Pinto Beans, Virginia Style
Patrick Manner, the owner of Mozelle’s, a new restaurant in the West End, called me this morning. He had been simmering a big old country ham bone as well as a pot of pinto beans all morning and was serving up pintos with a side of corn muffins for a lunch special.
He went on excitedly for 2 minutes about how he and his staff had saved the bone from a whole country ham that he had been serving in his shrimp and grits and other dishes, slowly simmered the pintos, and baked the corn muffins from scratch.
His offer to come down and try some was hard to refuse.
Mozelle’s was doing pretty good business when I went down there a little after 12:30. I promptly ordered the daily special and sat down at the bar.
For openers, I had a choice of a Caesar or house salad. I got the Caesar, and it was a good one.
Mozelle’s makes its own croutons and generously sprinkles its salad with good-quality Parmesan cheese. The homemade dressing was mighty tasty, and nice and creamy the way it’s supposed to be.
My only complaint about the salad would be that it was too much—just a teaspoon less of cheese and dressing would have lightened the effect, and the saltiness, and made the salad just about perfect.
But on to the main event. These were some good pintos.
I immediately noticed two things decidedly different about them, compared to the typical pintos served in our area. First, there was lots of meat among the beans—thin strands of tender, long-cooked country ham. Second, next to the chopped onions and Texas Pete served alongside the beans were a few chopped green bell peppers.
It turns out that the meat and the side of green peppers harken to the Southern Virginia roots of both Manner and John Phipps, one of his sous-chefs. (Mozelle’s has three sous-chefs!)
The corn muffins were interesting, too. They had a nice, sturdy crust and flattish dome across the top. They have a touch of sugar, but aren’t overly sweet. More important is their dense texture. That texture and crust come in part from the high proportion of cornmeal to flour.
Manner pointed out that these are dense because his family would always crumble them into the bowl of beans, instead of eating them separately.
I didn’t learn about how to eat the muffins until I was almost finished the pintos. I did try the green peppers with the beans, and the moist, crunchy raw vegetable made a nice contrast to the soft, hot beans—more of a contrast than I get from chopped raw onions.
So that was my lunch today, and I have to say it was a darned satisfying one. Filling, too.
Thanks for calling, Patrick.
