Southern Food Roundup

We've both gained about 200 pounds eating southern food. Here are some regional highlights.

In Tombstone, Arizona, we heard a rumour that the local saloon served a cactus-flavoured Margarita. We went to investigate, and here it is, the Prickly Pear Margarita. Not bad. Not amazing, but not bad.


I've mentioned the "beignets" that are to be found in New Orleans. The pigeons liked these sugared pastries as much as the people did.


Deep fried catfish in New Orleans. It tasted kind of watery, but was okay I guess.

We were just in off the bayou when we went to this restaurant, and had gotten soaked to the bone. That was fine outside in the heat, but the restaurant had the air conditioning blasting. I asked if they had any hot tea. Nope. Hot tea is not common in the south - I hear all you Canadians gasping! Hot chocolate? Nope. Decaf coffee? Yes? Fine. The waitress reappeared proudly at the table a minute or so later, announcing that she had found me some hot tea! She put a cup of steaming water on the table and presented me with a HUGE teabag that clearly stated on the packaging that it was specially formulated for making a perfect pitcher of iced tea. It was the thought that counted, and the tea actually tasted fine.

Once, in a Texas restaurant, the cowboys at the table next to ours ordered tea. It came iced. When I was young and lived in Virginia, my mother used to carry around Canadian teabags in her purse for when we went out to eat. She'd order hot water and make her own tea.

I digress. Here's the deep fried catfish, served on top of home-made mac 'n cheese:


In Memphis, Tennessee, we found these deep fried pickles on the menu and couldn't pass up the opportunity. When would we ever, ever get to order deep fried pickles again?


Near Knoxville, Tennessee we got ourselves some good old-fashioned beans and corn bread. Mmmboy.


One of the delights of the south that we failed to photograph is grits, that slimy corn concoction that commonly accompanies breakfast. It's actually not bad if you make sure to add butter and salt. We've had it a few times In Louisiana and Mississippi just for the novelty of it.

One last thing that Mark FINALLY had today after chasing the dream literally for weeks is frozen custard. We've been trying to find a frozen custard stand for so long that it's sort of become epic.


I don't even know how Mark got it into his head that he needed it. Our custard adventure started when we were en route to Las Vegas, Nevada.

Mark had nagged me to search for "Frozen Custard" using Karen the GPS. One turned up right on our way, in Henderson, Nevada. Right around the same time, we heard from our friend Kristie that she'd arrived in Vegas, so we decided of course to meet her as soon as possible (stopping very briefly for Frozen Custard along the way). Well, we got to Neilson's Frozen Custard Shack at about 10:45am, only to find that they didn't open until 11:30. Being on time to meet friends is more important than candy though! We had to go, and Mark's dream was foiled for the moment.

Since then, there have been internet searches and Karen the GPS has also been heavily involved, but for weeks we either haven't found any or else we find one that's like 200 miles out of our way.

Until today.

With a sudden jerk of the wheel, we pulled off the road. I'd had my head down looking at the map and it kind of startled me. (There'd been a wasp incident earlier in the day. My nerves were a bit frayed.) Lo and behold, Pack's Frozen Custard stand was sitting not 30 feet from us. Mark got his custard!

(...although he denies it, I don't think he liked it as much as he was expecting to.)