Cruising Through Coastal Mississippi

Oct 16 at 9:41 AM

Cruising Through Coastal Mississippi

"Downtown Reading. That's a throwback." "Is it really?" I asked. I was 21, temping for the summer, and my boss-of-the-week had told me that my own hometown was remarkable. "It's something special. You don't see a lot of towns like that anymore." I hadn't thought of it that way. Growing up in a Massachusetts town founded in 1644, it's easy to assume that all American towns have a compact, walkable downtown with cute buildings, a common, and several striking churches. Then once I started traveling through California, Texas, and the southwest, I started realizing that American towns like these are actually quite rare. These days, you're more likely to find modern layouts and strip malls surrounded by giant parking lots. Want walkability? Head to a mall or shopping center.

Biloxi

Everywhere you go on the Gulf Coast, there is a palpable sense of "before" and "after." The event of which people speak, of course, is Hurricane Katrina. It's hard to imagine a single natural disaster that has impacted a greater swath of the American landscape than this one. It's been nearly a decade since Katrina. Development has been slow. Damage is still visible. And no matter how hard the Gulf Coast pulls ahead, it's still there, bleeding into the present.

Half Shell Oyster House

"Excuse me," drawls a voice at the table behind me. "Oh, I'm sorry," I say, moving my chair in so she can get by. "Oh, honey, I meant me. You're faaaaaaahn." She smiles. "Your ahhhhhs are beautiful." This is a recurring theme of my time in the South - people apologize ahead of time (not unlike the British) and follow-up by complimenting you immediately (quite unlike the British). Half Shell came highly recommended by Amit from the Country Inn in Ocean Springs. Being a huge oyster fan, I was eager to finally try some Southern-style charbroiled oysters, though I wondered if I would actually enjoy them. I love eating raw oysters with a bit of lemon, horseradish, a drop of tabasco, and plenty of cool, ocean-y water dripping beneath the flesh.

The Shed

When nearly every local tells you that you need to go to a certain barbecue joint, you listen to them. In this case, it was The Shed, a local family-owned barbecue joint that now has its own show on Food Network. The place looks like it was thrown together out of pieces of garbage - and yes, it actually was thrown together from salvaged objects. But it works in a ramshackle way.