Is Searching for Local Food in Nashville Snobby?

So, I ended up spending an unexpected 24 hours in Nashville, Tennessee last week. I'd only anticipated spending a few hours in Music City that day. The original plan was to meet a friend at the airport, grab a rental car and drive the 340 miles to Memphis for a couple of days of music and barbeque. But his flight was canceled until the next day (engine trouble -- a functional engine being the one thing I'm pretty sure you can count on the airline to provide these days), and so I stood at the rental car counter contemplating options.

The computer was down, so I ended up chatting for a bit with rental agent - she, with short blonde hair and an air of brisk efficiency, had that the preternaturally friendliness that can make a native New Yorker such as myself just an eensy bit nervous. I 'fessed up that I was a writer, had a few hours to kill, and asked her where she loved to eat in town, what should I be sure not to miss. "Do you know where you should go," she said, leaning over the counter conspiratorially. Oooh, this was gonna be good! I pictured a local little hole-in-the-wall with some sort of deep-fried cheese-covered loveliness, perhaps served on doilies. I leaned forward.

"Cheesecake Factory!" she says triumphantly. "Oh, I love the Cheesecake Factory!" She went on and on about it, and I smiled and nodded politely and tried to siphon some of that southern preternatural friendliness. But I was sooo disappointed! I would have loved to have visited the Cheesecake Factory when it was a small cheesecake shop in founder Evelyn Overton's basement in Detroit in the 1940s...or even their first official store, a 700 square-footer in Los Angeles in the 1970s...but I don't travel to eat something that I can get almost anywhere if I can avoid it.

Later, I considered whether I was being a bit of snob about all this. After all, I'd asked her where she liked to eat, and she'd given me an honest answer. I wonder, in fact, whether "real people," as opposed to tourists from big cities, and writers, are as excited about their local little establishments as they are about a new Macaroni Grill, Famous Dave's or Cracker Barrel. (Which, for better or worse, are certainly providing quantity of food for the dollar.) Has authentic Mom and Pop become the provenance of the upper crust?

I'm not sure what my official answer to that question is, but I can tell you that I ended up finding some great food in Nashville, across all price ranges, none of which had a thing to do with a national chain.

I had, in fact, the best coffee I've ever tasted at Marché Artisan Foods in the up and coming Five Points neighborhood in East Nashville. (Yes, the place looks like something you'd find in any up and coming urban neighborhood, but they serve Drew's Brews, a locally hand roasted coffee.) I'm not a big pancake person, but ended up practically licking my plate after a stack of buttermilk pancakes at the venerable Pancake Pantry -- sweet potato pancakes are also a big deal here.

Do not, no matter what you think your tolerance for spicy food is, order the fried chicken anything hotter than "medium" at Prince's Hot Chicken Shack and if you do, do not under ANY circumstances use the same napkin that you use to wipe the hot red crust residue off your fingers to dab your tearing eyes or running nose. (And there's a Walgreen's right across the intersection for the Shack if you need Tums or mints or a pharmacist.) An entire lunch here will run you not more than $10.

For dinner/late night, I found Cabana, near Vanderbilt University, a restaurant that serves a modern take on casual southern comfort cuisine. Try chicken sliders served on a sweet potato bun with peach preserves, fried green tomatoes with lemon pepper goat cheese, and Tennessee BBQ pulled pork on buttermilk cornbread -- all small plates -- and you might never get to the main course.

Come to think of it, I have come to one conclusion: there's really no excuse to darken the door of a national chain in Nashville. After my trip to Memphis, I came back and hung out in Nashville for a few more days and noshed around, and so can say with certainty -- these are more than a few places to score a really good meal there.

I'm still not sure if this is a snobbery, though. I will definitely need to do more research to find out.

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