A gas station culinary trail around No Man’s Land, Louisiana

Thought y’all might like these while you wait,” said my waitress, placing a red paper-lined basket on the table in front of me. Inside, a glorious heap of small, round, golden-crisp, freshly fried pickle slices. “Don’t forget the tartar sauce.” She pointed to a small pot tucked behind an extra-large piece. “Y’all enjoy!” And didn’t I just, one warm, comforting tartar-dipped bite after another. I could hardly stop, despite the feast to come.

Overexcited to be experiencing my first taste of southern hospitality in the rural Deep South, I’d gone all out with my order: a catfish sandwich, red beans and rice and a side of dam fries – the name a nod to the nearby reservoir, I later learned. “They’re topped with ranch and barbecue sauce, mustard, melted cheese and jalapeno slices. You want some? They’re real good. Trust me,” my server insisted, crouching down to add it to my order. She was right.

It was noon in sunny Louisiana, and I was having a hot sit-down lunch off Highway 473. At a gas station. The Curtis Grocery and Deli in Toro, Sabine Parish, to be exact. Behind the cashier’s desk, the quiet, no-frills dining room had filled up with families, workers and solo diners. Forest-green booth-style seating lined the wall opposite an open kitchen. Lacing the air, a hearty scent and satisfying sizzle of frying food.

Deep-fried pickles are a gas station delicacy in the Deep South

(Ellie Seymour )

I was following a 450-mile Gas Station Eats trail for five days through No Man’s Land, a landscape of pine forests in the southwest corner of Louisiana on the border of east Texas. Also known as the Neutral Strip at one time, when the newly formed US fought over the border with Spain to buy Louisiana from France, the area became a lawless western frontier when armies were withdrawn.

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There are 21 stops on the trail – gas stations, convenience stores and diners – three in each of seven southwest Louisiana parishes, serving the best of the region’s homespun southern soul food dishes. These range from seafood near the Gulf of Mexico to barbecue and traditional Southern recipes in the region’s north. Each stop is signposted, listed on the trail website and a “No Man’s Land Trip Planner” app, which includes other attractions, tours, events and more.

I walked my first Southern soul food lunch off on a stroll by the Toledo Bend Reservoir separating Louisiana from Texas roughly five miles west. This vast body of water is the largest in the South: a mecca for fishing, camping and lakefront living. Here, I found another trail stop, the Lakefront Store, home of “Maria’s famous homemade tamales”. It was a thankfully light traditional Mexican dish, made with a corn-based dough called masa and filled with, in this case, chicken and cheese.

Home of the shrimp Po Boy, New Orleans packs a flavour punch in its food

(Getty)

My Louisiana culinary adventure began eight days earlier in New Orleans, the state capital, where I had two of my first-ever gas station meals: a shrimp Po Boy – a Depression-era sandwich in a baguette – at Treme’s popular Triangle Deli and a chicken shawarma salad plate. “Locals come in every day and order the same thing. I know them well and their orders, however complicated,” said Shawarma on the Go owner Shannon, tipping me off about a new book, Thank You Please Come Again: How Gas Stations Feed & Fuel the American South, by photojournalist Kate Medley.

“The parish gas stations represent the communities they’re located in,” my tour guide Nate Prendergast, aka Dr Gumbo, said when I mentioned my trip. “Outside here, the area is well known for the quality of its meat, so you’re going to taste a real difference. Food up there is much heavier than in the city. Like boudin sausage.”

Pronounced “boo-dan”, this rich blend of cooked pork, rice, onions, peppers and seasonings stuffed into a sausage casing is delicious and a bit like haggis. “Folks eat it plain, without ketchup or mustard,” the cashier at Kartchner’s Speciality Meats in Lafayette said, as a drive-through customer ordered at the nearby hatch. It was the perfect follow-up meal to spotting an alligator during an immersive and eco-educational ride around the Atchafalaya Swamp with McGee’s.

My first official night on the trail was spent in the historic hamlet of Grand Cane, Desoto Parish, peppered with grand whitewashed homes like Cook’s Hill House. Here, I fulfilled a lifelong dream: to sit in a swing chair on a wooden porch, nursing a beer and watching the odd truck rumble past.

Light breakfast: Bacon biscuits to go at off-the-beaten-path DBs Station

(Ellie Seymour )

Gas station food shines at lunch, but the next morning, at off-the-beaten-path DBs Station – complete with red-checked table clothes – I experienced the morning rush. While workers gobbled heaving plates of sausage and grits, I grabbed a bacon biscuit – a southern-style bacon sandwich made with a light savoury scone – to eat on the go around Mansfield, where at trail stop, ShopALott, I wished I’d left room for a great-value “plate lunch” of freshly fried chicken, mashed potatoes and greens for $11.

It’s a joy to discover historic Natchitoches, pronounced “Nack-a-Tish”, the setting for the 1989 Oscar-nominated movie Steel Magnolias – and a gas station famous for its moist and sweet iced yam cake in all shapes and sizes. French Market Express is a $20m-a-year, family-run operation with 50 employees. “The yam cake started with my dad who used to make it,” owner Linda Henderson told me over a chicken salad lunch. “When he died I decided to carry on his legacy, and the rest is history. I had no idea how popular it would become! Every day we sell around 100 cakes, more during the holiday season.”

DeRidder in Beauregard Parish – the first town in No Man’s Land – was memorable for so many reasons. Barbecued brisket worth crossing the pond for at Big Thicket – “open until we run out!” – which started life as a food truck; the spooky gothic county jail, dressed for Halloween on my visit (“I’ve heard full conversations on the second floor and there’s no one there,” said my guide Marlena); Big Ds Western Wear inside an old cinema; and the Back Home Collection, a thrift shop on the trail for its homemade baked treats, including molasses cookies.

Fill ‘er up: the gas station cabin at the Pleasant Hill Campground

(Ellie Seymour)

After many a helping of biscuits, boudin and brisket later, it was fitting that I spent my last night in a cosy campground cabin decked out as a gas station. I ended my trip on several hearty high notes, with the best boudin ball – a scotch egg-sized meal in a ball – for just over a dollar, a box of melt-in-the-mouth homemade beef stew at off-highway gem, Jewel’s, and a bag of pork cracklin’ from Chadeaux’s kitchen. I was all set for the journey home.

As I drove back to New Orleans I thought about Kate Medley’s book, which spans 11 states in the American South, including a fair number in Louisiana. “I grew up in the Deep South and have known gas station food from a young age,” she told me over the phone after my trip. “For a traveller, gas stations hold great mystery. You never quite know what you’ll find inside or how you’ll be received. When you swing open the glass door, a little bell rings, and what will I find?” Hopefully, a comforting heaped basket of freshly fried pickles, to start with.

Travel essentials

Getting there

Ellie travelled to Louisiana as a guest of America As You Like It.

British Airways flies direct from London Heathrow to New Orleans. Return flights cost from £580.

Staying there

The historic boutique Frenchmen Hotel in New Orleans’ French Quarter has a tiny pool and a cocktail bar and is close to several jazz bars.

Stand-out accommodation on the Gas Station Eats trail includes the historic Cook-Hill House and the gas station cabin in the Pleasant Hill Campground in Deridder.

Read more of our best New Orleans hotel reviews