FOUR IF BY SEA

History With a Side of Hushpuppies

BY AMANDA MCDANEL

TWO UNASSUMING, UNLABELED CONDIMENT JARS SIT ON THE TABLE: One contains a thick brown jelly, while the other houses a medley of chopped picked peppers and vegetables. Identifying them and their respective uses is like an entrance exam to Southern culture for anyone new to the sort of dining group where “Can you pass the chow chow?” is either met with a quick reach or a look of bewilderment.

This table in a towering farmhouse called The Homeplace Restaurant always remains the same in my memories. Sitting picturesquely atop a hill at the end of a long driveway flanked with fruit trees, the gravel drive crunches under the tires of approaching cars and the view of a distant pond from its expansive front porch is unchanged.

The same, too, is the inside of The Homeplace, with its creaking floor, its round wooden tables, and its indelible scent of fried chicken. The same weathered faces greet us every time, and the merriment quickly commences – a family-style passing of overflowing bowls and platters, the squiggling of little bodies trying to sit properly in the chairs, and the infectious sound of Aunt Frieda’s laughter.

For more than 35 years, The Homeplace in Catawba, Virginia, was the epicenter of my family’s celebrations. An aunt or uncle’s birthday always meant a trip to The Homeplace, and if an impromptu family member came into town, we headed there, too. Even after a funeral, the whole family trekked the 30 minutes out of town to share a meal together in that grand old farmhouse. Its views of the Blue Ridge Mountains, the warm servings of peach cobbler and the love that gathered around those tables were as impactful to my childhood as any family vacation to Myrtle Beach or Disney World.

My grandparents’ 50th wedding anniversary celebration was held inside those four walls. My first love joined the table during my high school years, and when I went off to college, that was where I introduced my family

to my Yankee college boyfriend (and introduced him to the Southern relish condiment known as chow chow). Later, when I met my now-husband, we also faithfully traveled six hours to visit my hometown together for the first time and broke bread with my parents over a basket of Homeplace biscuits smeared with another Southern condiment staple, apple butter. Much of my family history is tied to The Homeplace, and whether the owners knew as much, is irrelevant. They saw families come and go, year after year, and in testament to the 38 years that they ran the establishment, I imagine that they had to have known just how much a simple shared meal made such an impact on so many families’ lives. When I learned that The Homeplace closed in 2020 due to the pandemic, a In a culture piece of my heart shattered. They hadn’t only been cooking up green beans and where so many mashed potatoes there, they’d been traditions are nourishing a legacy. In a culture where so many traditions created around are created around food, nearly food, nearly everyone has a everyone has a similar type of memory rooted in certain meals. Whether it was your grandma’s pralines, your similar type of father’s clam chowder, or the memory rooted in way Mike Kelly held open the doors of his original certain meals. Nags Head restaurant to greet you with the scent of fresh sweet potato biscuits. Here on the Outer Banks, the restaurants are as much of an attraction as our beaches, too. Whether you grew up here and ate at several old-school locations like A Restaurant by George, Papagayo’s, or Seafare, or you’re a visitor who has to get their annual fix of Tortuga’s coconut-lime chicken, the cake-like cornbread from Basnight’s Lone Cedar Café, or a bushel of crab slough oysters from Billy’s Seafood, the nourishment you receive at so many of these establishments can be as restorative as the ocean waves.

My time on the Outer Banks is particularly intertwined with another popular local haunt. One of my first summers here, I was working at Birthday Suits in Kill Devil Hills when I heard that the Fish Market sold to two guys who used to work down the road at Quagmire’s. That summer Kwan Gray and Kevin Cherry opened the doors at Mama Kwan’s, and I found myself seated at their bar on opening night, where I danced away the wee hours along to a late-night DJ. From that day forward, they fed me lunch in the form of Garbage Plates, quenched my thirst with Bushwackers, and entertained me with stories of Japanese infomercials.

When a friend came into town to visit, I inevitably took them to Mama’s for fish tacos. Want to pregame a night that ends up in a hotel hot tub? Mama’s. Looking for a place to go on a very important third date? The front corner of the bar at Mama’s…which is also where my future husband bought us one of our first dinners. And even as Mama Kwan’s celebrated its 20th anniversary this past year, there’s still nowhere else my 11-year-old daughter would rather enjoy a burger and cucumber salad while her dad and I regale her with stories of our early romance.

So, to all my local restaurant friends during this busy lead up to the summer months with visitors aplenty: When the hours feel relentless and you’re dreaming of the Septembers of old, please remember the vital importance of your work. You aren’t just slinging burgers and beverages, after all – and someday, even if it’s 30 years later, someone will wax poetically about you over a second round of beers, sharing the kinds of stories that will go on to feed yet another generation of family memories.