Today we discussed Roscoe and food.  I asked Mary Emma about the
     reference to hominy and sausage mentioned by Don Young in Robert
     Hull's book, SEPTEMBER CHAMPIONS.   Mary Emma said she was sure he
     fried the country sausage in patties and served it with hominy which
     would have been canned.  Mary Emma said Roscoe got his love of hominy
     from her mother who made hominy at home.  To make hominy at home, her
     mother saved the ashes from the fire to make lye.  Lye was used in
     boiling corn outdoors in cast iron pots to dissolve the outer shell on
     the corn and make hominy.   Lye was also used to make soap for washing
     and Mary Emma was especially proud of the light colored soap her
     mother used to make- most lye soap was very dark and very rough in
     composition.

     Roscoe had an enormous appetite- Mary Emma said they pickled peaches
     in half gallon jars and she could remember Roscoe sitting down and
     eating an entire half gallon jar- of course there were a lot of pits,
     but it was still a lot of food.  He also loved fried catfish
     
     

     
     which he could devour in huge quantity and usually couldn't obtain
     when he was away from the South.  She remembers his picture at
     Antoine's Restaurant in New Orleans and at Weidmann's
     
     

     
     Restaurant in Meridian, Mississippi and stories about his
     catfish eating at those two restaurants.   At that time, most catfish was
     obtained from rivers which were still relatively clean in the South.  Up
     North, rivers were industrially polluted and the catfish being a
     scavenger fish would feed off the bottom and be subject to contamination.
     Around Corinth and along the nearby Tennessee River, many restaurants
     today still feature fried catfish which is widely praised.  Today, most
     catfish are commercially raised in ponds and grain fed on soybean meal.
     Mississippi is the largest catfish producing state in the nation and now
     exports catfish all over the world.

     Another love of Roscoe's was chicken and cornbread dressing.  Roscoe
     could fry chicken himself and eat a whole chicken.  He never could
     master making cornbread to make dressing with.  Mary Emma herself had
     trouble when she lived in Indianapolis finding white cornmeal to make
     cornbread like she was used to.   Up North they used oysters and white
     bread to make dressing which was pretty alien to her.  Roscoe once
     left Corinth flying back to Indianapolis and asked Mary Emma to make
     cornbread for him which he carried back, made dressing with it, and
     invited friends over and served it.


     Mary Emma Turner Whitaker to Milton Sandy, Jr.
     Corinth, Mississippi - March 11, 1993