Southern Food Museum and a Streetcar Named Desire

Thursday, January, 26, 2023

But first we ate. Bwahahahaha! Eating!

We went to Bearcat for lunch, but we both had breakfast (served all day). I had breakfast potatoes – described as crispy potatoes, mornay sauce (a bechamel sauce with cheese), and an egg. It actually came with two eggs – bonus. Have you had mornay sauce? You could eat rocks with mornay sauce on them. The brabant potatoes were super crispy, which was great because they held up to the creamy sauce. We always say, “Can’t talk, eating,” when something is really tasty, and we could not talk until everything on our plates was gone. Every day we are eating the best thing yet. As I inhaled my food, I was seriously contemplating ordering another round. Just do it again. But, also, I was too full.

Keith was going to have Cajun gravy biscuits, but he zigged at the last moment and had a Hot Daddy instead. I’ll let him explain: [Keith here…] A Hot Daddy is a spicy, breaded chicken breast on baking powder biscuits, covered in Cajun gravy (cream, butter, crawfish, tasso, and a hearty amount of Cajun seasonings), then topped with one egg sunny side up. Wow, was it good. I mean this sauce would be great on anything, but this combination was really a winner.

We sat at the counter and chatted with our waitress/the bartender. She was very fun and encouraged us to order more – but warned us that they did not have wheelbarrow service. She said if we lay on the ground, she could help roll us out the door. Southern hospitality at its best!

Next up, the Southern Food Museum. There was a scavenger hunt, which I loved. Keith was zooming all over the place, looking for the answers. I was trying to museum first, scavenge second. Here is a quiz – do your best guessing then learn from the answers.

Name the southern state:

1. Where was Coca-cola invented by John Pemberton?
2. Where did Jimmy Dean start his sausage company?
3. An open-faced turkey, bacon, tomato, and mornay sauce sandwich is called a Hot Brown. From where?
4. Where did Fritos originate?
5. Where is Pepsi Cola from?
6. Where is the largest beekeeping organization in America?
7. Where is Fiestaware from?
8. Where did moon pies originate?
9. Where did the McCormick Spice company start?
10. Where was the first self-serve grocery store? Bonus: what was its name? (hint: still 600 of them in the US)

Random stuff:

1. How did Louis Armstrong sign letters?
2. What drink inspired the Green Hour, which eventually became the modern happy hour?
3. What’s hidden inside a King Cake?
4. In 1955, two guys in Georgia opened a restaurant that became a huge chain of stores named after the most profitable on the 16-item menu. Name the chain. (That first restaurant is the company museum now.)
5. Who used a Scoville Unit to ensure his restaurants’ food would all taste exactly the same?
6. How long was the Frito Bandito the Frito mascot? (before someone noticed he was pretty offensive)
7. What company started salsa manufacturing in Texas in 1947?
8. Liver mush is so popular in NC that there is a liver mush festival. No question here. Just thought you’d want to know.
9. What was the first soft drink? (It was invented in Texas.)
10. What are these?

A random collection of interesting things…

After the museum, we got on the St. Charles Streetcar (the world’s longest continuously running streetcar) and took it for a ride. It is hilariously loud – the brakes squeal unbelievably loudly and the engine goes THWOW THWOW THWOW, until suddenly there is no sound at all and you think you are going to be stuck, but you aren’t. We rode most of the route – past Audubon park and zoo, past Tulane and Loyola (which are so next to each other that they are touching), past houses so big that I just gaped instead of taking pictures.

We were too full to eat dinner until most places were closed. So, after walking up and down the street a little bit and thinking about eating the last little bit of Cheerios, we ordered a pizza. It came really quickly and looked like it was a pizza in a commercial it was so pretty. I know. Pizza. We have that in Minnesota. I just could not eat anything rich. It was a bread product or nuthin’. (We had apples, too.)

Answers to the questions

Which southern state: 1. Georgia, 2. Virginia, 3. Kentucky, 4. Texas, 5 & 6. North Carolina, 7. West Virginia, 8. Tennessee, 9. Maryland, 10. Florida

Random stuff: 1. “Red beans and rice-ly yours”, 2. absinthe, 3. plastic baby, 4. Waffle House, 5. Al Copeland, 6. 4 years (’67-71), 7. Pace, 8. Ew!, 9. Dr. Pepper, 10. absinthe spoons (for straining sugar into the drink)