My wife and I love to visit places we’ve never been and have a strategy to quickly forget travel woes endured getting there. That strategy is to head straight for a great restaurant offering local fare and start enjoying the tastes of the place soon after arriving.
That plan worked marvelously during a recent holiday in Nashville. Our flights were both delayed on the way there, but frustrations evaporated once we were nestled into our seats at Husk restaurant (husknashville.com).
This eatery operates out of a beautifully restored complex of circa 1880 buildings near Nashville’s downtown core. We learned about Husk while watching the television series The Mind of a Chef, which is hosted by various chefs, including Husk’s Sean Brock, a James Beard Award winner.
In the episodes Brock hosts, it’s evident that promoting and cooking southern ingredients is dear to his heart, a sentiment that was on display by the team at Husk.
I couldn’t resist ordering shrimp and grits, described as a traditional dish in the Low Country of coastal Georgia and the Carolinas, and also enjoyed in other parts of the southern U.S.
Grits are ground hominy (dried corn kernels) with the hull and germ removed. When cooked correctly, those grits are anything but gritty, with a consistency somewhat like warm, soft polenta, but creamier and not as dense. Grits are the perfect thing to set succulent, brothy shrimp on, and the dish was a luxurious and comforting way to begin my visit to Nashville.
My wife’s main course was a “plate of southern vegetables” that came on a large plank. On it were five unique preparations, including wood-fire charred brassicas, yams with chives and strawberries and Johnnycakes with smoked mayonnaise.
That’s just a taste of our meal at Husk and we left sated, but not done for the night. From there, we strolled over to Nashville’s famed Honky Tonk Row (honkytonkrow.com), a series of bars on lower Broadway where some of country music’s legends got their start. All clubs have live music and there’s no cover charge, but bands do ask you to donate to their cause if you like what you hear.
We lost track of how many honky tonks we visited. Not surprising when you’re having good old-fashioned fun singing along with the bands, swaying and cutting loose.
The next day, we got another taste of what’s cooking in Nashville by visiting the farmer’s market (nashvillefarmersmarket.org). It was Saturday, the market was bustling and as we wandered around, we met a farmer named Bubba selling turnip greens.
We, of course, could not bring any greens home to Canada. But Bubba still shared his simple method for preparing them and advised us to find some greens at home, cook them his way and serve them with barbecued meats, cornbread, grits and potato salad.
That made us hungry and, lucky for us, we found a vendor at the market selling southern barbecue, such as brisket and pulled pork, with the sides Bubba suggested. We found a table and dug in. Not long after, a live band started playing a Patsy Cline tune. I thought I was dreaming, because I love Patsy Cline, not to mention good barbecue.
That evening, we had tickets to see a live taping of the National Public Radio show A Prairie Home Companion, a weekly live broadcast with stories, skits and music. The show is taped at various theatres around the U.S. and on this night it was at Nashville’s historic, 2362-seat Ryman Auditorium, the original venue for the Grand Ole Opry. The host, Garrison Keillor, is retiring after this season and the sold-out audience gave him a lot of love. It was a special night.
After doing some touristy things in Nashville, including going to the must-see Country Music Hall of Fame, we rented car and decided to do a mini road trip around Tennessee. One of the highlights was dining at the Loveless Café, a picturesque eatery located just southwest of Nashville on U.S. Route 100.
On the café’s website, lovelesscafe.com, they say fried chicken and biscuits have been a part of the restaurant’s history for more than 60 years. This business started very humbly when couple Lon and Annie Loveless began serving those items out of the front door of their home to hungry travellers passing by. Word of mouth saw the business grow and grow and their menu of home-style southern fare greatly expand. Today, it’s estimated the Loveless Café serves more than 450,000 people each year and bakes around 7,000 biscuits per day.
It’s a busy place and we did have to wait for a table, even on Monday at 11 a.m. But the grounds around the café are quite nice and have retail shops that kept us busy. Before we knew it, our table was ready and we were digging into some hot fried chicken, biscuits and tasty side dishes, including housemade creamed corn, pickled cucumbers and onions and some turnip greens that Bubba at the Farmer’s Market would have liked.
There were no travel woes on our trip back home, just fond memories of the good food, music and wonderful southern hospitality we enjoyed in and around Nashville. It was a great time, y’all!
Eric Akis is the author of eight cookbooks. His latest is The Great Rotisserie Chicken Cookbook (Appetite by Random House). His columns appear in the Life section Wednesday and Sunday.
