(^26) LEISURE
Food & Drink
The Mississippi Delta isn’t just the cradle
of the blues, said Alexandra Marvar in the
Chicago Tribune. “It’s also the spiritual
home of a beloved snack,” and thanks to
the Southern Foodways Alliance, you don’t
have to miss a single restaurant or roadside
shack that serves it. A hot tamale is spiced
cornmeal and meat (usually pork) that’s
been wrapped in a corn husk, and lore has
it that the hot tamale took hold in the Delta
early last century, when laborers from Latin
America who were brought in to pick cot-
ton carried tamales in coffee cans into the
fi elds. Below, four destinations on the Hot Tamale Trail that you shouldn’t miss.
Hicks’ World Famous Just down the road from the spot where bluesman Robert John-
son supposedly sold his soul to the devil lies “arguably the best tamale joint in the
Mississippi Delta.” Eugene Hicks serves his hot tamales by the plate, along with chili
and cheese, coleslaw, and baked beans. 305 S. State St., Clarksdale, (662) 624-9887
Delta Meat Market If you visit Mississippi’s own Grammy museum, which opened in
2016, you’ll want to eat at the market where James Beard Award semifi nalist Cole Ellis
does the cooking. He sells his hot tamales vacuum-packed and ready to go, or doused
in a tomato broth and served on site. 215 Cotton Row, Cleveland, (662) 444-6328
Doe’s Eat Place Located in the town that calls itself the Hot Tamale Capital of the World,
this humble roadside institution is often hailed as one of America’s best steak houses.
A quintessential meal here consists of a salad, a steak, and a plate of thin all-beef hot
tamales, made from the original 1941 recipe. 502 Nelson St., Greenville, (662) 334-3315
It’s time to end tuna snobbery, said Kari
Sonde in The Washington Post. If you’ve
become a fresh-tuna purist, “face your
fears and embrace the canned stuff.” It
has merits of its own, and some days it’s
the only option in the kitchen.
How is it better? In her new cookbook,
Dinner in French, food writer Melissa
Clark admits preferring canned tuna in a
niçoise salad, as other French traditional-
ists do. “The niçoise salads I ate in France
when I was a kid all featured good canned
tuna,” she writes, “the kind so richly
infused with olive oil it was the ocean
equivalent of butter.” Europe’s coastal
regions seem to have the right attitude—
and the first dish below might bring to
mind a light dinner in Portugal.
Below that is a Marcella Hazan recipe that
we recently rediscovered, said Food52.com.
It’s from Marcella’s Italian Kitchen, where
the legendary cookbook author noted that
the secret is that the tuna isn’t cooked
before being tossed with the hot pasta.
Recipe of the week
Lemon-dressed farro, tuna, and
chickpea salad
Grated zest of 1 large lemon
5 tbsp fresh lemon juice
¼ cup extra-virgin olive oil
Tuna night: Learning to love the canned stuff in your pantry
1 cup farro, cooked per package directions,
then cooled (about 3 cups cooked)
1¾ cups canned no-salt-added chickpeas,
drained and rinsed
7 oz canned, oil-packed light tuna, flaked
1 cup diced sweet onion
¼ cup chopped, loosely packed parsley
In a small bowl, whisk together lemon zest,
juice, and oil to form an emulsified dressing.
Season with salt and black pepper to taste.
In a large bowl, combine cooled farro,
chickpeas, tuna, onion, parsley, and lemon
dressing. Toss to incorporate. Adjust sea-
soning as needed. For best flavor, refrigerate
at least 2 hours. Serves 6 to 8.
Fettucini col sugo di tonno con aglio
e panna
1 7-oz can of tuna packed in olive oil
½ tsp garlic chopped very fine
2 tbsp chopped parsley
1 egg, lightly beaten
3 tbsp butter, softened to room temperature
²⁄³ cup heavy cream
½ cup freshly grated Parmigiano-
Reggiano
¾ lb boxed dried fettuccine
Drain tuna of all its oil and place in a bowl.
Add garlic, parsley, egg, butter, cream,
salt, liberal grindings of black pepper, and
grated cheese. Mix well, using a fork to
break up and mash the tuna. Taste and
adjust salt and pepper if needed.
Drop pasta into a pot of abundant boiling
salted water and cook until it is done but
firm to the bite. Drain and toss immediately
with the tuna mixture. Bring to table at
once, with additional grated cheese on the
side. Serves 4.
Note: The best canned tunas, according to
Cook’s Illustrated, are Tonnino Tuna Fillets
in Oil (sold in jars) and Ortiz Bonito del
Norte Albacore White Tuna in Olive Oil.
Lower-priced options that are recommended
include Starkist Selects Solid Yellowfin Tuna
in Extra Virgin Olive Oil and Starkist Solid
White Albacore Tuna in Vegetable Oil.
A salad that lets canned tuna shine
A Mississippi road trip: Cruising the Hot Tamale Trail
The family feel of Doe’s Eat Place
“It was bound to happen sooner or
later,” said Dave McIntyre in The Wash-
ington Post. Wine made in a laboratory
is now on sale. Gemello, a sparkling
white made by San Francisco–based
Endless West, is a so-called molecular
wine produced, like the fi rm’s whis-
key and sake, by adding natural
fl avors to a neutral spirit. The
creators say they identifi ed the mol-
ecules responsible for the taste and
smell of a sparkling Moscato, then
extracted the same molecules
from plants, fruits, and yeasts.
This points to a future when lab
wines could at least be a low-
end option, saving on the use of
land, water, and pesticides. As
for the taste, said Esther Mobley
in the San Francisco Chronicle,
the Gemello ($15, endlesswest
.com) is a decent imitation of a
sweet moscato. It delivers “that
unmistakable perfumed orange-
blossom aroma,” plus “a strong
orange-soda note on the palate.”
Wine: Straight from the lab
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