I was down in Florida for a week late last month, visiting family. When I left, Greensboro’s leaves hadn’t yet begun to turn. When I got back, they were a gorgeous full fall spectrum of yellow, orange, and brown and all over the ground.
Just that quickly, I went from feeling I’d made a favorite fall chowder a little prematurely to badly needing a bowl—or something to get me into the seasonal spirit. Fortunately, one of our favorite brunch spots has us covered.
The new fall menu at Lucky 32 Southern Kitchen features something among its weekend brunch offerings so simple, so right-there-in-front-of-me as a possibility this whole time, I’m infuriated that I haven’t been making it at home myself for years.
Sweet potato hushpuppies.
There it is. The answer to the great, unasked question: how do you make an essential Southern dish even more Southern?
Growing up in an Eastern North Carolina commercial fishing family, hushpuppies were like an element on the periodic table—something that had always been there and always would be, an essential building block of life. We love watching our relatives from New York and New England bite into one for the first time, their faces lighting up with that “Where has this been all my life?” look. But until this month, I can’t say it had ever even occurred to me to add another essential element—sweet potato. Shame on me.
My wife, a Connecticut native, spotted these new hushpuppies on the menu at a recent brunch before I did.
“Ooh, let’s get those!” she said.
“Really?” I said, looking at the other new menu items. “Not the Ooey Gooey Pull-Apart Bread?”
I’ve been married to this woman for 17 years, and every day I’m more convinced that she was always fated to be a Southerner.
The crunch of the first bite. The soft, sweet but subtly spiced interior. The side of sorghum butter that melts into it all perfectly, whether you’re a spreader or a dipper. I had my own “Where has this been all my life?” moment.
The true origin of hushpuppies—and their name, shared with the only closed-toed shoe Jimmy Buffett ever name-checked—is as mired in myth as most Southern staple foods. And, like most, it appears the truth goes back to the ingenuity of formerly enslaved people. Like arguments over the superiority of this fish batter and that cornbread recipe, there are regional hushpuppy preferences and plenty of pompousness over even something this simple.
I don’t know how I managed to miss this variation for so long, but I’m glad it’s there for me now as the seasons change. The universe provides—even when it’s doing it through a local brunch menu.
