Sweet Home Savannah

A close friend of mine once said that Savannah “performs way beyond its weight class.” Meaning, for a small town, it really does at least some things on a world-class level. Food would be at the top of that list.

In fact, one day, perhaps real soon, I’m going to feature a menu based solely on foods from my hometown. What would that look like? Hmmm. First, we’d have to start with drinks. Southerners might like to drink, but Savannahians have a patent on the process. I’m thinking bourbon mixed with a homemade ginger and soda. Top it off with a few sprigs of mint just to show we have a bit of “Klass.” And then for starters, I’m thinking low-country crabcakes with a green chili/remoulade sauce or spicy shrimp on a bed of Anson MIll grits. For the entree, the obvious choice would have to be fried chicken, although a crispy-scored flounder with orange glaze is high up on my list as well. The sides? Braised red cabbage, cornbread with jalapenos and parmesan cheese, and flash toasted Brussels sprouts in a lime/coriander sauce. Dessert: a bourbon-laced pecan pie with whipped cream. Or rhubarb/cherry crisp.

The memories come flooding in with each element of this menu, far too deep to go into here. It’s like a gastronomic map to a bunch of really good restaurants and great meals had over the years in Savannah. I could spend hours recounting stories just about the shrimps or crabs in Savannah. But not here. Not now.

One of the most striking ironies of all this is that as a 17-year-old high-school graduate, I couldn’t wait to get out of dodge. Which I did. It’s a different place these days. Or so I like to tell myself. Perhaps, in the words of the legendary jazz bassist, Ben Tucker, who made Savannah his home and was a dear family friend, I’m simply “Coming Home Baby.”