Road Tripping One Handed Down Highway 61

Highway 61 Food Mart
1523 Highway 61
Port Hudson, Louisiana




“Lord, that 61 Highway
It’s the longest road I know”

--“Mississippi” Fred McDowell


One of the coolest things about being a Suit in Strange Places is actually visiting the very places ingrained in the DNA of America.

One of the worst things about being a Suit in Strange Places is having no more than five minutes in a 24 hour itinerary to grab a bag of boiled peanuts or pork rinds at a roadside gas station to serve as breakfast, lunch AND dinner off the rental car dash board.

I contemplated this good news/bad news aspect of my traveling life as I barreled down the famed Highway 61 somewhere near the Mississippi/Louisiana border, stomach growling.

As it turns out, if you are hungry and looking for one-handed snack food, the southern end of Highway 61 isn’t a bad place to be.

Especially if you have the appropriate sound track.

There are enough variations of songs about Highway 61 to make up an entire playlist on my I-Pod.

From Bob Dylan’s home town near the Canadian border, to the Mississippi crossroads where Robert Johnson sold his soul to the devil, and all the way “down to the Gulf of Mexico”, the famous “Blues Highway” has symbolized the aspirational nature of Americans for decades.

This was the road through the cotton fields of the Delta to the bright lights of Memphis, St. Louis, St. Paul and beyond traveled by so many of the pioneers of American music and culture.

And here I am, a white guy in a suit, driving a silver Nissan Cube rental traveling this legendary road on a Wednesday afternoon with the window rolled down listening to my various versions of “Highway 61” thanks to the magic of Apple and auxiliary cords.

Life is good.

Except for the fact that I have no time to stop to eat today.

I have exactly four hours to drive 90 miles up Highway 61 from Baton Rouge, Louisiana to Natchez, Mississippi, conduct a one hour meeting and then get back in the Cube and drive 90 miles back to catch a flight to Atlanta. And then connect to another flight to Detroit.

I believe God invented boudin for days just like this one.

Boudin is as much a part of Louisiana’s famous cuisine as jambalaya and etouffee. But you won’t find boudin on too many fancy French Quarter menus.

That’s because boudin isn’t restaurant food. It’s snack food – roadside gas station food.

Truckers, crawfish farmers and alligator wrestling good ol’ boys grab a link or two from truck stops, gas stations and meat markets across Louisiana whenever they get a hankerin’.

A hankerin’ for what, exactly?

I’m glad you asked.

Boudin is chopped up pig parts mixed with rice and Cajun spices served hot in a natural pig intestine.

Cajun sausage.

The texture can be a bit off-putting for boudin virgins.

This isn’t your momma’s dense South Georgia smoked sausage.

Boudin is soft and squooshy. Like a Taco Bell bean burrito.

But once you get past your squeamishness after that initial tooth puncturing of the pig intestine, you quickly realize that all those squooshy pork and rice innards pack a wonderful flavor wallop.

No trip to Louisiana, no matter how brief, is complete without a hot link of boudin.

As I zoomed down the Blues Highway with Moreland & Arbuckle’s’ version of “61 Highway” blasting out my humiliating form of transportation, I caught the sign advertising “Boudin” out of the corner of my eye in front of a road side gas station next to the railroad tracks somewhere just south of St. Francisville.

Swerving my Cube on two wheels across two lanes of on-coming traffic, I knew I had five minutes to top off my tank and grab a fresh link before facing the TSA liberty-robbing crotch gropers at the Baton Rouge Airport.

I quickly discovered that other than the display of Cajun sausages by the cash register, Highway 61 Food Mart is like any other gas station in America. Stocked with beer, soft drinks and candy bars.

And owned and operated by some dude from India.

So much for my authentic Highway 61 Cajun experience.

Oh well. I can at least imagine that my link of boudin was lovingly crafted by some Cajun lady off in some nearby bayou. I’m pretty sure Singh didn’t make it himself. At least I hope not.

The great thing about boudin is you can eat it with one hand.

While you pump gas with the other. And steer your Cube back onto Highway 61 South.

It hit the spot.

Hot and spicy, this mobile Cajun meat snack was the highlight of my brief journey down the Blues Highway.

Well, that and the fact that I can say I’ve driven this storied piece of Americana.

