photograph by michael donahue
Betty Joyce “BJ” Chester-Tamayo at Alcenia’s
When I hear the word “soul,” especially in Memphis, my mind goes to either food or music. “Soul food,” on the other hand, is a combination of food and music. It conjures up glistening baked chicken thighs, golden yellow squash, savory collard greens, and buttery peach cobbler with just the right amount of dough and fruit. And the food is set against a background of earthy vocals by blues singers like the late R.L. Burnside and Junior Kimbrough.
I recently revisited several Memphis soul food restaurants, where I knew I was going to find delicious, filling fare unique to this type of restaurant. The food as well as the places themselves would be redolent with soul.
First, though, I began by asking Martha Foose to tell me what she considers soul food, and what sets it apart from other types of cuisine. Foose, who describes herself as a “Southern culinary enthusiast,” is a James Beard Award-winning author, whose cookbooks include A Good Meal Is Hard to Find and Screen Doors and Sweet Tea.
“I just don’t think the world needs to see another chicken tender. What it does need is more salmon croquettes and buffalo fish and turkey necks.” — Martha Foose
“I think soul food is when somebody’s made something to share with care,” Foose says, adding, “Just taking something regular and turning it into something special. Like a butter roll. A Vietnamese place can be a soul food joint. It’s just wherever there’s that level of care and comfort and sincerity. To me, sincerity always wins the day.”
Foose, who lives in Hattiesburg, Mississippi, would like to see more soul food restaurants and fewer generic, soul-less places. “I just don’t think the world needs to see another chicken tender,” she says. “What it does need is more salmon croquettes and buffalo fish and turkey necks.”
Even the building or space that houses a soul food restaurant, which many times is small, is important, Foose says. The food is “made with sincerity. And it came from such a tiny place. Tiny places, a lot of times, have the biggest spaces in people’s hearts. Or their remembrances. Or what they find comforting.”
Foose noticed one chicken franchise added the old Southern favorite, “come back sauce,” to its menu. “The way you’re seeing big chains and stuff trying to come off as somewhat sincere, generally doesn’t work.”
“Taken from nothing and made into something”
I began my culinary journey at a small soul food restaurant I’ve visited several times. Alcenia’s, at 317 North Main Street, is a colorful place in every sense of the word. Orange chairs are set against light blue walls. And the owner, Betty Joyce “BJ” Chester-Tamayo, is as colorful as her delightful restaurant.
In a 2018 interview I did with her for the Memphis Flyer, Chester-Tamayo told me, “I think my life is not brown and beige. I’m not a brown and beige person. I’ve always been that flamboyant person that just loves fashion.” On my recent visit she asked me whether an oversize, puffy white wig or a long, orange-colored wig would be best for the photograph I would take of her.
She’s been on the Food Network four times. Her restaurant, which she named after her mother, the late Alcenia Clark-Chester, was voted one of the 200 places to visit in the United States by The New York Times.
When I left, Chester-Tamayo gave me one of her trademark hugs. Hugging each other is something her family does, she says. It’s just natural — from the soul.
I asked Chester-Tamayo to give me her definition of soul food. She describes it as “a food that was taken from nothing and made into something. Something that was given to the slaves as a form of evilness.” This would include chitterlings and, probably brains. “The worst part of an animal. That’s what was given to the slaves. They gave them something they didn’t want. That they discarded, but they took it because that’s all they had to survive.”
Chester-Tamayo, whose cookbooks include Alcenia’s Healing the Soul: Autobiography Cookbook, and Soul 2 Soul from Alcenia to the World, uses her mother’s recipes as well as her own. She never cooked growing up. But she did wash dishes.
Born in Meridian, Mississippi, she graduated from LeMoyne-Owen College in May 1996. That August, her son, Will A. “Go Go” Tamayo, died in a motorcycle accident. His daughter, Alcenia Tamayo, was born in March 1997.
She first opened her business as Alcenia’s Desserts and Preserves Shop in 1997. But customers kept asking for soul food like greens and chitterlings. So, Chester-Tamayo called her mother, got some recipes, and went shopping.
I had the best baked catfish I’d ever eaten on my recent visit. It was seasoned with lemon pepper and a blend that included rosemary and garlic. The succulent fried chicken, too, was perfectly seasoned. She also served me a peach crumble: delicious.
When I left, Chester-Tamayo gave me one of her trademark hugs. Hugging each other is something her family does, she says. It’s just natural — from the soul.
photograph by michael donahue
Patrice Thompson at the Four Way Restaurant.
“Make you feel warm and fuzzy”
Next stop was The Four Way Restaurant at 998 Mississippi Blvd. This is the local place most Memphians think of when considering soul food. From the outside, it looks smaller than it really is. Tables are spread out, and walls are dotted with memorabilia, including old newspaper and magazine stories about the restaurant. Photographs include Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Little Milton, and Congressman Steve Cohen.
