50 STATES: Mississippi

IT IS a beautiful March morning along the Gulf Coast, and on the radio, a filmmaker from Los Angeles is talking to a reporter about what it’s like to hail from the Magnolia State. The interviewer’s questions are typical of those asked by a small-town journalist of someone who’s gone off into the wider world and made good.

What do you love most about Mississippi? What do people say when you tell them you’re from Mississippi? Do you miss Mississippi? Things of that nature.

In good humor, he responds patiently, even if her questions are more than a little bit OMG. He’s probably heard them before. Mississippians can suffer from a certain amount of insecurity, which is understandable when you hail from the poorest state in the nation. The 20th state often feels like a tremendous blast from the past. Driving through the small cities in the Delta, the downtowns, often half-empty if not more, feel as if they’ve been preserved in amber.

Mississippi’s refusal to join the present gives it immense character. You’d need to be drugged or half asleep to mistake Natchez or Clarksdale for someplace else. As a traveler, this can be terrifically rewarding — so much of the South has gone for growth and sprawl over the past few decades. In some of the coastal states, you can’t move for the shopping malls, the traffic, or the Long Island refugees in search of a lower cost of living.

You don’t have much of any of that in Mississippi, except maybe in Jackson. There you’ll get some traffic, and plenty of suburban shopping developments. Long Islanders, not really.

Perhaps because things are relatively quiet, you’ll also find Mississippi to be a place that’s protective of the old ways. Tradition is taken very seriously.

In Oxford, you’ll find the home of the Southern Foodways Alliance, an arm of Ole Miss that lives to champion such humble regional foods as the Hot Tamale, a Delta staple since the beginning of the 20th century, when — according to lore — workers from Mexico began to explore their options beyond the border states. As simple as all get out, Mississippi tamales often feel — in a good way — as if they have been removed from a museum on loan, as do the places they are sold.

The state is also known well as a cradle of good music. (Who didn’t come from here, really.) Today, there’s the Mississippi Blues Commission, paid for in part with federal funds and chaired by an appointee of the Governor, which you have to figure is a pretty sweet gig. The commission’s focus: Promote and preserve the Blues.

That’s Mississippi, for you. At least, that’s Mississippi north of Interstate 10. South of there, along the Gulf of Mexico, well. Two completely different places.

BLAME THE FRENCH — EVERYBODY DOES

Explorer Pierre LeMoyne d’Iberville hit land here in 1699, establishing a fort in the present-day town of Ocean Springs, at the mouth of Biloxi Bay. This is, you’ll remember — or not — the older brother of the guy who first settled New Orleans. His name was even longer.

Like in Louisiana, this heritage is very much alive — Hancock County, one of three that touch the coast in Mississippi, records French Creole as the number one ancestry.

Of course, like in New Orleans, it didn’t stop with the French. There were the Spanish, the British, and then, of course, there was Jefferson’s Folly, aka the Louisiana Purchase. Don’t leave out the Confederacy. In fact, Jefferson Davis’s summer home, Beauvoir, faces the Gulf from the landside of US Highway 90, the coastal road. Even he liked to let his hair down, apparently. That or he wanted to summer in the one place in the state where there’s the chance of a cooling breeze in August.

Today, the coast is a mish-mash of cultures and ideals, like you’d expect in New Orleans. It’s how I have come to be eating banh xeo (crepe) at a Vietnamese restaurant on a street named after some guy, name of Rodriguez, in the city of D’Iberville. At two o’clock on a Monday afternoon. It also happens to be excellent, and I know this not only because anything folded inside a pancake made with rice flour, turmeric and coconut milk is just the sort of thing you don’t say no to.

I know this because sitting across the table from me is Lorin Gaudin. Lorin has been a food writer in New Orleans longer than I’ve had a paying job. These days, she’s the food editor for the local ABC affiliate, rising at 5 o’clock in the morning to appear on Good Morning New Orleans, where she does things like extol the virtues of colcannon for St. Patrick’s Day — sandwiched between two hulking Irishmen — and uses the word “fantastic” a lot.

She’s using it now, which is understandable: The restaurant is far beyond what I had expected from the region, even though there have been Vietnamese people living here since the 1970’s, when they arrived to participate in the years-old fishing industry.

