There is a hamburger in Stone County better than 90% of the hamburgers being served in this country, and it is being cooked roughly 200 feet from the cattle that died to make it.
On the back of my flagship restaurant, in letters 20 feet tall, are two words: EAT LOCAL. They have been up there for years. I meant them when I had them painted, and I mean them today.
I am a seventh-generation Mississippian. My family is here. My friends are here. My businesses are here. Those are the obvious reasons to love where you live. But for a man who has spent his life feeding people, the deeper reason is the food.
We have been Gulf-to-table at Crescent City Grill since 1987. The shrimp are Mississippi shrimp. The oysters are Mississippi oysters. The fish are pulled out of our water, and the crabmeat is picked from our crabs. That is not a marketing line. It is a 38-year practice. Our buttermilk comes from Beason Family Farms, a local dairy whose product makes our biscuits taste the way biscuits are supposed to taste. We are heading into my favorite stretch of the calendar, when shrimp season collides with blueberry and peach season and every backyard garden in the Pine Belt starts handing homegrown tomatoes over the fence. Sandy Run Farms, just outside the Hattiesburg city limits, is currently keeping us in strawberries at the Grill and at Loblolly Bakery, and blueberries and blackberries are a few weeks out.
Some of our “local” is also being made by us. Loblolly Bakery is baking the bread served at Crescent City Grill and Ed’s. The Midtowner is making casseroles for the bakery case at Loblolly. That is local too.
Then there is beef.
Beef has always been the harder honest answer for a Mississippi restaurant. Most of the great American steakhouses are pulling product out of the Midwest or out of Texas, and for decades that was the only way to put a serious cut on the plate. That is no longer true. About 30 minutes south of my hometown, on a gravel road just past Flint Creek waterpark, sits Black Jack Ranch in Wiggins, and what is happening there has changed how I think about local.
I knew my friend Rick Carter, who owns the place, had a ranch. I did not know the scale. We were visiting at an event the other night and he started telling me about his spread and the cattle on it. A few days later I drove down. You turn off the main road and drive about half a mile through pasture, past roughly a thousand head of cattle, to a barn the size of a small grocery store. The barn is part country store, part butcher counter, part hometown fair booth, and all of it is excellent.
They are selling Wagyu in every cut. Angus in every cut. Beef tallow rendered on the property. Bone marrow butter, which is one of my favorite ingredients on earth and which I had previously associated mostly with Maple and Ash steak house in Chicago. There is honey, jams and jellies, and homemade lemonade. Running the operation is a Texan named Kim, brought up from San Antonio, and she is a master class in cattle. I sat with her for ten minutes and walked out knowing more about beef than I have picked up at most of the big-city industry seminars I have flown to. Ten minutes with Kim is worth a PhD.
Here is the part most people who say the word “Wagyu” do not understand. Black Jack’s cattle are grass-fed and grain-finished, raised on open pasture in Wiggins, with no added hormones and a serious approach to herd health. What sets them further apart is what happens before the calves are even born. They are not guessing about which cows to breed with which bulls. They are using science and data from the Wagyu Associations of America and Australia to pick pairs that will produce healthier, better-tasting beef.
Two of the highest-ranked Wagyu females in the world live on that ranch. One of them, a cow named Boni 413M, holds the number one ranking in the world for marbling, which is the fat that runs through the meat and gives a steak its flavor and tenderness. Number one in the world. There is a cow in Wiggins, Mississippi who is better at her job than anybody I know is at theirs, including me.
The other cow, S Yuriko 412M, is in the top one percent on the planet for muscle, yield, and marbling. My labradoodle is named Donut. I am clearly underachieving as a pet owner. Their bull, LMR Samauri 1749J, is the son of one of the most important bulls in the entire breed. None of those rankings make a steak taste better on their own, but they tell you what kind of operator you are dealing with, and what kind of beef ends up on the cutting board at the end of the chain.
The tenderness is real, not propped up by aging tricks. The flavor has the depth of an animal that was raised right and not rushed.
I know hamburgers. I own a restaurant that specializes in them, and I have been eating them, studying them, and ranking them in my head against other hamburgers for more than six decades. There is no degree program for this. If there were, I would have a PhD. Setting aside the burgers we cook at Ed’s and at Crescent City Grill, the Wagyu smash patty at Blackjack is the best I have eaten in this state. They listed grilled onions on the menu, but I asked for them on the side because most kitchens turn out grilled onions still almost raw. These were not grilled onions. These were caramelized onions, sweet all the way through. Perfect.
There is a special sauce. They asked if I wanted it. I asked if anybody had ever said no to that question.
While I was eating, I asked Kim how they come up with the names, and she explained the registry system, and I nodded the way you nod when someone is explaining cryptocurrency. The cow is named Boni 413M. That is all you and I need to know.
I cannot think of many places in this state where the cattle are grazing a few hundred feet from the grill. It is worth the drive from anywhere in Mississippi, and probably from a few states out.
The next time I have visitors from out of state, or when my friends fly over from Europe, Blackjack will be on the itinerary. So will Sandy Run. So will the Gulf, the dock, and the bread coming out of our own ovens. Eat local is not just a slogan painted on the back of a building. It is the people doing the work down the road from you, and sometimes it is the people in the building next to yours.
I am grateful, and I am eating well.
Onward.
Meatballs
I was never a fan of meatballs until I developed this recipe for the meatballs at Tabella. Every Italian mother uses a twist or extra step specific to her recipe. I am sure that most Italians who grew up with a mother who prepared meatballs like their mother’s version best.
My mother didn’t make meatballs she cooked gumbo and curry (though not at the same time). So I grew up with an open mind as to what constituted a great-tasting meatball. This recipe is the result.
There’s nothing complicated here. Just use the absolute best ground meats you can find.
1 lb. Ground beef
½ lb. Ground veal
½ lb. Italian sausage
2 ea Eggs
1 c. Grated Romano Pecorino
2 TB Italian parsley, chopped
1 TB Minced garlic
1 c. Italian bread crumbs
6 TB Milk
1 TB Kosher salt
1 tsp Fresh ground black pepper
All-purpose flour as needed.
Mix all ingredients thoroughly by hand. Form into 2 ½ oz. meatballs. Place a large skillet on medium-high heat and pour enough olive oil to just cover the bottom of the pan. Lightly dust the meatballs in flour. Brown the outside of the meatballs, being careful not to burn them. Place on paper towels to drain excess oil and fat. At this point, they may be held under refrigeration for 4 days or frozen for 3 months.
If serving immediately, add 4 cups of Marinara (recipe xxx) and simmer until meatballs are completely cooked to an internal temperature of 160, about 30-45 minutes.
Yield: 18 2 ½ oz. meatballs
(Robert St. John is a chef, restauranteur and published cookbook author who lives in Hattiesburg, Miss.)
