I’m Fixing to Go Down to the Black Belt

I’m fixing to go down to the Black Belt.

The Black Belt is an 18 county region that sweeps across South Central Alabama from Georgia to Mississippi, where the soil is black and rich and where you can almost see all the good things to eat growing.

It’s also a region of Southern storytellers, told through music, books, photography, pottery, food and quilts, where the stories are as rich as the land.

The culture is truly as rich as the land in the Black Belt, where you can still experience the true South. From prehistory, through the antebellum and the War Between the States, to civil rights, the region embodies the South. Today, this beautiful place is home to a an awakening cultural Renaissance and an emerging natural paradise.

I took a book tour down that way last week, sponsored by Black Belt Treasures (www.blackbelttreasures.com), a non-profit organization developed to showcase and promote the arts of the 18 county region.

Their mission is to help stimulate the the economy through the promotion of regional art and fine crafts, provide regional artisans a means to promote and sell their products to a larger market, and to provide arts education to area residents.

As you all are aware, I live right here in Georgia, however, I qualify as one of their own because I was born and raised there.

So late last Tuesday evening I arrived in Camden, where Black Belt Treasures’ headquarters is located, right in the heart of the Black Belt. I went to sleep that night thinking about all the good food I planned to consume at Miss Kitty’s restaurant the next day at lunch.

She always had a great big buffet of fried corn, fried okra, peas with snaps, butter beans, sweet potato pie and lots of other tasty southern dishes. But alas, it was not to be because Miss Kitty had run off and got married and closed up for the week.

However, I can tell you without any mental reservations or secret evasions, that if I were to be transformed from anywhere in the world blindfolded and sat down at Miss Kitty’s and had a spoon full of peas put into my mouth, just by the uniquely wonderful taste of it, I could tell you I was in the Black Belt.

Early last Wednesday morning as I was driving up toward Demopolis, after I crossed the Alabama River and went through Gee’s Bend, I began to see great big cat fish ponds, one after another, in manicured fields.

Between Uniontown and Demopolis I spotted where all those catfish from the ponds would eventually be heading, a sprawling processing plant, and a little further down the road I passed a another big plant where they manufactured catfish food. All this got me to wondering if there wasn’t someplace close by where a person could eat some of that fresh catfish.

Lucky for me I was taken to the Faunsdale Cafe, which was off the beaten path and the front of it kind of looked like an old abandoned store front, but it was anything but abandoned inside, where we sat down at a table with a red-and-white checkered tablecloth and got served the best catfish sandwich I ever ate.

It was hot and crusty on the outside and white and flaky on the inside, and the french fries had never seen the inside of a freezer. It was so good it made my taste buds dance a jig on my tongue.

I didn’t just eat while I was over there, I also did some work. I visited five middle and elementary schools where I did hour long power point presentations telling the kids about my books, what inspired me to write them, the wonder of reading and the art of writing.

Then we read some and have a question and answer period. In all, I presented to about 500 kids.

We also visited five different public libraries during the week.

And, oh! I almost forgot, I also did a presentation to a writing class of about 20 students at Judson College in Marion, Ala. a women’s college founded in 1838. And from the looks of some of those giant oak trees on the beautiful campus, they had been there since 1838.

The last night I was there I was able to celebrate the written word with the local book club members and dined with them at the Gainesridge Dinner Club, an antebellum home which has been converted into a restaurant, and the camaraderie and the food were unsurpassed.

I’m fixing to go back down to the Black Belt every chance I get!

“Come away with me to a place outside of time, where magic still happens and legends never die.” Kathyrn Tucker Windham.