Feeling Good in My Mouth

Okay, I'll admit it. I grew up without pimento cheese.

But don't pity me. I talked to several people tonight who said that they didn't like pimento cheese as children and love it now.

So even if it had been available to me, who's to say I would have liked it?

That's no longer the case, which put me at tonight's screening of "Pimento Cheese, Please!" at the Hippodrome Theater, where tastings of eight pimento cheeses were on the bill.

Best of all, ticket sales benefited the Historic Jackson Ward Association so I was supporting the 'hood.

That would be the same 'hood I walked through to get to the Hippodrome.

Walking down Clay Street in front of the Corner, a lively neighborhood establishment, a guy called to me from across the street.

"Those are some good looking stockings, young lady! Be careful!"

Will do, stranger.

It was my first time in the renovated Hippodrome and I'd been looking forward to seeing the refurbished heartbeat of J-Ward.

Although we were told that the place can hold 700, with chairs for 150 set up and eight tasting tables it was a tad crowded in there tonight.

Crowded as in some people stood for the film (Andrew, I'm looking at you).

Before we got to pimento cheese, we saw a brief video by Richmond Magazine about local chefs and childhood food.

Lee Gregory talked about boiled peanuts, Mama J waxed poetic about lunches of bologna or potted meat sandwiches (both of which I ate regularly as a child) and Kevin of Black Sheep reminisced about haystacks and banana pudding.

Then we got down to the (non) meat of the matter: pimento cheese.

The filmmaker, Nicole Lang Key, is a Yankee with the unique outsider's appreciation for the South.

I first met her at a New Year's Eve party two years ago, but my best memory with her was an outing to Byrd Park summer before this past.

A small group of us were taking a picnic dinner and going to see "Porgy and Bess" one June evening

The bats began swooping at dusk, the fireflies were twinkling over our heads and she was in awe of the magic of a free summer night's entertainment in Richmond.

Let's just say she knew she wasn't in Brooklyn anymore.

It was that passion for the Southern experience that led her to make a delightful short film about pimento cheese.

And the people she interviewed in the film were every bit as passionate about it as she is.

"It feels good in your mouth."

"In the South, it may not be your first food, but it's your second."

When one interviewee mentioned Miracle Whip, the audience reacted immediately and loudly, shouting down such blasphemy.

As one woman pointed out, Southerners are just pre-disposed to like things made with mayonnaise.

And preferably Duke's; my Richmond-born father never allowed anything else in the house.

Not salad dressing.

After the film, the madness began with 150+ people racing to get to the tasting tables and see how differently eight chefs handled the classic.

The variations were huge considering that they were all pimento cheese on something.

It came on pork rinds, sweet potato biscuits, with ham, Ritz and pickles, on rye, on homemade crackers, on Captain's wafers, with meat and on crusty bread.

It was creamy, it was dry, it was spicy and it was sweet.

Bonus points go to Parkside's chef who served his on his grandmother's platters. Nice touch, I thought.

The lines to get samples quickly became long but allowed for socializing and comparisons as you inched your way to the next table.

I have to say that after a while, I got really full.

Luckily, I ran into some terrific company and spent the rest of the evening talking with them about restaurant reviews, impartiality and chefs who won't date vegetarians.

And while I didn't make up for the absence of pimento cheese in my childhood years, I think I left with a better understanding of this Southern classic and a belly full of it.

It's not my fault that that didn't happen to me by age five.

You know, they didn't mention this in the film, but I bet that kind of deprivation would border on child abuse in some parts of the South.

Pimento cheese: part of the Southern birthright, but adopted by Yankees everywhere.