Taking A Walk

by Dwayne Phillips

I like chile relleno; I have for years. See the Wikipedia page about chile relleno. You take a green chile of one type or another, put cheese and sometimes meat inside it, batter it, and fry the whole thing. They are great.

One time in Livingston, Alabama and one time in Laurel, Mississippi I went into a Mexican restaurant and ordered a chile relleno. Never again in either Alabama or Mississippi will I do so sight unseen. What they served me was a pile of hamburger meat with cheese melted on top of it. I saw no resemblance to a chile relleno. And the thing they gave me didn’t taste good anyways. I was a little sick to my stomach later.

Perhaps there are excellent Mexican restaurants in Alabama and Mississippi. I tend to believe there are; I mean it isn’t impossible to open such a restaurant in either of these states. There isn’t a state law against it. Perhaps I stopped at the worst Mexican restaurants in both states. The odds are low, but they are greater than zero.

I will stick to catfish restaurants in those states. They have excellent farm-raised catfish in the region and they know how to fry them in a light corn meal batter. Excellent.

So, if traveling through the region, I recommend the catfish and urge you to stay away from the chile relleno.