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Earlier this month I was eating my way around Tennessee and southwestern Kentucky with some pals; the intrepid Peter Engler, occasional Reader contributor Kristina Meyer, and the captain of the ship, Rob Lopata. A large part of our itinerary was inspired by John T. Edge’s great and passionate book Southern Belly, though we made a few discoveries on our own. I’ll be reporting on some of what we did in this week’s Omnivorous column, and they’ll be posting even more extensive field reports in the coming weeks over on LTHForum. But there was one meal on that trip that I just can’t stop thinking about: meat and three at Arnold’s Country Kitchen in Nashville.
Inside, founder Jack Arnold’s son Khalil was working the roast beef station carving piles of juicy, garlicky meat onto plates. It was the top of the lunch rush, and the place was packed but he had the presence of mind to scold the server who plated my fried green tomatoes on top of my green beans and mac and cheese, instead of on a side plate. “They’ll get soggy,” he snapped, displaying the same irritable but exacting attention to detail his old man is famous for.
