Remembering Miss Rhoda
The recent death of Rhoda Adams at age 85 brought back warm memories of Arkansas’ tamale queen. I remember that stormy Tuesday night in the spring of 2017 when she sat in the swank lobby of the Ron Robinson Theater in Little Rock’s River Market District. Adams was flanked that night by Lake Village Mayor JoAnne Bush and former state Rep. Sam Angel.
Adams rarely left southeast Arkansas. Bush and Angel made sure that the lady everyone knew simply as Miss Rhoda was in the capital city for the inaugural induction ceremony of the Arkansas Food Hall of Fame. When a group of us came up with the idea of this ceremony, it was determined that only three restaurants would be inducted each year.
In addition to Rhoda’s Famous Hot Tamales, other members of the inaugural class were Lassis Inn of Little Rock and Jones Bar-B-Q Diner of Marianna. The three restaurants specialize in tamales (Rhoda’s), fried fish (Lassis Inn) and pork barbecue (Jones), three staples of the rural Arkansas diet, especially in the Delta.
It didn’t dawn on the selection committee until after the fact that all three restaurants were Black-owned establishments. I’m happy it worked out that way. It’s a powerful symbol of how food can bring people together in a state that too often has been divided along racial lines.
People came from across Arkansas, Louisiana and Mississippi to eat with Adams, whose daughter still runs the restaurant. She served her tamales for more than 40 years, often selling them out of the back of her car along U.S. 65 in McGehee, Dumas and other southeast Arkansas towns. Private planes sometimes flew into Lake Village, shuttling Little Rock executives to lunch.
Adams once told me that by the time she was making 25 dozen tamales a day, her husband bought her a machine. Adams had almost 60 grandchildren and great-grandchildren. She would regale those eating lunch with stories about her family and past encounters with the rich and famous in her humble restaurant. Listening to those stories was part of the charm of eating lunch with Adams.
Nationally known food writer Michael Stern once noted: “Beyond tamales, the menu is a full roster of great, soulful regional specialties. For fried chicken or pigs feet, barbecue or catfish, you won’t do better for miles around. Early one morning, Rhoda made us a breakfast of bacon and eggs with biscuits on the side. Even this simple meal tasted wonderful.
“Rhoda is one of those gifted cooks who makes everything she touches something special. We’ve always considered Arkansas one of America’s top seven pie states (along with Iowa, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Virginia, Texas and Maine). Rhoda’s pies are proof. She makes small individual ones. … Her sweet potato pie and pecan pie are world class.”
Meanwhile, Jones and Lassis Inn are the only two Arkansas restaurants to win a coveted James Beard Award.
The folks at the Southern Foodways Alliance believe Jones might be the oldest continuously operated Black-owned restaurant in the South. Current owner James Harold Jones says it started with his grandfather’s uncle more than a century ago. His grandfather and father continued the family tradition of slow-smoking pork over hickory and pecan wood. Jones’ father moved the restaurant to its current location in 1964.
The methods of cooking barbecue, preparing slaw and mixing sauce haven’t changed in more than a century.
A single nail holds the Beard Foundation’s America’s Classics Award above the window where the man locals call Mr. Harold takes orders. In fine-dining restaurants, such an award would be in a lighted glass case. The finely chopped pork, smoked just behind the small kitchen, comes with vinegar-based sauce and mustard-based slaw. It’s served on two pieces of white bread rather than on buns.
In a small wooden building near where Roosevelt Road passes under Interstate 30 in Little Rock, Elihue Washington Jr. cooks up some of the state’s best fried fish (catfish and buffalo) at Lassis Inn. Unfortunately, the restaurant has been closed most of this year due to family illnesses.
Lassis Inn’s roots date back to 1905 when Joe Watson began selling sandwiches out of his house. He later added fish to his menu, and sales soared. In 1931, Watson moved the building that houses his business to East 27th Street and named it Lassis Inn in honor of his wife Molassis.
Washington bought the restaurant in 1990 and became known for buffalo ribs (the fish, not the mammal), catfish steaks and catfish filets. Lassis Inn has a fine selection of songs on its jukebox, but a sign on the wall declares there will be no dancing.
Before the pandemic began in 2020, I received a call from famous food writer John T. Edge. He sounded desperate. Edge had convinced Beard Foundation officials to award an America’s Classics Award to Lassis Inn. It’s the same award Jones won in 2012. Each time foundation representatives tried to call the restaurant, Washington would see the out-of-state area code, figure someone was trying to scam him and hang up.
I’m always looking for a reason to eat Washington’s fried buffalo ribs, so I told Edge I would deliver the good news in person and urge my friend to take the call. Washington was scheduled to accept his award at a gala celebration at the Lyric Opera in Chicago on May 4, 2020. The onset of the pandemic changed that.
Lassis Inn still benefited from the publicity. The upscale Southern magazine Garden & Gun reported in early 2020 that it had been “jam-packed by lunchtime every day since the announcement.”