Food: A Love Story (7 page)

I’ve found barbecue to either be some of the best or the worst food I’ve eaten. There is no in between. Either it’s an amazing meal I can’t stop talking about, or I’m angry that I wasted the energy to lift the food to my mouth. Of course, I still finish the whole plate. As I mentioned before, I am not rude.

The inconsistency of the quality of barbecue almost seems to match the inconsistency of the meaning of the word
barbecue
. When you read the word
barbecue
, a multitude of different images comes to mind. Some of you may think of the surface on which the food is barbecued—for example, a grill. Some of you may think of a gathering of friends. Some may think of the sauce:
This chicken leg needs more barbecue.
You get the idea.
Barbecue
is a noun, a verb, an adjective, and even a potato chip. Barbecue is one of the only food genres I can think of that has its own acronym, “BBQ.” This actually started out as “Bar-B-Q” but continued to get progressively shorter as the person who penned it ate more BBQ.

Kansas City

Now, I’m not saying I’ve tried every type of barbecue in this great land, but my most memorable experience of eating BBQ was not even in the South. It was at Oklahoma Joe’s in Kansas City, Missouri. Yes, that is right, a barbecue place in Kansas City named Oklahoma Joe’s. That makes as much sense as a Kansas City being located in Missouri. To make matters more confusing, this glorious meal was purchased and eaten in a gas station. Not a converted gas station. A functioning gas station. Jeannie, the kids, and I were on a bus touring the country, and it was highly recommended to me that I eat at this great BBQ
place in a gas station. I figured, Why not? If the food is bad, at least it will be a great experience for the kids to eat surrounded by flammable liquid.

When we arrived at 11:00 a.m., I was surprised to see a line out the door. Not like a line at a cash machine. I mean a long, long line. Initially I was concerned that the kids wouldn’t be able to last and Jeannie would once again confront me on my supposedly unhealthy attachment to food. The kind of unhealthy attachment that would have me risk waiting in a forty-five-minute line with five kids and there being no roller coaster at the end. Luckily I was able to find an open table for Jeannie and the kids, and as I returned to the line, I realized something unique. This substantial line was populated exclusively by men. Predominantly pudgy, balding, exhausted men in their thirties or forties. I fit right in. The most impressive thing about the line was the fact that all these middle-aged line-waiters were happy. At first glance, this would be the crowd that you would never want to be caught waiting in line with. The type of guys who would give up and leave if confronted by a line at the store while picking up some milk or diapers for their kids. “We’ll make do. The kids can drink water and pee on a towel. I’m not an errand boy!” As we all know, lines are usually filled with angry people. Not that angry people wait in lines, but a lot of normal folk morph into antsy, angry, resentful people about five minutes into the queue. Not this line. You’d think all the men were waiting to turn in a winning lottery ticket, lost in a daydream of impending happiness. Occasionally one would turn to the absolute stranger behind them and giddily exclaim, “I’m getting the brisket! What are you getting?” I imagined that at the end of the line there would be a door that opened into a beam of light. “Welcome to fat-guy heaven. Come on in! There’s always an NFL game on. The beer is free. You don’t have to wake up tomorrow. You have no responsibilities. And
you can eat all the barbecue you want in the middle of a gas station.” Eventually I got up to the counter to place my order, and by the time I returned to the table with two heaping trays of Oklahoma Joe’s barbecue, two of our kids were asleep, and the other three were under the table playing “fort.” There were empty Saltine cracker wrappers, piles of crumbs, and broken crayons all over the table. I’m pretty sure that I saw smoke coming out of Jeannie’s ears as she shot daggers at me with her eyes. I guess she didn’t want the pulled pork. Who knows?
Women.
Anyway, the barbecue was delicious and we could fuel up the bus before we left. Eat and get gas. What a perfect afternoon.

Southern Comfort

People are just nicer in the South. They are. Even when they are rude they are polite. Maybe it’s the singsong of the southern drawl, but even a “Y’all can go to hell” from a Southerner sounds friendly. “Well, thank you kindly. Y’all can go to hell too. An’ y’all come back now, y’hear?” People in the South are nicer, but they are slower. I don’t mean they are slower intellectually. I mean they just move slower.

FIREMAN:
You have to get out! Your house is on fire!

SOUTHERN GUY:
All right. All right. I’ll leave. But first I have to drink me some sweet tea. Then I’ll deal with that pesky house afire.

Biscuits and Gravy

I think I’ve identified why people in the South behave in such a nonchalant manner. It’s the biscuits and gravy. Everyone in the South seems to move like they’ve just had two helpings of biscuits and gravy. They are moving like you might after
Thanksgiving dinner. You know, when you are uncomfortably full but pleasantly satisfied as you drag yourself over to the couch for a nap. That is how everyone below the Mason-Dixon Line moves in everyday life. I really believe it’s the biscuits and gravy. The feeling you have after eating biscuits and gravy is identical to the feeling of chaining a bowling ball to your foot.

Most amazingly, people in the South are eating biscuits and gravy for breakfast. Yes, breakfast. They aren’t coming home drunk late at night slurring, “I’ll eat anything.” They are waking up thinking,
Time for cement!
Then at lunch they are having fried chicken and waffles. And this is all before 2:00 p.m. It could be that the South will never rise again because they don’t have the energy. Most of their cooking involves the same ingredients as papier-mâché. They are, in essence, eating piñatas down there. I’m convinced this is even the explanation for why Southerners talk the way they do. After you eat biscuits and gravy, you can’t be expected to say both the words
you
and
all
. After a plate of biscuits and gravy, all anyone can muster is “Sho was some good biscuits and gravy, y’all.” Then there’s lunch. I never understood how someone rationalized eating fried chicken
and
waffles in the same meal.

