Southern food Archives - Hungry Travelers

Southern food

Sylvia’s carries the banner for Harlem soul food

Posted on January 5, 2024December 30, 2023 by Pat and David

When we visited Sylvia's Restaurant (328 Malcolm X Boulevard, New York, NY; 212-996-0660, sylviasrestaurant.com) a few days before Thanksgiving, our server Ali reminded us that we could return on the holiday if we wanted. ‶We're full up on reservations,″ he said, ‶but if you have no place else to go, we'll fit you in. Sylvia's believes no one should go hungry on Thanksgiving.″ That same spirit of welcome embodies Sylvia's throughout the year. Founded in 1962 by Sylvia Woods (whose family still operates it), the restaurant remains a standard-bearer of authentic soul food. Moreover, it's a community favorite, a touchstone of urban Black culture, and a Mecca for politicians courting the Black vote. Some of their photos line the walls, along with signed photos of...Read More

Up n’ Down’s rock & bourbon hits sweet spot

Posted on December 14, 2022December 14, 2022 by Pat and David

Winter is coming on in a rush, which is all the more reason to seek some golden warmth. Last weekend we visited the spiffy Southern-inflected Kendall Square joint from chef Chris Parson. It's called Lily P's Fried Chicken and Oysters (50 Binney St., Cambridge, Mass.; 617-225-2900; lilypschicken.com). Located more or less in Coder Hollow amid the life sciences labs and condo warrens that now define Kendall, it has a bustling and inventive bar program to go along with the comfort food. Any bar where you can order pimento cheese and Ritz crackers to go with your drink is already steps ahead of the competition. About that inventive bar — one of the perfect cold weather cocktails now headlining the menu is the Vermonster. The base...Read More

At Mardi Gras, gumbo is as much a lifestyle as a soup

Posted on February 26, 2022February 22, 2022 by Pat and David

Some 80 communities in Louisiana celebrate Mardi Gras but New Orleans has claimed the holiday of unbridled excess as its own. The locals have made the French Catholic cycle of temptation and atonement into something of an art form. If you're not sorry the next morning, cher, then you didn't have fun the night before. Not for nothing does St. Louis Cathedral (below) dominate the skyline of the French Quarter. Mardi Gras in New Orleans is founded on the idea that you need to pack enough warm memories into the week before Ash Wednesday to last the entire 40 days of Lent. If, like us, you can't be in town for the parades and general shenanigans, be sure to visit Mardi Gras World (1380 Port...Read More

World on a Plate: eating fried green tomatoes

Posted on September 11, 2020September 10, 2020 by Pat and David

Now that it's September, we're entering another phase in our tomato watching. We're coming to the end of the ripe tomato season for the determinate varieties, but the indeterminate tomatoes have kept flowering and setting fruit. From an evolutionary perspective, this is a pretty dumb move. Frost will kill the plants and spoil the fruit before it ripens. Even the seeds will be too green to sprout another year. So while we enjoy the last plates of insalata Caprese, we're considering how to turn the immature fruit to good use. Before any of you readers bombard us with pickle recipes, we're going on record that we already have enough pickles to last the winter. So now we're trying to think of good ways to eat...Read More

Cocktails honor the Barnsley spirits

Posted on December 16, 2017February 24, 2018 by Pat

Jon Mattson, dining manager at Barnsley Resort (597 Barnsley Gardens Road, Adairsville, Georgia, 877-773-2447, barnsleyresort.com), has good advice for mixing cocktails. “One ingredient is the star,” he says. “Others should make that ingredient shine.” From that starting point, Mattson experiments until he “finds the ratios that really work.” A student of American cocktail history, he also delights in showcasing high-quality Southern products whenever possible. “I like to keep things simple and balanced,” he explains. He generally limits his cocktails to three ingredients. Even within that limited framework, he creates libations that nod to cocktail history as well as to the drinking habits of the Barnsley estate's late 19th century heyday. Estate founder Godfrey Barnsley originally called his property Woodlands and the name survives in the...Read More

In Lexington, Kentucky, no one eats alone

Posted on August 1, 2015July 27, 2015 by Pat and David

Plutarch would have loved central Kentucky. In his first-century A.D. treatise on food in Moralia, he astutely observed, “We do not sit at the table only to eat, but to eat together.” In Bluegrass Country, mealtime is just a phase in the ongoing party that begins with drinks and appetizers and is followed up with after-dinner drinks, snacks, and definitely lots of conversation. We spent a week in Lexington and the surrounding countryside at the end of June, and never did we taste alone. Food and drink in this corner of America are the currency of social exchange. If a Lexingtonian has anything to say about it, no visitor ever goes hungry. Or lonely. The Lexington area is justly famed for thoroughbred horses and fine...Read More

Montgomery’s Central reinterprets a Southern classic

Posted on May 13, 2014 by Pat

[caption id="attachment_2450" align="aligncenter" width="550"] Central restaurant by Tastebuds Photography[/caption] Montgomery, Alabama, likes to call itself the place where both the Civil War and the Civil Rights Movement started. But this historic city also looks forward as well as back. The handsome warehouses and other buildings along the riverfront have been spruced up as the Downtown Entertainment District. Central restaurant (129 Coosa St., 334-517-1121, www.central129coosa.com) epitomizes the style: It occupies an 1890s warehouse with high ceilings and warm, exposed-brick walls. An open kitchen brings the space to life as cooks execute the refined comfort food of tattooed and bearded executive chef Leonardo Maurelli III. Originally from Panama, Maurelli is a big proponent of Southern cuisine—as long as he can add his own innovations. He has created...Read More

What to eat at the airport in Little Rock

Posted on February 21, 2013 by Pat

Chain eateries (Starbucks, Burger King, Quiznos and the like) constitute the bulk of food choices at the Bill and Hillary Clinton National Airport in Little Rock, and Bill is probably out of luck if he's searching for a vegan meal. But right next to Pizza Hut I discovered Whole Hog Cafe, the airport outlet of a small barbecue chain with two spots in Little Rock and one in Bentonville. Whole Hog has taken several awards in barbecue cook-offs and back when he still ate real food, Bill Clinton must have been a fan. Whole Hog claims that their serving utensils are in the presidential time capsule. I decided on a pulled pork sandwich and the server advised me to have the meat topped with cole...Read More