What is going on with the East Alton Rotary Club? We will cover it here, along with all sorts of other interesting and off-kilter stuff that will inform, enlighten and amuse you.
Sunday, September 16, 2012
GAS STATION FOOD
The South has its highways, but in order to get to some places, you have to take four-lane or two-lane roads. That's where you'll find gas stations. And in many gas stations, you'll find food. Up north, hardly anybody I know eats food from a gas station, unless they're starving and it has a Subway attached. Down south, gas station food is its own form of cuisine. If you're fortunate, you can score breakfast, lunch, dinner and snacks in a good gas station, which may also have its own booths and dining tables. (click below to read more)
At bare minimum, a gas station worth its salt (or fat) will serve breakfast – primarily a biscuit. This is usually a chicken, country ham or sausage biscuit. It is as far from Grape-Nuts as breakfast can get. I had resisted the biscuit breakfast until I was on the road from Birmingham, Alabama, to West Point, Georgia.
I passed a gas station that offered "Hot Biscuits & Full Breakfast, Live Bait, Hunting and Fishing Supplies." Inside, I bought plain biscuits. They were fine, and flaky, and filled my mid-morning needs. But I knew there was more out there.
I found gas stations that featured barbecue, gas stations with fried catfish (many proudly displaying a "raised in the USA sign") and gas stations with fried chicken. I found gas stations with a head-spinning, rainbow variety of frozen drinks that actually scared me.
I really struck gold at the Dodge's Chicken Store in Lexington, Tennessee. It isn't technically a gas station, but a restaurant with an adjacent gas station. The signs offered the trinity: chicken, barbecue and catfish.
Inside, people were jostling each other to get up to the counter. The variety was enormous and the prices divine: $2.99 for a pulled pork sandwich, $5.99 a pound for barbecue, $2.59 for a slab of catfish. There was corn on the cob, fried corn on the cob, hush puppies, mac and cheese. And, there were fried hand pies, a little bigger than a McDonald's pie.
Since I knew I'd be eating a big lunch, I asked for a small piece of catfish and a sweet potato pie. The counter girl looked disappointed: "Aren't you going to have any sides?" she asked. It was a perfect snack, and a terrific example of gas station food.
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nice post
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