However, while there were estimated to be over 2,000 foreign-born Vietnamese (and many more descendants) living on the Mississippi Gulf pre-Katrina, today’s numbers may be a little different. We know, at least, that the community is no longer necessarily headquartered in Point Cadet, which for years was known as the place to go to eat pho (soup, a Vietnamese staple) when you came to town.

Today, the neighborhood is in many ways a bunch of overgrown yards in search of homes, a community that’s not damaged, but decimated.

Businesses that thrived before the storm, if they’re standing at all, are generally closed and forlorn. The streets are empty, except for the odd dog lying in the middle of the road, a sign that there isn’t all that much traffic coming through.

All you’ll find, really, east of the equally ghost-like downtown these days, is a lot of casinos, which were rushed through the re-construction phase in order to make up for lost time. All situated along the water, they form a sort of half-circle around the destruction, an affect that ends up being more than a little disconcerting.

Biloxi’s loss appears to be D’Iberville’s gain, however. Just across the bay, maybe two or three minutes drive on I-110, the scruffy suburb is jammed with traffic. There’s a large grocery store — Saigon Market — that sells everything from shrimp chips to Japanese curry powders to fresh seafood and produce. And of course, there’s where we’re eating. It’s called, alternately, the New Orleans Seafood & Po Boy Restaurant and Vietnamese Cuisine and Vietnamese Cuisine Nha Hang “MY NHUNG.” This is probably why the girl working in the surf shop over in Ocean Springs referred to it simply as “Pho.”

“It’s awesome,” she said. “Everybody goes there.”

I had asked her for the recommendation of a Filipino restaurant, since she’d mentioned that was her background, and that there were plenty of Filipinos around the area. She sent us here instead. She wasn’t off the mark. The menu, which goes on for pages, proved to not be there just for show. A plate of pork and rice (complete with tasty egg pie) came with a tender pork chop. Coffee was as strong as it should be.

I asked our waiter when they’d opened up. After the storm, it turns out. He was new in town as well, having moved from Orange County, California, aka the capital of Vietnamese America. We talk a little bit about the changes, and how the community has in scattered out beyond East Biloxi.

“Katrina,” said our waiter, not given to many words. “Whew!”

SO YOUR TOWN HAS WASHED AWAY

“Whew” is not really the word I’m looking for, driving down Beach Boulevard in Bay St. Louis. About thirty miles west of Biloxi, the town — a summer place for old-hand New Orleanians who’ve been coming here to escape heat and disease for centuries now — is the seat of Hancock County, which was estimated to have lost at least half of its tax base overnight when Hurricane Katrina hit in 2005.

Bay St. Louis waved goodbye to a significant chunk of its downtown, which was a charming mix of boutiques, historic buildings and waterside restaurants. Today, the mess has been cleared, but the beachfront road, where people used to slurp back oysters at Dock of the Bay restaurant, is scrubbed clean and almost windswept. Yet, it somehow feels “back” in a way it didn’t even a couple of years ago. Like most other places along the coast still recovering, it feels hopeful.

Right here, anyway, that could be because out of the ruins, another Bay St. Louis is re-emerging. Over on South Second Street, past a typical Deep South porch, the Mockingbird Café — opened one year after Katrina — is buzzing. Part coffee house, part live music venue, part beer and burger joint, it’s also the home of Serious Breads, a bakery run by Al Jensen, a retired oceanographer.

Mrs. Al is hovering around; as I head towards the bread rack, she comes up behind me to tell me more about their product, which is made without any preservatives whatsoever. There’s Oatmeal Cinnamon Raisin and Garlic Rosemary Sourdough. Lorin likes the latter, so I buy a loaf and toast two slices right there. Pretty impressive, coming from an oceanographer.

Lorin, whom I’ve known for years now, is as usual stuck in conversation with people she hasn’t seen in a while. This isn’t because she knows everyone, everywhere. Rather, she married into one of those New Orleans families who think that people who haven’t been there more than five generations are still settling in. The Gaudins have been summering and weekending in Bay St. Louis long before she even arrived in town back in the 1970’s. Today, the family homes are nothing but slabs of concrete surrounded by trees, all within a couple of blocks of St. Louis Bay.

