the rise in obesity.
Look at photos (and health info) of people, both in the south or otherwise, from say the 1970’s and before. Most people were much slimmer, and yet soul food had been around for a long time already. Most restaurants of any type offer higher calorie food than one might make at home, so it’s not just a soul food restaurant that will do so.
Anything can be indulged in, occasionally, and the obesity in the south problem is about far more than soul food restaurants.
And thanks for today’s post, Prof CC !!
Yummy! I love southern-fried chicken!
Me too! OOh, I want!
I live in Marietta just north of Atlanta (currently on vacation in Italy for 17 days) and frequent the BBQ Kitchen whenever I’m in that area, usually while picking someone up from the airport. Their Baked Hen and Dressing is beyone good! I will cry the day they close.
Harold’s, another fabulous BBQ spot that was frequented by author/humorist Lewis Grizzard and many other well-known Atlantians for years and years, closed a short while back and it is much missed!
I’ll have to check out the Busy Bee Cafe, sounds like my kind of place.
Susan
On Fri, Oct 16, 2015 at 1:05 PM, Why Evolution Is True wrote:
> whyevolutionistrue posted: “In the last three days I’ve visited two > renowned Southern restaurants. The first is the Busy Bee Cafe, > featuring southern soul food, particularly its famous fried chicken. > Founded in 1947, the cafe was frequented by many civil rights leaders, > including”
Aww! now I’m really hungry again! 🙂
Ooooh I love your food p0rn posts!
All these dishes look so tasty, and the last one really is amazing for the amount of dollars mentioned.
*droooool*
Man, oh, man, I love banana pudding. I used to go to a place in Fort Worth that had it. Doesn’t seem to be as common as it should be.
I am surrounded by people who do not understand my love for creamed corn. It is one of those dishes that admittedly do not look appealing, but I could eat it until replete.
Split pea soup is perhaps the dish with the greatest difference between awesomeness and negative appearance. Eat with your eyes closed.
I’ve had cold fresh pea soup with crispy bacon that was to die for. It was creamy and bright green since the peas were fresh. You’re right about split-pea soup- even the best tasting looks blah. And the Exorcist didn’t help! 🙂
I love both!
When I was a graduate student at CMU a while back, I discovered a way to use creamed corn in stir fried fish. But I haven’t done it since; it was wonderful with a bit of tuna (the on-ice kind, not the canned).
We’re ALL going to have to go on a diet just from looking at your noms from the last few weeks🐷
With all this good grub I am amazed that Jerry is not just a lump of blubbery exudate by now.
That’s one beautiful banana pudding. 🙂
It’s easy to see why obesity is out of control.
Is that so? I seem to recall far less obesity in TX than I see now in the Midwest.
I was referring to the USA. I haven’t been to Texas in 30 years.
Ok, point taken.
My favorite BBQ’d meat has to be pork shoulder. Looks like that’s what you have. Scrumptdelicious. Never tried spelling that before…it’s not a real word so I guess I can spell it however I want.
I really must get my act together and make some banana pudding. It looks fantastic! I can’t believe you can make a profit selling a lunch like that for $7.65, how is this possible?
Sweet potato casserole with brown sugar and cinnamon, and topped with a scattering of marshmallows. Yum.
Banana pudding with vanilla wafers. Yum.
Don’t forget to sprinkle a little sugar on the fresh sliced tomatoes. No salt, just a pinch of sugar.
When I (a life-long New Englander) moved to North Carolina for grad school stint #1, I was perplexed to see that every grocery store had boxes of vanilla wafers nestled in the banana display in the produce aisle.
Fortunately, I figured it out, and have enjoyed banana pudding ever since.
To make banana pudding: layer vanilla pudding (‘custard’ to UKers) in a big bowl with sliced bananas and vanilla wafers (small round cakey cookies (“Nilla Wafers” are a common brand)– are these a thing outside the US?). That’s it (some add whipped cream on top but that’s unnecessary to my mind). Homemade custard is easy and very good.
The wafers get kind of soft as they absorb the pudding, and the bananas just spread their aroma around.
man now I want some
When we eat soul food we always order a side of mac ‘n cheese, which makes me wonder:
How far back does mac ‘n cheese go, in terms of the “cannon of soul food?” It seems to me mac ‘n cheese would be one of the newer additions.
I don’t know about the history of soul food, but Mac ‘n Cheese is nothing more than Fettuccine Alfredo with a different shape of noodle and cheddar instead of Parmesan. I’m sure even that wasn’t the first pasta dish with a cheese sauce, but it’s probably the oldest most influential one.
b&
Is there an evolutionary explanation for Jerry not being built like the side of a house? I am in UK but would love a tour around the southern states just for the food.
Not an evolutionary explanation; a plain ol’ habitual one.
Most of the time Jerry eats quite sensibly. But, obviously, he doesn’t write about the boring regular meals, only the extravagant ones….
b&
Just got 2lbs heavier looking at the Photographs.lol