Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, July 6, 1995 TAG: 9507060033
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: BETH MACY
DATELINE: DRY FORK LENGTH: Medium
The phrase ``Fix me a plate of chitterlings'' comes out sounding like, ``Fits me a plate of chittlins.''
The secondary school in this tiny Pittsylvania County crossroads (eight miles from Danville, 30 miles from Martinsville on Va. 718) is Climax High School. Definitely don't pause to wonder about the school mascot.
And don't ask why Roanoke fitness consultant Jim Grube took me on a recent two-hour trek to the H&C Family Restaurant in Dry Fork, or how many calories are in a single fried chitterling, or whether it really is possible to cut a boiled chitterling with a steak knife.
My thighs are still recovering from the experience.
Tall, tan and lean as steamed asparagus, Jim Grube eats Grape Nuts cereal for lunch most days and professes to work out 250 days a year. He is also the husband of another well-known skinny person, Hollins College President Maggie O'Brien.
He knows the buzzword for when you're covertly typing at work while talking to someone on the phone (``multi-tasking,'' and he thinks it's rude).
He can calibrate your body-fat content. He's an anti-cholesterol crusader. He's a former coach of lacrosse, and the only person I know who knows the rules of the game.
And now this Cholesterolic Coming Out: Fitness guru Grube likes his grub deep-fat and deep-fried.
``On occasion,'' he says.
``Under the right conditions.''
And so he has prepped for the H&C dining experience, Stairmastering and treadmilling the pre-grease guilt away. He's a student of comfort food, eager to share what he's learned.
He even has a file on the subject, containing such morsels as the New York Times clipping, ``Man Steals Calzone And Stabs Six Men After He Is Chided''; his own personal Diet Logic philosophy (cookies have fewer calories if you break them up before eating); an original menu from Salem's Bee Bum Cafe; and an essay called ``Road Kill Cooking.''
I feel like I've just broken the Watergate story.
Or call it Chittlingate, since that's what this trip is about - uncovering the mysteries behind the H&C's much-revered chitterlings.
For example, what is a chitterling?
``They're pig intestines is what they are,'' says Carol Yeatts, the ``C'' behind the H&C and the cook behind the grill, except on Mondays. That's all-you-can-eat chitterlings night ($7.95 - you pay them), when 76-year-old Sybil Byrd comes back from retirement to fry the breaded beasts. Her chitterlings are known for miles around; customers sometimes call ahead just to make sure Sybil's manning the pot.
``When we first started fixin' 'em, I thought I'd die; they smell awful,'' Carol recalls. ``I didn't think I could fix one to save my life, but Sybil said she'd show me.''
Next question: What does a chitterling smell like?
A dog who's rolled in something dead. Next.
How do you eat them?
By smothering them in vinegar and, no, they don't taste like chicken.
And finally, what does the ``H'' in H&C stand for?
Carol's husband, Harold, who started the fabulously successful restaurant in 1973. The first restaurant in the county to offer drive-through services, H&C also lays claim to entertaining the Dry Fork Ladies Rook Club for lunch on Wednesdays.
``My dad would make a real good investigative reporter,'' says Harold's son, Dewey Yeatts. ``You'll walk in to get a hot dog, and he'll know who your grandmother's first cousin was.
``Chances are, before you leave, he'll have you kin to us.''
It should be noted that Grube downed a plate of fried chicken, cornbread, mashed potatoes, really incredible corn pudding and TWO desserts.
Then and only then did he request a sampling of a chitterling for each of us.
We lobbed vinegar onto the fried innards, eyeing each other cautiously. H&C hovered around our table, eagerly awaiting our response - and eliminating the possibility of stashing the food under our plates.
Grube, who is from Vermont, forked his first bite.
I broke my time-honored no-organ-meats tradition and sampled one myself.
Out of respect for H&C, this reviewer declines to comment on the taste of a chitterling. Except to say:
The meatloaf alone is worth the two-hour drive (90 minutes if you don't get lost). And on the way, be sure to stop by the Maynard Amos Grocery, a century-old general store in the community of Worlds.
There you will find charming wood floors, washboards for sale, dusty boxes of Close-Up and Efferdent, and the somewhat irascible Maynard Amos, who will try to sell you a wash bucket with a lid just so he can tell you what it is (``an inside toilet'').
I asked Maynard if he'd ever had chitterlings.
``Yeah, I got two,'' he said.
``A boy and a girl.''
Tell H&C that Grube sent you.
And don't forget to climb the Stairmaster first.
by CNB