Miss Sippy.

 Hattiesburg, Mississippi

So the guy I talked to at the 3 crows bar in Nashville gave some stellar advice about Hattiesburg. He told me to go get Barbeque at a place called Leatha's Bar-B-Que Inn. Ohhhh man.

Okay, so Hattiesburg was a pretty bland area. Very flat, strip mall after strip mall of shit nobody needs, but people like to spend the money they earn. In places where there is nothing to do, excess strip malls exist for this purpose. They're money holes. There's nothing fun about them except for the spending of your money, which is gratifying in it's own way, but.... whatever. Not important.

The guy I talked to told me his family enters bbq competitions in the south regularly, and as such, he grew up to be a bit of a bbq snob. He told me that if I pass through Hattiesburg, amid all the bland corporate landscapes, I needed to find and try Leatha's Bar-B-Que. I took his advice quite willingly, as my drive from Nashville to New Orleans was proving to be long and boring. I grew hungry, I saw signs for Hattiesburg, seemed like a must-do. Was it ever...

I got in there and the women running the place were these heavy-set black women. An excellent start. When that's the first thing you see at a restaurant, you know you're in for some good cookin'

I sat down, and ordered a pulled pork sandwich. My waitress asked me if I had ever been there before. I told her I hadn't, and I explained the circumstances of my presence.

She told me that she was gonna get me the pork ribs instead, and if I wasn't sold on my first few bites, she'd get me my pulled pork sandwich. God damn was she right

uunnghhhh....

So, you know when people describe ribs, and they say that “the meat was falling off the bone,” and by that, in my experience, they really mean, “the meat comes off the bone with relative ease,” or something in that ballpark? Well, this meat was literally falling off the bone. I didn't use a knife, ever. I went to pick up the first rib and I pulled the bone straight out. No meat, no grizzle, not fat, nothing left on the bone. Slipped right out. I proceeded to grab my fork to separate (notice how I avoid the word “cut”) some of the meat. I spooned some of Leatha's BBQ sauce onto my chunk of meat and put it into my mouth for the most serious mouthgasm I've ever had.

Every bite was like this. Every bone in my half rack of ribs was like this. It was unreal. I also got 2 sides (comes with the meal), one of fried potatoes, and one of baked beans. The fried potatoes were okay, they were unseasoned, which I took care of with some pepper. The baked beans were amazing, I mixed Leatha's bbq sauce into them, and... wow. Best baked beans I ever ate. I know that sounds weird, but trust me.

I cleaned my whole plate, finished my drive to New Orleans, and was still ridiculously full. Worth every penny of the $18 bucks I left, tip included.

As that's literally the only thing I did in Mississippi aside from drive through ugly, barren swamplands, this will be the only thing for MS that I mention. Well done, Leatha.