The Texas and Arkansas Traveler
Aug. 16th, 2009 09:22 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
calimacMy flight to Dallas, two nights at a hotel near the college where the Tolkien seminar took place, and transport between A and B (which I took in the form of renting my own car) were paid for.
I could have just turned around and gone home afterwards, taking the trip at no cost save wear and tear on myself, and some of my fellow guests did so. But I'm not built that way. I'm not going all the way to Texas, an exotic land by my standards, without taking a little extra time to explore it.
My interests were largely culinary and presidential. As the college was 90 miles east of Dallas, my inclination was to proceed further east, as the closer to Louisiana I got, the likelier I was to find Louisiana cuisine. Once there, I would be close to the "place called Hope" of which Bill Clinton speaks, and from that point, it would be shorter to continue on through Hot Springs to Little Rock on what the Arkansas state tourist office calls a "Billgrimage" than to return to Dallas.
East Texas is not an economically prosperous region. Every little town has a town square paved in brick, and the towns vary among the a) mildly decrepit; b) totally decayed; c) virtual ghost towns. In one such small town I stopped at a soda fountain where I was the only customer, and the old lady behind the counter, as she fixed my root beer float, chatted away as if I was the first human being she'd seen in a week, which I may well have been. The city of Kilgore (home town of Van Cliburn, not that I saw any indication of this), where the downtown was torn up in the 1930s to build the world's densest concentration of oil wells, memorializes them with replicas. The explanatory plaque assures the reader there's at least 45 years of life left in the deposits, which sounds great until you notice that the plaque is dated 43 years ago.
I ate at what guidebooks had assured me were the two best barbecue places in north and east Texas, but I wasn't too impressed. The meat was not bad, but it was neither particularly tender nor particularly juicy. More like the unattractive stuff that normally passes as Texas-style barbecue in California than the better stuff I've had in Austin. I also dared to try "lamb fries" (the fearless can look it up), which turned out not to taste particularly of lamb nor of anything else for that matter.
Elsewhere, Pittsburg Hot Links took a little getting used to: very small, extremely coarsely-ground (which I like), soft chewy sausages with breakfast-sausage seasoning; I was happier after eating three or four than just one.
The hot links restaurant also served an excellent seafood gumbo, and east Texas proved to be at least as well supplied with Louisiana country cooking as were the parts of Louisiana I got to. Shreveport is a prosperous town at first glance, but one notices that about half the non-chain restaurants in and around town have weeds and real-estate signs growing out front, and that includes the recommended Cajun ones. A well-rated breakfast place turned out to be Southern, not Louisiana, cooking, but served a good omelet, once I got over my prejudice against American cheese (which is what the term "cheese" means in those parts). I wound up with lunch at an aggressively Cajun bar-and-grill downtown, popular with the locals, where heavy food and strong seasoning attempt to disguise less than ideal ingredients and preparation. For dinner, however, I struck gold in the nearly-deserted - it looks like a bomb site - ghetto section just west of downtown. The one oasis of life for blocks on end was a small, rundown, but hopping little café where I had sautéed catfish - a dish that would be sure to be ruined if anyone tried making it in California - topped with crawfish étouffée. This was the real thing: rich and complex, not very spicy, superbly made. Worth the trip.
In a small town in the hills outside of Hope, which I will forbear naming lest anyone be tempted to go there, I had a chicken-fried steak which kept me up half the night popping antacids.
The place called Hope is not designed for the traveler to get something to eat. All over you can buy Hope watermelons - but only in whole, which I could not possibly eat at once nor carry away. And no restaurants serving any either. The only restaurant downtown is open three hours for lunch five days a week and is called "The Melon Patch", but does it have melon? No! Mostly hamburgers. Having had that chicken-fried steak for dinner the night before and expecting bbq for that dinner, I was in a vegetarian mood and had a plate of Southern vegetables - buttered broccoli, hominy, and turnip greens - all of them delicious.
Down the street was a soda fountain which mercifully had a "watermelon fizz" - watermelon juice and soda water, with little balls of watermelon in it - so at least I had a taste.
Arkansas barbecue served me better than Texas. I tried what every guidebook assured me was Bill Clinton's favorite bbq joint in Hot Springs. He has good taste in barbecue. The pork ribs here - and they were real pork ribs, not those pathetic "baby back" things that are taking over everywhere - were moist, meaty, and covered in a good spicy sauce.
This has turned out to be mostly the culinary part of the trip report. Tourism and bookstores tomorrow.
I could have just turned around and gone home afterwards, taking the trip at no cost save wear and tear on myself, and some of my fellow guests did so. But I'm not built that way. I'm not going all the way to Texas, an exotic land by my standards, without taking a little extra time to explore it.
My interests were largely culinary and presidential. As the college was 90 miles east of Dallas, my inclination was to proceed further east, as the closer to Louisiana I got, the likelier I was to find Louisiana cuisine. Once there, I would be close to the "place called Hope" of which Bill Clinton speaks, and from that point, it would be shorter to continue on through Hot Springs to Little Rock on what the Arkansas state tourist office calls a "Billgrimage" than to return to Dallas.
