Country Stores

I like country stores, not the stylized fake country stores like Cracker Barrel, but the real Mom and Pop type country store. You can find these strategically located in places not busy enough for a (ugh) convenience store yet far enough from a real grocery store to catch folks who don't want to drive into town just for a gallon of milk.

The one above, Carters Crossroads carries just the essentials that we all run out of unexpectedly sometimes. Things like eggs, milk, bread, toilet paper, beer, soda, oil, chips, etc. It is in many ways, a typical country store, yet like any outback store, it's unique in it's own way. Carter's claim to fame is the bull riding "arena" (some corral fence and wooden bleachers) that adjoin it. Every so often the store hosts bull riding mini-rodeo type events.

When I was a kid (uh oh, run!) growing up in St. Augustine, I worked every harvest season from 8th grade until my first year of college at Povia Brothers Farm. Mostly I worked in a packing house back in town, but sometimes I would drive trucks out to Elkton where the farm was located. In Elkton there was a country store called Masters (a fine Minorcan family) Grocery. It was an old wooden store building right out of a hollywood movie set.

On Fridays, the migrant workers (poor whites and blacks, not illegals back then) would get paid and they would fill that store at the end of the day to cash their checks. The nearest bank was 15 miles away in St. Augustine and these farm workers did not own cars. The store owner would stand behind his cashier as she handed out cash,with a huge pistol strapped on his hip for all the world to see.

The message was clear.

That old store is a pizza restaurant today.

My long time readers will remember this picture from an older post. I'm using it again because this is the kind of thing I usually duck into a country store for ... a snack. Country stores are a treasure chest of odd and easily consumed snacks.

You can expect to see big jars of pickled eggs, pickled pigs feet, pickles, pickled sausages on the store counter. Nearby will be all manner of dried and smoked jerky and slim jim type products plus fried pork rinds. Should you wander over to the shelves, you may see easy open cans of "potted meat" and beanie weenies.

Some country stores have a sort of mini-restaurant corner too. Down in Holey Land I stopped in a country store for lunch and had an open face roastbeef sandwich with real mashed potatoes that I still recall fondly on sleepless nights. It was amazing.

I like the smell of these combo country stores ... they always smell a little like breakfast was just cooked ... like a grandma's kitchen ... I may not be putting this into words very well, but I know I like it.

I imagine country stores are similar all over the country, even though the local foods and regional snack traditions would be different ... as it should be.

Got a favorite country store or country store snack?

For my high school buddies, Kevin and Billy, it was a Ray Charles and a moon pie.

I usually went with a strawberry Nehi ... peer pressure had no effect on me.