To say that I am a food critic would be to hint that either (1) I have some special sense of taste above and beyond that of most people, or (2) that I find food to be an objectionable subject about which I would have off-putting things to say.

If you looked at my clothes closet with the rows of pants and shirts which fit me perfectly well five, 10 or 20 years ago, you would know that, rather than a critic, I am an addict, and cherish the times spent seated in front of a well-laid table above most other forms of recreation. Many of the memorable experiences of my life are connected with food, and the only criticism I can make is personal--that I remain unable to resist the temptation of a well-baked huckleberry cobbler (call 'em blueberries if you must), or a perfect gumbo, or a pot of tender collard greens cooked with pork fatback and served with a side-dish of crunchy cornbread made with stone-ground meal and a big goblet of real churned buttermilk. The finer, that is to say, the simple, things of life.

One of the earliest warnings of addiction--or at least of appreciating a completely new taste experience not encountered in my hitherto brief rural Winn Parish lifespan--came at about six or seven years of age, as a primary student at the Live Oak School on Seventh Street, below Magazine, in a mid-1930s New Orleans which exists today mostly in the Akashic records. For a nickel, one could get a plate lunch of, oh, red beans and rice, or some other local stew, at the school lunchroom, I discovered that some students preferred to go across the street to a small neighborhood store and for the same nickel get something they called a "Po-Boy Sandwich," which the proprietor made fresh on the spot. I decided to join them, and my eyes were opened. The aroma of beef roasting in some cooking appliance which I don't remember, was intoxicating. And the taste of piles of thin sliced roast beef, slathered in a pungent dark brown gravy, with a taste of what I later took to be garlic, and possibly other spices, "dressed," as they still say in New Orleans, with lettuce, tomato, and mayonnaise . . . and laid out on a half-loaf of yeasty, fresh, chewy made-in-the-local-bakery French bread, all wrapped up in a sheet of white butcher paper, was spectacular. The RC Cola, if you had another nickel, didn't hurt a thing. I don't remember the name of the store, but I dimly recall that it was something which today would sound Italian. I have eaten many po-boy sandwiches in the years since then, and once in a very great while, but only within the City, encountered that old taste. Don't even think about getting one of those in the Piney Woods. Some are close . . . but, as they say, No Cigar.

During the years since, I have accumulated a mental catalog of "Best I Ever Ate" examples of several dishes. Here are a few.

Boiled shrimp--Discovered serendipitously at a small shotgun house establishment on the waterfront on Panama City bay. Elton Pody and I had made a one-day trip from Ruston, and getting out of town, we spotted a small sign which said, simply, "Boiled Shrimp." It was by the road. We pulled off, entered through the screen door, and took a seat at the long counter. "Shrimp," we said. The counterman slid a large bowl in front of each of us, with a small canister of what turned out to be spiced melted butter, and another of horseradish sauce. The shrimp were hot, right out of the cooker. These critters had slept in the ocean recently enough that the slight tang of salt water oozed from the meaty tails. Dipped in the hot butter and touched down in the horseradish, they tasted beautiful. All shrimp since that day have been tried and found wanting.

Ham--Smokehouse-cured and skillet fried, served with a platter of fried-in-hog-lard fresh yard eggs and home-made biscuits by Mrs. George Terral while over-nighting with classmate Gene R. Terral during Dodson high school days.

Fried chicken--Home made, by my oldest daughter, Gwen Dingler of Ruston, who probably got guidance from her mother, and she from her mother, the late Isabelle (Mrs. Walt) Smith of Brister community in Winn Parish.

Dessert--That apple cake, the "classified" old family recipe for which I wrangled out of Evelyn Crow in Winnfield a hundred years ago. And Evelyn, if you're still out there--I never told a soul.

There's a delicacy I have come by more recently--yucca frita, a Cuban dish that Miriam makes occasionally when the local grocery stocks yucca. Shaped somewhat like a skinny sweet potato, it has a slick brown skin. Boiled, then cut up and fried, it is scrumptious. If word ever gets out on this one, it will blow French fries right out of the water.

Well, we're out of space . . . and I think I just heard the dinner bell. Ask me about some other All Time Favorites one day, over an ice cold mug of Corona, garnished with a slice of lime.

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