East Texas is not an economically prosperous region. Every little town has a town square paved in brick, and the towns vary among the a) mildly decrepit; b) totally decayed; c) virtual ghost towns. In one such small town I stopped at a soda fountain where I was the only customer, and the old lady behind the counter, as she fixed my root beer float, chatted away as if I was the first human being she'd seen in a week, which I may well have been. The city of Kilgore (home town of Van Cliburn, not that I saw any indication of this), where the downtown was torn up in the 1930s to build the world's densest concentration of oil wells, memorializes them with replicas. The explanatory plaque assures the reader there's at least 45 years of life left in the deposits, which sounds great until you notice that the plaque is dated 43 years ago.
I ate at what guidebooks had assured me were the two best barbecue places in north and east Texas, but I wasn't too impressed. The meat was not bad, but it was neither particularly tender nor particularly juicy. More like the unattractive stuff that normally passes as Texas-style barbecue in California than the better stuff I've had in Austin. I also dared to try "lamb fries" (the fearless can look it up), which turned out not to taste particularly of lamb nor of anything else for that matter.
Elsewhere, Pittsburg Hot Links took a little getting used to: very small, extremely coarsely-ground (which I like), soft chewy sausages with breakfast-sausage seasoning; I was happier after eating three or four than just one.
The hot links restaurant also served an excellent seafood gumbo, and east Texas proved to be at least as well supplied with Louisiana country cooking as were the parts of Louisiana I got to. Shreveport is a prosperous town at first glance, but one notices that about half the non-chain restaurants in and around town have weeds and real-estate signs growing out front, and that includes the recommended Cajun ones. A well-rated breakfast place turned out to be Southern, not Louisiana, cooking, but served a good omelet, once I got over my prejudice against American cheese (which is what the term "cheese" means in those parts). I wound up with lunch at an aggressively Cajun bar-and-grill downtown, popular with the locals, where heavy food and strong seasoning attempt to disguise less than ideal ingredients and preparation. For dinner, however, I struck gold in the nearly-deserted - it looks like a bomb site - ghetto section just west of downtown. The one oasis of life for blocks on end was a small, rundown, but hopping little café where I had sautéed catfish - a dish that would be sure to be ruined if anyone tried making it in California - topped with crawfish étouffée. This was the real thing: rich and complex, not very spicy, superbly made. Worth the trip.
In a small town in the hills outside of Hope, which I will forbear naming lest anyone be tempted to go there, I had a chicken-fried steak which kept me up half the night popping antacids.
The place called Hope is not designed for the traveler to get something to eat. All over you can buy Hope watermelons - but only in whole, which I could not possibly eat at once nor carry away. And no restaurants serving any either. The only restaurant downtown is open three hours for lunch five days a week and is called "The Melon Patch", but does it have melon? No! Mostly hamburgers. Having had that chicken-fried steak for dinner the night before and expecting bbq for that dinner, I was in a vegetarian mood and had a plate of Southern vegetables - buttered broccoli, hominy, and turnip greens - all of them delicious.
Down the street was a soda fountain which mercifully had a "watermelon fizz" - watermelon juice and soda water, with little balls of watermelon in it - so at least I had a taste.
Arkansas barbecue served me better than Texas. I tried what every guidebook assured me was Bill Clinton's favorite bbq joint in Hot Springs. He has good taste in barbecue. The pork ribs here - and they were real pork ribs, not those pathetic "baby back" things that are taking over everywhere - were moist, meaty, and covered in a good spicy sauce.
This has turned out to be mostly the culinary part of the trip report. Tourism and bookstores tomorrow.
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no subject
Date: 2009-08-17 07:44 am (UTC)ETA:
And yes, East Texas is a wreck economically (which is why I have to look at the recent Economist cover depicting Texas as vigorous and California as decrepit.) My sister and her family are out there still, persevering as best they can. They love the land, even as it's been used up and thrown away.
no subject
Date: 2009-08-17 08:12 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-08-17 10:42 am (UTC)Some of my stomping grounds too
Date: 2009-08-17 03:34 pm (UTC)Re: Some of my stomping grounds too
Date: 2009-08-17 04:18 pm (UTC)One of my bbq advice sources was the Dallas News, which says, "as a Dallasite, you know that to find great barbecue, you'll want to hit the road." So I went to the place they recommended, and, well ...
I doubt I'll be having bbq on the Mythcon trip: there's nothing at a bbq place that B. would want to eat. The apple caramel walnut pie at the Hamburger Store in Jefferson, however, is so perfect and so much along her lines that we may take a road trip just for that.
Re: Some of my stomping grounds too
Date: 2009-08-17 05:03 pm (UTC)Re: Some of my stomping grounds too
Date: 2009-08-17 08:15 pm (UTC)As a former resident of Houston and Austin, I would have raised my eyebrows at "best Texas BBQ" coming from East Texas. Not what I'd consider prime cattle country. But it's been a while since I lived there.
Re: Some of my stomping grounds too
Date: 2009-08-17 09:11 pm (UTC)Re: Some of my stomping grounds too
Date: 2009-08-17 09:46 pm (UTC)Re: Some of my stomping grounds too
Date: 2009-08-18 02:04 am (UTC)