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TOP LEFT: ROBERT G. GOM
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SOUTHERNLIVING.COM / JULY 20 19
67
TH E
SAUSAGE
SPECIALIST
R O B E R T P A T I L L O
BEAUMONT, TX
In 1912, Jack Patillo
founded Patillo’s BBQ,
which is now the oldest
black-owned barbecue
joint in the state. In 1981,
Robert Patillo, Jack’s great-
grandson, officially stepped
into the smokehouse and
assumed responsibility for
more than a business. He
shouldered the burden of
a fading style of barbecue.
In addition to beef clod, he
smokes grease balls, sau-
sages that were once more
popular in the Gulf South.
Stuffed in beef casings and
flavored with garlic, red
and black pepper, and chili
powder, the sausages are
squeezed from the links
by locals, who admire the
juices that squirt out and
smear the meat on white
bread. To eat them is bliss.
THE HISTORIAN
JESSICA B. HARRIS, NEW ORLEANS, LA (AND NEW YORK CITY)
For four decades, Jessica B. Harris has spoken and written eloquently,
lovingly, and critically of this region’s foodways, reminding all that the
South is as West African as it is Western European. A fierce intellect,
she has published 12 books on the cooking of the African diaspora,
including Iron Pots and Wooden Spoons and The Welcome Table.
Back when too few knew the difference between a yam and a sweet
potato, Harris set the table for a generation of writers who followed.
Mexican workers, recruited to the Mississippi Delta in the early years of the 20th
century to pick bumper cotton harvests, likely brought tamale-making here. Hot-tamale
stands now dot the Mississippi Delta and the strip of land that hugs the Arkansas side
of the river too. The tamales that Rhoda Adams rolls at Rhoda’s Famous Hot Tamales
were born of that exchange. Her half-and-half pies, on the other hand, are her own
inscrutable invention. Creamy sweet potato on one side and gooey pecan nougat on
the other, tucked in an honest crust, they come in 3-inch tins. Eaten out of hand, they
are idealized and delicious tokens of her ingenuity.
THE TAMALE ARTIST RHODA ADAMS, LAKE VILLAGE, AR
