The official summer rite of passage returned last Saturday as Dr. Bruce Longest, Casey Clark, Brad Logan, Kent Moore and myself loaded up for a day in the Delta with lots of tamales filling the agenda.
We’ve been making “tamale” (and I will never forget a great Boudin) trips for nearly 20 years. We’ve eaten virtually every tamale there is to be had in Mississippi which is why on the most recent iterations of this excursion we just hit our favorites and keep rolling.
We left Calhoun this trip and made a bee-line for Rosedale where Joe’s White Front Cafe sits on the south side of town right off Hwy. 1. The place hasn’t changed much in the many years we’ve been going, including Mrs. Barbara Pope still working behind the counter.
The White Front is a one-room “cafe” with a small kitchen set up on the right and a few tables to the left. Mrs. Barbara, sister to the original Joe, has been there every time I’ve visited (too many to count) serving up their delicious tamales she makes by hand.
The menu at the White Front Cafe is pretty easy to decipher – a dozen, a half dozen, or one bunch. That’s all they serve. I don’t know why you would want anything else. We inhaled two dozen on this trip between the five of us.
She handed us a stack of paper plates and a large pile of tamales fresh out the bubbling pot on the stove. Peeling away the corn husk you could almost taste the tamale just from the smell. These are among our absolute favorites — freshly cooked tamale, some hot sauce, good friends — it’s the perfect Saturday.
We then turned south to Greenville where Scott’s small tamale stand on the side of the highway never fails to deliver arguably the best tamales anywhere. The small, white, tamale stand looks more like a ticket booth at a carnival, but the tamales they serve out of there no carnival ride could ever match.
It’s carry-out only is tradition, but this time we ran into a large funeral in Greenville taking place at the same time and the stand was closed as a result. More troubling was a sign on the window that the stand will be closing for good at the end of August.
The stories that have evolved from this tiny shack, largely starting with the five of us eating multiple dozens of tamales on the hood of Dr. Longest’s vehicle (We’ve been through at minimum three different vehicle hoods just to put a timetable on it) are numerous. If you haven’t dined on fresh tamales on a hot car hood with plastic forks and make-do napkins you haven’t lived. I have felt more Mississippian with every visit, and I was born here.
Scott’s tamales have been historically made by the children and grandchildren of founders Aaron and Elizabeth Scott. These award-winning tamales are made from beef-brisket with the perfect dash of spice. They have long been wholesalers for many Mississippi restaurants. I’m hopeful, as an admirer of the family, the business is just transitioning from the roadside booth to bigger venues.
The disappointment left us with the obvious decision to just go to Doe’s Eat Place early – for more tamales and the best steak on the planet.
Doe’s is the only place I’ve ever tried that has great tamales that aren’t wrapped in corn husks. They instead use parchment paper. They could wrap them in newspaper for all I care (that would be glorious) I just can’t get enough.
We reminisced throughout about the Doe’s family who we have grown to know well over the decades with countless stories (not all of which can be shared here). Saturday’s steak was as good as I could ever remember. The tamales were fantastic, sparking a brief discussion of are they the best. I hold out a special place for the uniqueness of Hick’s in Clarksdale, but there’s no lack of diversity of opinions amongst our group.
Historically, all of our Delta road trips have culminated with a visit to the Crystal Grill in Greenwood for some of their famous pie on the way home. With much sadness, we shared the news amongst ourselves a few months ago of their announced closure. The 6 inch high pile of delicious meringue on top of a lemon ice box pie was no more.
We thought about many other options but struggled with a good comparable to the Crystal Grill.
In the end our trip was shorter than most, but still overflowing with great stories of all our past adventures. That’s the biggest joy of our few annual trips together, the reminiscing and also the thoughts and ideas of next spring’s SEC tournament in Nashville, where it’s alleged some basketball is played, but for us it’s more of a celebration of five great friends whose work and family responsibilities limit our gatherings. But when they occur each August and March, they always produce more great memories to add to the catalog.