I asked owner Patrice Thompson her definition of soul food. “Soul food, for me, is food that is cooked by someone who’s cooking with love and compassion,” she says. “And something that’s going to fill your bellies and just make you feel warm and fuzzy.”
I ordered a heaping plate of baked chicken, collard greens, and yams. Everything was perfect. My drink was called the “VIP” — a mixture of lemonade and sweet tea.
“I remember the day we opened there were people everywhere. We didn’t have enough employees to service everybody. We had some faithful people that stayed and waited tables. My dad grew up in Memphis and they knew him and wanted to help. Customers served the first day, and I would say into the first week. It was crazy.” — Patrice Thompson
Thompson’s parents, the late Willie Earl Bates and the late Jo Ellen Bates, bought the restaurant in 2001. It had originally opened in 1946 by Clint and Irene Cleaves. I remember the old Four Way radio commercials that featured Irene describing their food as “rightly seasoned.”
A native Memphian, Thompson began cooking when she was in the fifth grade. She learned how to fix spaghetti, using the same recipe she uses today, with some tweaking. She described that dish to me in a 2020 interview for the Memphis Flyer. “A lot of people don’t put a lot of meat in their spaghetti, but our sauce is very hefty when it comes to meat,” she says. “It truly is a meat sauce. We use ground beef and plenty of fresh seasonings and dry seasonings that just bring the flavor out. A lot of people put sugar in their spaghetti. I don’t do that.”
Her dad kept the original name of the restaurant. Well, most of it. For legal reasons, he dropped the “Grill” and made it “The Four Way Restaurant,” Thompson says.
They didn’t have a lot of the Cleaves’ old recipes but managed to find a couple of them. Most of the recipes they use today are Bates family recipes.
The restaurant was an instant success, which surprised her dad, Thompson says. As she said in the Flyer interview, “He probably didn’t expect it would take off that quick. So, we were kind of bum rushed.”
And, she said, “I remember the day we opened there were people everywhere. We didn’t have enough employees to service everybody. We had some faithful people that stayed and waited tables. My dad grew up in Memphis and they knew him and wanted to help. Customers served the first day, and I would say into the first week. It was crazy.”
I asked Thompson if any changes have been made at The Four Way.
“We have Saturday brunch, which starts at 10:30 every Saturday,” she says. “We feature things like shrimp and grits. We have an amazing fried green tomato BLT.”
photographs by michael donahue
Left to right: Stacey Thompson, Peggy Brown, and Rashondrea Alston at Granny’s Southern Kitchen. Below: Their smothered chicken.
“Old-school recipes from generations”
My last stop was Granny’s Southern Kitchen, formerly Peggy’s Healthy Home Cooking, at 326 South Cleveland Street.
Peggy Brown, founder of the restaurant, says she let her granddaughter, Rashondrea Alston, take over after medical problems made it too hard to work. “I could hardly move,” she says. “I was in rough shape, in the hospital for a while.”
Her daughter urged her to get out of the restaurant business. So, Brown told her granddaughter, who already been working there for two years, “I signed it over to you.” Alston took over the restaurant about five or six months ago.
“Soul food is food that was made from scratch. Not out of a can or a bag. None of that. It’s old-school recipes from generations. It comes down from generation to generation.” — Peggy Brown
The food remains the same as when Brown owned it. “It’s still my recipes,” says Brown. “She hasn’t changed them. I had to write the recipes and give them to her.” Brown isn’t completely detached from the business, saying, “I still go down to the restaurant and do some cooking.”
Of course, I asked Brown to give me her definition of soul food.
“Soul food is food that was made from scratch. Not out of a can or a bag. None of that. It’s old-school recipes from generations. It comes down from generation to generation.”
Brown, who grew up on a farm in Arlington, Tennessee, remembers her first kitchen duty at home: cutting out biscuits with an empty mackerel can when she was little. She went on to work at the old Shelby Restaurant on Summer, as well as a Chinese restaurant, a doughnut shop, and a Shoney’s. She eventually went to work with noted chef/journalist Burt Wolf at Chez Philippe at The Peabody.
In 1996, she opened her own restaurant, Heavenly Hash. She then opened her first Peggy’s Healthy Home Cooking in North Memphis before eventually moving to Cleveland Street. As she says in the Flyer interview, “I think God gave us all a gift. And I think my gift was cooking.”
photograph by michael donahue
Lunchtime at the Southern Eatery in Holly Springs.
Finally, if you want to drive out into the country for soul food, my suggestion is Southern Eatery in Holly Springs, Mississippi. The restaurant, owned by Katrina Washington, is open between 10:30 a.m. and 3 p.m. every day. It’s a buffet loaded with selections, including baked and fried chicken, yams, squash, green beans, and black-eyed peas.
Here’s the best part: It’s all you can eat.
Which, by the way, is just fine with Foose: “When you get to the pearly gates, I think St. Peter looks at you and says, ‘Welcome to all-you-can-eat soul food.’”
