People along the 62-mile Mississippi shoreline on the Gulf of Mexico refer to it as “the secret coast”. How such a wide and pristine expanse of beach with exquisitely fine sand can be kept a secret is a mystery not only to me, but to millions of shrimp and other seafood delicacies who inhabit the adjacent bays and bayous. All hiding in plain sight. That the name of the local Double A minor league baseball team is the “Biloxi Shuckers” should be a dead giveaway! (The Shuckers play in an intimate park near the water, and a highlight of my visit to Coastal Mississippi was seeing a game close-up while savoring a delectable ice treat from one of their vendors, Pop Brothers.)
As for cuisine, Mississippi had me at hello. My first day I found Murky Waters BBQ in Gulfport and had a bite while sitting at the bar listening to live blues. This merely whetted my appetite for ribs, pulled pork and brisket (and banana pudding for the ages) at The Shed in Ocean Springs the next night. For lunch, I had gone to Bozos, also in Ocean Springs, where $7 got me a po-boy with about 40 shrimp and a roll that had no chance of containing them all. In local parlance, “them’s good eatin’’.
My Coastal Mississippi breakfasts were just as captivating. Greenhouse on Porter has its dining area in a greenhouse (of course) where the resident cat, Marigold, was rather clever in trying to eat my granola parfait before I could get to it. Equally notable were Le Café Beignet in Biloxi and Mockingbird Café in Bay St. Louis, both neighborhoody and serving fresh local delicacies.
To be honest, I did not go to Mississippi just to eat. My visit included the Ohr-O’Keefe Museum in Biloxi, which was revelatory in that I’d never heard of George Ohr. Turns out he is the Picasso of ceramics and his life work is housed there. An equally unexpected treat came at the Pascagoula River Audubon Center, the departure point for McCoy’s River and Marsh Tour. Mr. McCoy knows every tree, critter, and rock in that spectacular ecosystem and nature’s bounty was on full display.
Back on dry land, I was wowed by Bay St. Louis, a very cool artist community replete with galleries and yes, more tempting eateries like Creole Creamery, a homemade ice cream emporium.
I guess by now I’ve blown my cover about going down to Coastal Mississippi on a foodie mission. It is certainly a wonderful destination for beach, gaming and golf… but the local cuisine is simply out of this world!