Last week, I stepped through a creaky screen door and into a one-room restaurant you could have used as a movie set in the late 1950s or early ‘60s — worn brown vinyl booths, unfinished concrete floors, and a film on the ceiling from decades of cranking out authentic soul food.
Oddly enough, I felt right at home.
Alabama is rich in many things, and food sits near the top of the list. To me, soul food sits near the very top.
In a world of processed food, there is something special about a meal made with only a handful of ingredients: dashes of salt and pepper, a bit of butter if needed, and if a tablespoon or two of grease sneaks in, all the better for the flavor.
Soul food is as basic as the earth it grows from, yet tastes as heavenly as only an angel can describe.
The premise is simple: cook with the meats and vegetables you have on hand.
Root vegetables often play a starring role — easy to grow, easy to find, and hearty enough to keep you full until the next meal.
No fancy kitchen is required.
Grab a cast-iron skillet, fire up a smoker out back and find an oven to birth a pan of cornbread.
Soul food often consists of a single meat with one or two vegetables. And yes, mac and cheese absolutely counts.
Let me set the scene from this past weekend.
If you didn’t know where you were going, you’d never find it. Street parking. Front windows covered with faded permits and random stickers. A layer of thick Southern humidity hanging in the air.
Inside, exposed ceiling beams overlooked tables that wobbled and metal chairs that groaned with age.
One wall featured an oversized American flag surrounded by discarded Alabama license plates.
One from 1962 proudly proclaimed, “The Heart of Dixie.” Another offered a not-so-subtle reminder: “Meet me at church on Sunday.”
A pair of swinging doors opened from the kitchen, and a man emerged carrying plates balanced up his arm.
At my table, he delivered a dish that combined a handful of humble staples into something designed to feed — pardon the pun — your soul.
On the simple plastic plate was a generous layer of cheese grits from edge to edge. Next came a heaping serving of greens with a few peppers mixed in.
Crowning it all was a mound of pulled pork and a handful of shoestring onion straws.
I don’t care what culinary school you attend or what white-tablecloth restaurant you serve in — if God has a favorite meal, this has to be it.
I’ll spare you the sounds people make while eating — mostly guttural expressions of approval washed down with iced tea.
My soul was fed with what it ached for.
But if someone ever tells me I get one last meal, I can promise you this: it’ll be a plate of soul food, worthy of carrying me all the way to heaven.
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