#14  MISSISSIPPI – A Diamond In The Rough

 

What do you eggs benedict me to do girl? I got muffin left to say

(You butter come up with somethin'.)

What do you eggs benedict me to do girl? I got muffin left to say.

You left such a waffle toast in my mouth. You biscuit out of town today.

-           - From The Breakfast Blues as recorded by Trout Fishing in America

We arrived in Clarksdale, Mississippi, the birthplace of the blues. Clarksdale lies in the Mississippi Delta region, one of the poorest areas in America. I didn’t expect much in terms of finding a decent breakfast place. Maybe a small diner where you could get grits and a biscuit covered with gravy. What we did find was an amazing establishment that exceeded all stereotypical ideas about backwater Mississippi.

Yazoo Pass
Clarksdale, Mississippi

AMBIENCE:  Yazoo Pass is named after a small waterway leading from the Mississippi River to the Coldwater River, just north of Clarksdale. It played a part in General Grant’s attempt to capture Vicksburg during the Civil War. Grant had the not so brilliant idea of bursting a levee on the Mississippi, flooding the Pass, and allowing his warships to proceed to a number of connecting rivers that led to the eastern outskirts of Vicksburg. The Union didn’t go very far before arriving at a hastily built Confederate fort made of cotton bales. There they met an ignominious defeat and retreated back to Arkansas.  This Northerner was hoping for better luck at the Yazoo Pass restaurant.

The restaurant sits smack in the middle of a central city Clarksdale that has seen much better days. Upon first seeing the restaurant, it appeared to be an oasis surrounded by buildings that have lost their will to live. The first thing that grabbed our attention were the nice tables and chairs out front along with a few potted plants. This could have been a scene out of SoHo or some other hipster area of a major metropolitan area. The second thing that grabbed our attention was their storefront sign. Espresso Bar? Bistro? Really? In the Mississippi Delta?  Parking was certainly no problem as there were very few cars on the street.

I uttered a WOW upon entering the restaurant. The large space (which was a former Five and Dime store)exuded both class and comfort. The tables were accompanied by wicker chairs and there was a corner that could put many living rooms to shame. Large plate glass windows in the front allowed sunlight to accentuate the immaculately clean and handsome interior.

There were no other customers in the place! Where was everyone? I had read that the Yazoo Pass was a community gathering place but apparently the community was at work, sleeping late, or just doesn’t eat breakfast out on a Wednesday morning.

 5 out of 5 stars.

FOOD:  I went with the Custom Breakfast Sandwich where you could pick and choose the bread and ingredients. My custom is to stuff as much as possible into a breakfast sandwich. I asked for scrambled eggs, Applewood smoked bacon, and cheddar cheese between a cut biscuit. When it arrived on a china plate I was in awe. When I bit into it, I tasted perfection. It was the best breakfast sandwich I have ever had. I sincerely doubt, I will ever again have a better one. The bacon was plentiful and cooked perfectly, the melted cheddar cheese nicely permeated the fluffy scrambled eggs. It was the biscuit however that set this masterpiece apart. It was obviously fresh out of the oven. It was buttery, fluffy, and flaky all at the same time. I could have eaten three of these sandwiches with no guilt whatsoever. It easily deserved a Breakfast Across America Certificate of Excellence.

The Healthy One ordered the Breakfast Bowl which contained Greek yogurt, fresh berries and topped with house made granola. She absolutely marveled at the taste and declared it her favorite breakfast, to date, of the tour.

5 out of 5 stars

COFFEE:  Since this was advertised as an espresso bar, we splurged and ordered cappuccinos. They were very tasty. I never thought that, one day, I would be drinking cappuccino in rural Mississippi.

4 1/2 stars out of 5

SERVICE: You ordered at the cash register and they brought you your food. The young lady at the register was very pleasant. She gave us a number to display on our table for the food deliverer to find us. It shouldn’t have been much of a challenge given that we were the only customers in the restaurant, but I guess protocol is protocol.

COST: $24.75 with tax. For someone from the Washington DC area, the prices were a tiny bit of a bargain, but I could see how most of the Clarksdale populace would see this as an expensive breakfast.

A FEW WORDS ABOUT CLARKSDALE:

“The land was perfectly flat and level but
it shimmered like the wing of a lighted dragonfly.
It seemed strummed, as though it were an
instrument and something had touched it.”

-         -  From “Delta Wedding” by Mississippi native Eudora Welty

I was fascinated by the countryside of the Mississippi Delta; so flat, with cotton fields extending far to the horizon. Clarksdale is one of a handful of agricultural and trading hubs of the region. It has a population of about 18,000 of which half live below the poverty line. The median income is $23,733 and the population has declined 15% since 2000.

Downtown Clarksdale


Although it is poor in monetary resources, it is rich in a cultural past. It is the birthplace of the blues. Muddy Waters, John Lee Hooker, and Sam Cooke all lived in Clarksdale and Bessie Smith died in Clarksdale. Tennessee Williams lived here as a boy. The city is doing its best to live off its cultural tradition. It holds a number of music festivals during the year and maintains the Delta Blues Museum. There are a couple of juke joints and blues clubs, including Ground Zero, partly owned by native son Morgan Freeman.

BURN THOSE BREAKFAST CALORIES OFF:

-          

      Walked through the William Faulkner home in Oxford MS.

-           Did a long walk through the Ole Miss campus in Oxford MS.

-          Walked through the fabulous B. B. King Museum and Delta Interpretive Center in Indianola MS.

SPECIAL MENTION:

I didn’t want to cover in this blog what we did for lunch and dinner. It was to be about breakfast. However, we had such a great experience in Indianola, Mississippi that I wanted to mention our lunch at Betty’s Place. You can get a delicious cheeseburger with fries for about $6. Our waitress treated us like her own grandkids. Mike, who is Betty’s brother and worked the cash register, has to be the most jovial man in the world. As we were leaving Mike pulled out his camera and said he wanted to take our picture. I said sure as long as he pulled Betty out of the kitchen and had a picture taken with my camera as well. He happily obliged.

October 26, 2016

NEXT UP: Louisiana