To me, Highway 61 isn’t just a road. Or a way to get from Natchez to the TSA line at the Baton Rouge Airport in under 90 minutes.

Highway 61 represents a way out. Or a way up. Or a way home.

And a different time in America. Before interstates, government crotch gropings and Japanese vehicles that look like shoe boxes on wheels.

Before tax-payer funded sex changes. Before men married men. Before half of all Americans lived off the productivity of the other half.

As I tossed my grease sopped napkin and cellophane over my shoulder onto the Cube’s back seat, and cranked up the sorrowful sounds of Mississippi Fred McDowell singing about how many “61 Highway” miles separate him from his woman back home in Mississippi, I couldn’t help but feel old Fred’s pain.

“The longest road” is always the road back to where we need to be.

Rating: Seriously Thought About Buying Shirt.

Political Correctness and Pie Revisited on Highway 61

Mammy’s Cupboard
555 Highway 61 South
Natchez, MS
Visited August 20, 2010

Beer selection: None.

Food: Sandwiches and homemade pie.

I discovered another nail in America’s coffin today.

It’s sad to know that political correctness has infiltrated even this obscure southwestern-most corner of the great state of Mississippi.

Yep, hard against the Mississippi River and the Louisiana state line, not far from the swamp where those great purveyors of the Southern battle cry, Lynyrd Skynyrd, went down in ball of metal and fire, the easily offended have desecrated a road-side institution.

Out here, just south of Natchez, along that same Highway 61 immortalized in countless blues songs by everyone from Mississippi Fred McDowell to Bob Dylan, has sat for 70 years one of this country’s most famous examples of vernacular architecture – Mammy’s Cupboard.

Mammy’s Cupboard is a giant 30 foot statue of a “mammy” that happens to double as a great restaurant.

What is a “mammy”, your inquisitive little Yankee mind may wonder?

Well, a mammy is a black maid.

If your idea of the Deep South is Philadelphia, let me focus your mind a little better. Think Aunt Jemima.

Some critics of Southern culture find irony in the fact that so many white southerners were raised, clothed, fed and even nursed by mammies. And not just rich whites either. Many southerners, poor, rich and middle-class grew up with mammies or black farm hands as part of their families.

For many, mammies are as much a part of growing up southern as biscuits and honeysuckle.

So I find it sad that someone in the last decade or so decided it was a good idea to scale to the summit of Mammy’s Cupboard with some vaguely mish-mashed can of flesh-colored paint and genetically alter “Mammy”.

Sad to say, the modern day “Mammy” is some politically correct, ethnically vague symbol of what happens when someone spends too much time worrying about what some other hypothetical person might hypothetically think.

She now looks kind of like what you might expect the grandchild of a family consisting of Barack Obama, Lucy Liu, Tiger Woods and Jennifer Lopez to produce.

Only, probably not as good looking.

Oh, well. Such is life in modern America. Even in Natchez, Mississippi, for cripe’s sake.

I wasn’t going to let a little political correctness run amok stop me from eating. I was hungry, after all.

I opened the door to Mammy’s hoop skit and entered a tranquil little diner serving chicken pot pie and a variety of sandwiches.

Places like this don’t serve beer. That usually means I drink tap water.

Yeah, beer and tap water. That about sums up the list of what I drink.

But Mammy’s Cupboard had something different I had to try on this blazing hot South Mississippi August day.

Blueberry lemonade.

Yeah, don’t give me any grief. You wouldn’t pass that up either.

It was deliciously sweet. Like purple-colored lemonade – served in an old fashioned Ball brand mason jar.

My simple ham and cheese sandwich was made interesting by a bit of sweet muscadine mayonnaise. A little home-made potato salad and a cup of vegetable beef soup came on the side.

But the best Mammy has to offer is definitely saved for last.

Pie!

My chocolate meringue pie was incredible. The super sweet chocolate counterbalanced by an obscene mound of fluffy meringue. An ideal meal capper on a hot summer day.

My initial depression over the desecration of one of this country’s great road-side attractions (right up there with the Cadillac Ranch and the Giant Ball of Twine) dissipated as I stumbled out of Mammy’s skirt with stomach full.

She may be yet another victim of the times, but Mammy can sure make a heck of a pie.

Rating: Seriously Thought About Buying Shirt