“What should we serve with the fried chicken?”

“French fries?”

“No, something elegant like … a waffle or a gyro.”

It’s like someone thought, “I know it’s lunch, but I’d also like to have breakfast
and
a heart attack.” Mind you, I’m not criticizing the biscuits and gravy or the chicken and waffles. I find them delightful. I’m just saying if I lived down there I would be dead. On one bus tour I had biscuits and gravy for breakfast for nine days straight. I still haven’t gone to the bathroom. That bus tour was twenty-five years ago!

Grits

You can’t really discuss southern food without bringing up grits. When I reference grits during a stand-up show, Southerners will clap like I mentioned the college they attended or that I support the troops. Being southern means liking grits. Grits are not for everyone. It’s almost as if someone was like, “If you like the taste of biscuits and gravy but without the taste of biscuits and gravy, then you’ll love our man-made wet sand.” I want to like grits. I try. I order them, but eventually I end up muttering to myself over my plate, “Are these undercooked? Overcooked? No wonder you guys came up with moonshine.” When I’ve expressed this to Southerners, they always point out, “All y’all need to do to the grits is add a pound of cheese, a cup of sugar, and thirty candy canes.” One of the many things I love about the South is that they don’t even try to hide the fact that they are eating unhealthily. The following is a reenactment of me ordering in a restaurant in Roanoke, Virginia:

ME:
(
looking at menu
) I’ll have the bucket of lard and the salt stick.

WAITRESS:
You want that deep-fried?

ME:
Um, okay.

WAITRESS:
Y’all want us to shoot at you while you eat it?

ME:
Sure.

The South seems to be the home of comfort food. While I pride myself on making all food comfort food, there is uniqueness to the southern approach. “Southern comfort” to me just means any food in the South. “Southern cooking” almost seems to be code for “we are not counting calories.” You will not find a nutritionist at a southern “boarding house–style” meal, and if you do, they will only be there to study what
not
to eat. Looking around at a southern-style dining establishment below the Mason-Dixon Line is very much like seeing the cigarette smoke in casinos. You have the sudden realization,
Oh, yeah, you are still allowed to do that here.
It’s an experience of a different era.

Savannah

Allow me to take you along on the journey we had when we visited the famous Mrs. Wilkes’ Dining Room in Savannah, Georgia. It’s around noon as Jeannie, our five children, and I pile out of the taxi and see a line formed around the block on a beautiful, brick-paved, tree-lined, historic Savannah street. When I see the sheer number of people waiting outside to be seated for lunch, I know Jeannie will, again, be mad at me. Anyone with young children knows long lines don’t mix well with toddlers (see
“Kansas City,”
). Leaving the house in general really doesn’t mix with toddlers, but long lines just indicate poor parental planning and judgment. That day’s adventure was another classic example of “Jim choosing food over family.” In a precautionary response I turn to Jeannie: “It will be worth it.” The line is filled with nicely dressed retirees. It feels a little like an open casting call for actors needed to play country club members. They are all here for the Mrs. Wilkes southern-style boarding house dining experience. Soon enough we are sitting at one of the large tables for ten that my loud brood will share with strangers, Benihana-style. We don’t order. Within a moment the table is covered with every foreseeable comfort food that George Wendt could think of. The meal is amazing. The conversation is minimal. Plates and bowls of fried chicken, cornbread dressing, sweet potato soufflé, black-eyed peas, okra gumbo, macaroni and cheese, corn muffins, and biscuits are shuffled around with the occasional “Oh, you have to try this.” Like magic, you could take three scoops of
something out of a bowl, and its contents would not diminish at all. All of the separate items would mix together on the plate into new combinations and blend into some other amazing thing that superseded the original taste. The whole was definitely greater than the sum of its parts. Now, I have a powerful appetite, but at this meal the endless bowls and plates of food conquered it. Eventually I had to declare, “The South has won!” Unlike Thanksgiving dinner, where you can, a few hours later, go back into battle to relive some of the more glorious moments with a turkey sandwich, at Mrs. Wilkes, there are no doggie bags. They literally will not allow you to take any unfinished food out of the restaurant. It is like an episode of
The Twilight Zone
. The endless, awe-inspiring food and the ethereally historic atmosphere of the dining room can only exist together. Removing one from the other could somehow diminish the power of the delectable time machine that is Mrs. Wilkes.

The dining room is located on the lower level of the late-nineteenth-century boarding house that the original Mrs. Wilkes ran for more than fifty years. Mrs. Wilkes’s goal was to offer her guests comfortable lodgings and southern-style, home-cooked meals in a simple yet elegant setting. I never understood why the boarding house concept was such an important part of the southern culture until I experienced the meal that day. After eating ten pounds of fried chicken and side dishes, what person would ever have the energy to get up and actually go somewhere? Of course you would want to board. It was all I could do to stop myself from crawling up the stairs and passing out in someone’s bed. Of course, though, I didn’t. That would be ridiculous. I did the right thing and had Jeannie and the kids carry me back to the hotel.

I’m a bad influence on Jeannie.