Chitlins, Part II: Robert takes a bite
By By Robert St. John / food columnist
March 5, 2003
Robert St. John is the executive chef/owner of New South Restaurant Group. His weekly food column appears in newspapers in Mississippi and Louisiana. He can be reached at robert@nsrg.com or (601) 264-0672.
As I said in last week's column, I have never eaten chitlins. So, with the hopes of broadening my culinary horizons, I went on a mission. I traveled to one of my favorite catfish houses: Rayner's Seafood House in Hattiesburg, where Kim and Mickey Rayner have been serving some of the best catfish in South Mississippi for 41 years.
Every Tuesday, they add chitlins to the menu. Always willing to try anything once, I went.
Chitlins Night
I ordered an all-you-can-eat plate of fried chitlins and a sweet tea. Sensing that I was a virgin chitlin eater, Kim Rayner asked if I wanted them "fried crispy."
Sensing Kim was a veteran chitlin server, I replied, "Most definitely YES!" I also ordered a small sampling of boiled chitlins (just to see what they look like) and an order of fried shrimp (every good businessman has a contingency plan).
In short order, Kim Rayner delivered my plate of chitlins. "How do you eat them?" I asked. "Oh, I don't eat them. But you'll be fine, just use a lot of hot sauce." I should have known right then that something smelled fishy (well, not actually "fishy").
Sitting there on the plate, chitlins looked like any number of fried foods. But there was a smell. I can't quite identify the smell, but I can report that I have never smelled anything quite like it. It is a distinct smell, make that a distinct funk.
The funk drifted up from the plate, surrounded my face and dug into my nostrils, where it kidnapped each individual pore of both sinus passages for the next 12 hours.
I went home and changed clothes, still smelled it. I washed my face, still there. I jumped in the shower lathered, rinsed and repeated still there. I had to snort two bottles of Neo-Synephrine to help deliver me from this chitlinized trip to nasal hell.
Nothing like calamari
I expected chitlins to taste like calamari. Gathering up all of the epicurean courage I could muster, I took a bite. Actually, I only ate a small piece off of one individual chitlin (singular: chitli)
Friends and neighbors, chitlins don't taste anything like calamari. I used hot sauce and ketchup on my chitli and it still didn't taste good. To me, chitlins taste like they smell. Hot sauce doesn't help.
I glanced over to the bowl of boiled chitlins. I don't know what I was expecting boiled chitlins to look like, maybe Faith Hill's legs or the seat of Jennifer Lopez's jeans. No such luck. Boiled chitlins look like, well, like … boiled intestines!
I resorted to back-up plan No. 2 and ate my fried shrimp.
I am sure Mickey Rayner cooks world-class chitlins. The restaurant was crowded, so, as chitlins go, I am sure his are outstanding. I did find out, from his wife, that Mickey is not a chitlin eater either every good businessman gives the people what they want.
There were a couple of sweet little ladies seated at a table near me. Each of them had finished off a large plate of chitlins. One lady told me to take the chitlins home and "reheat them for two minutes in the microwave."
Thanks, I'll pass.
I am not a food snob
Then the night began to turn ugly. Other customers began chiming in. One lady said she cooked them in "celery, onions, lemons, salt, pepper and carrots." "Doesn't that smell bad?" I asked. "I boil them outside, baby." Yes, but doesn't that smell bad outside?
Another nearby customer said, "There are as many ways to cook chitlins as there are cooks that cook chitlins." Yes, sir. There are also as many ways to torture small animals as there are small animals, but you don't see me doing it.
My friend Banks Norman boils chitlins in crab boil. When I complained to him about how my chitli tasted he said, "Mine taste like crab boil." "Why not just eat crabs or shrimp?" I asked. He looked puzzled for a minute and then said, "I don't know."
I am not a food snob. But, if means I will be labeled a food snob if I never eat chitlins again, then I will proudly wear that moniker like a gastronomic badge of honor.
Before this chitlin research project, I was asking myself, "How I could have lived in the Piney Woods of South Mississippi for 41 years and not eaten chitlins?" Now, I know.
Maybe I will let 41 more years pass and try them again. The year will be 2044 and I will visit the next generation of Rayner's, and eat more than one chitli. Then again, maybe I'll just have my usual, catfish and shrimp. An 82 year-old heart can't take that much stress.