The town isn’t gone, though. Half-gone would be more accurate. You can see things coming back to life now. The ball is rolling. There are plenty of businesses that have reopened. Bay Books is back — in a new location on Main Street. Trapani’s Eatery, once on Beach Boulevard, is now in a strip mall out on Highway 90. Last week, the state announced at $13 million infusion of cash for a pier and harbor project. Homes are being rebuilt (and in some lucky cases, just remodeled) in the style of those New Urbanism playgrounds on Florida’s panhandle, except there’s no danger of this town turning into a sterile Seaside. Not any time soon.

The rebirth is evident all up and down the coast, wherever Katrina blew her stack. Another town that was almost lost is Pass Christian, just over the new Highway 90 bridge. This is the home of Robin Roberts, co-host of ABC’s “Good Morning America.” Roberts is a local icon around here; you can see her talking about Pass Christian now and again on the air.

I’d heard more than once that she favors Pirate’s Cove, a long-running po’ boy join that’s now reopened. Like in so many other cases along the coast, you won’t find it where it used to be. Now, it has moved inland a block or two from the water, right downtown, what’s standing of it, anyway. A casual takeout spot with a covered patio, it is favored by working men, many who whom are now lined up for lunch. We share a Roast Beef po’ boy, an order of creamy Baked Potato Salad (two thumbs up) and I drink Barq’s Root Beer out of a glass bottle. The bill comes to about $10.

While Pass Christian is in no uncertain terms flying its flag at half-mast, the town, like so many in the region, feels as if perhaps it has been through the worst already. It could also be that Highway 90 is so seductive and green these days, at least down this end, where they haven’t built sparkling new Waffle Houses and luxury high rise condos and all the other things that signify progress. (Seriously, why does a Waffle House on the Gulf of Mexico need a sign multiple stories tall. To reel in the shrimp boat traffic?)

Down this end, most of the construction along the Gulf is people rebuilding houses, many of them looking quite appealing and generally very tasteful. Shortly, we arrive in Long Beach, where we are making two important stops.

The first is Darwell’s Café, up on First Street, across from the railroad tracks. Both Lorin and I aren’t sure what to make of Guy Fieri, who is as famous for his TGI Friday’s commercials as he is for his Food Network show, “Diners, Drive-ins and Dives,” but it is pretty cool that he’s taken a shine to the man in charge of the kitchen here.

His name is Darwell Yeager, not to be confused with his father, also named Darwell. When we arrive, the elder Darwell — known as Papa D — is holding court the way a maitre ‘d might, except this is a counter service joint, and most maitre ‘ds don’t run around wearing do rags. A tall, dark and distinctive-looking fifty-something Jackson native with years of experience in the music business (“Boy, I’ve lived!”), he, along with his son, somewhat of a culinary rising star, opened up the place just weeks before Katrina. For a great while after the storm, Darwell’s was Long Beach.

When we pull up, the smokehouse, which sits adjacent to a sprawling, outdoor seating area that looks a little bit like a garage sale with seating, is billowing, and there are ribs on the specials board, so we try a few, with a side of rice and gravy and green beans. The utter simplicity of the plate is somehow inspired. A sign on the wall reads “Real Food For Real People.” The proprietor appears nervous — not only that we’re taking pictures of our food (“I know y’all ain’t from the Health Department”), but also, it turns out, that we’re eating the barbecue.

“I’m just experimenting with that, really,” he says, slapping down a small Styrofoam cup of shrimp creole on the table.

“Here, try this.”

It’s shrimp creole, a regional classic, one of those dishes that comes off as vaguely Italian, thanks to its almost marinara-like qualities, but with the benefit of a roux beginning and plenty of cooking wine. The Darwell’s version is impeccable — silky-smooth, and yet without a drop of cream.

Stopping by once again to check up on us, Yeager proudly points out that the shrimp creole recently aced a local cook-off. He brings beans (smoked on the cooker, sweet with caramelized onion), and apologizes for the missing pulled pork that usually gets thrown on top. “I burnt it,” he confesses. “A whole 100 pounds of it.”

Apparently, it had been left on the smoker over night, by accident. There’s no accident with the third sample he leaves with us — a brownie packed with nuts that might just be the best both Lorin and I have had in ages — thin, moist but not gooey at all. A real standout. At this point, we’re wishing we had the room for at least five or six more dishes on the extensive menu — there’s a crawfish étouffée that, after the success of the shrimp creole, is just begging to be tasted.

