Steel Magnolia’s Joshua Scott Jones Goes Gourmet

In this second in his series of road blogs for The Boot, Steel Magnolia's Joshua Scott Jones chronicles his transition from meat-and-potatoes lover to international foodie.

The Road (Part 2): Fine (and Not So Fine) Dining

Fine dining was never a luxury for my family and me. My idea of a "gourmet meal " was when mom would make fried chicken, mashed taters and green beans for dinner. This was more than fancy to follow up the usual bologna sandwich or hotdog for lunch.

Since I have been on the road these past two years, my pallet has been tested and I have tried a number of different things that are indigenous to, or culturally connected to, the different regions of the country/world we croon to every night. From the crab-infused dishes of the Northeast to the authentic pepper-based Mexican cuisine of the Southwest, I am always up for trying something new.

In Seattle, we had the best Thai curry that I have ever tasted at a tiny hole-in-the wall restaurant in the fish market. In New Orleans, there is nothing like a dessert of fresh black coffee and beignets after a good cup of gumbo or Cajun boiled shrimp. It's safe to say that I have tried more types of food now than most all of my friends and family.

As a kid, I will never forget the first time I tasted a pickle. I was probably around four years old and we lived in a really small town called Hindsboro, Illinois, population 400. My mom was doing dishes and whistling to a George Strait song, 'You Look So Good in Love' ... still one of my all-time favorites. She was always scolding me for being in the kitchen when she was trying clean up. It was just after lunch time and from what I can imagine, in an attempt to keep me out from under her feet, she gave me a dill pickle spear and shoo'ed me out from under the sink area. The kitchen was downstairs, and by stairs, I mean two steps that led up to a carpeted dining room area that connected the rest of our house. The front door to our house was adjacent to those stairs and there on the cold, burnt orange linoleum tile of the kitchen floor was a welcome mat where my dad's igloo lunch box and work boots were kept. I stood at the top of those stairs gazing at the green, oblong cucumber. The smell alone was enough to completely overstimulate my underdeveloped olfactory glands. This wasn't a Kosher, this wasn't a Claussen, this was one of those really strong pickles, the kind that has enough tang to make your teeth itch, if you know what I mean. At the time, my dad worked laying asphalt and pouring concrete for the town and it must have been a work day because he wasn't home. I know this because if he were home, you can bet that I would have had those boots on and would have been toting that pickle around in that damn lunch box. I stood at the top of those two enormous stairs and bit into the pickle. The taste was staggering. There I stood in the doorway licking my chops, with a face like that of someone suffering a seizure. It's a face that my mom still laughs about and describes every Thanksgiving with an over-the-top impersonation to boot.

Before all of the travel and all the dining out in new cities, trying new things wasn't one of my strong suits. I guess you could say I was a down home guy, semi-orthodox in my culinary excursions, kinda conservative, a real "meat and potatoes" person. Now, for every night we are in a different city, as the music takes us from place-to-place and city-to-city, so go our taste buds and a sort of eagerness mixed with anticipation for the next meal. This excitement doesn't stem from hunger alone, but also from the desire for new and different flavor.

To this day, nothing I have tasted for the first time stands out in my mind as did the taste of that pickle. In a way, that day is a microcosm of my life now on the road ... living, traveling and anxiously awaiting the new flavors found on the wonderful winding road of life's journey and all it has to bring.

Signing off and singing on.

Yours truly,

Joshua Scott Jones