Unfortunately, you can only do so much in one seating. We retreat to our second Long Beach stop, the Bankhouse Café. Named thus because it is housed in an old bank downtown, Shawn Montella’s smart café isn’t the only place roasting its own coffee along the coast; it just happens to be the best. Downtown Long Beach faces the same uphill climb that other downtowns in the regions do — a new city hall would be great, for instance — but inside Bankhouse, things are buzzing, in part thanks to the hair salon that occupies the back part of the building.

The iced coffee comes out strong and dark and splashed with milk, as is the regional custom. The weather has now warmed up to 80 degrees in early March, and the Gulf beckons. We hop in the car and head east on 90, as far as it’ll take us, over the re-constructed Biloxi Bay bridge, east towards Ocean Springs. There’s a lot of work to be done here, and it’ll take years more to erase the damage, but on a day like this, you can see why people stay and do battle — it’s simply too likeable a place to leave.

For more information on the region, visit gulfcoast.org

10 PICKS FOR FOOD AND DRINK ON THE MISSISSIPPI COAST

Out of a list of nearly twenty establishments we considered, here are ten that are well worth the trip from New Orleans, which is just about an hour away from Bay St. Louis and a little further to the Biloxi area.

1) Shaggy’s Pass Christian

This seafood shack/bar on the harbor is a must at sunset for chargrilled oysters (a regional specialty) and bottles of Lazy Magnolia beer, brewed just a short drive away in Kiln, Mississippi, aka the hometown of Brett Favre. 120 S. Hiern Avenue, (228) 452-9939

2) Darwell’s Café Long Beach

Live music is the thing at the nearly 2,000-square-foot outdoor seating area here most evenings (except Sundays when it’s closed). Available anytime: Awesome shrimp creole, crawfish étouffée and atmosphere. 127 E. First Street, (228) 868-8946

3) New Orleans Seafood & Po Boy Restaurant and Vietnamese Cuisine D’Iberville

A stellar outpost of Vietnamese cooking that’s an essential stop if you’re passing by on I-10, ever. Definitely go for the banh xeo, or Vietnamese crepe. 9994 Rodriguez Street, (228) 392-6999

4) Doris’ Hot Tamales D’Iberville

Hot Tamales in the Mississippi style from a family of Sicilian origin. 10029 1st Avenue, (228) 392-0232

5) Mockingbird Café Bay St. Louis

Like the Lazy Magnolia beer you had at Shaggy’s? Mockingbird has the goods (the Southern Pecan, a nut brown ale, is a must-try) on tap from 7 p.m.-11 p.m., Thursday, Friday and Saturday. On Thursdays, they serve the now-famous Mockingburger. 110 S. 2nd St., (228) 467-8383

6) Grille Mi Crazy Biloxi

Near an entrance to the massive Keesler Air Force Base, this unassuming strip mall storefront holds an incredible surprise — good Jamaican home cooking. Run by a Jamaican native and his American wife, the oxtail and goat curry stood out — way out. Best consumed with a bottle of citrusy Ting. 1635 Pass Road, (228) 435-0866

7) Kokopelli’s Rockin’ Tamales Biloxi

Not to be confused with Mississippi Tamales. Their pork tamale wrapped in a banana leaf is the real, unadulterated deal. There are moments of authenticity on the menu, but you have to dig. Points for serving tortas, which can be good if you get them to leave the beans off. 1711 Pass Road, (228) 374-0804

8) Bankhouse Coffee Long Beach

There are large cities in this country without a roaster café as solid as this one — even the flavored brews, done up no doubt to suit the local market, have appeal. Bonus: Get your hair did in the fancy beauty salon in back. 126 Jeff Davis Avenue, (228) 868-8690

9) Pirate’s Cove Pass Christian

Po’ boys, potato salad, Barq’s root beer in bottles, plenty of local color. A must. 116 Market Street, (228) 452-4741

10) R & C Korean Restaurant Biloxi

Located in a deliciously tawdry Pass Road strip mall that contains a Mexican grocery store, a Greek joint, a Japanese grocery and a massive porno store, this friendly place serves up the usual bul go gi and other barbecue dishes, but they also take special requests for more adventurous Korean dishes. 1670 E. Pass Road, (228) 432-7666