'Everything Is Special' at Big Momma's

June 29, 2007 — -- This restaurant review begins not in a restaurant, but in a pot of collard greens simmering on the stove of Mattie Jones' kitchen. Our "Nightline" team -- yours truly and ABC legal correspondent Jan Crawford Greenburg-- was in Louisville, Ky., reporting a segment about the Supreme Court's landmark decision banning the use of race in determining which schools students can attend.

Mattie Jones is a lifelong civil rights activist whose children, and grandchildren, all rode school buses across town from predominantly African-American west Louisville to the eastern suburbs.

Yet, all the time we were taping our interviews, the smell of the simmering greens wafting through the house kept reminding us we hadn't eaten all day. By the time we were ready to leave, Mattie's grandchildren had happily devoured every bite.

So Jan -- who was born and raised in rural Alabama -- finally asked Mattie, "Where can we get some good food to eat?"

"What are you hungry for?" Mattie asked. Eyeing the empty pot on the stove, Jan blurted out, "Greens!"

"Turn right at the corner and another right on West Broadway," she instructed. "Go down Broadway 'til it ends and you'll see Big Momma's on your left." That's where we also found 7-year-old Michael Sloan, who became our restaurant guide, because, as he happily explained, "I know Big Momma. She goes to my church."

Michael and his playmates, 6-year-old Adriana Banks and 10-year-old Makesha Williams, all agreed that the cornbread was a real treat.

"It tastes like cake," Makesha explained. All three also recommended the chicken, both baked and fried, but especially highly touted was the macaroni and cheese.

"Who makes better mac and cheese," I asked Michael. "Your grandmother or Big Momma?"

"Who do you think?" he replied, dismissing the question with a roll of his eyes as he led us to Big Momma's door, all the while providing a constant patter of endorsement. "This restaurant is the best. They got everything. Everything is special. Big Momma's is the only restaurant I would like to stay in. I would like to work here."

Big Momma's is housed in a single-story white-washed building at the end of a row of tidy brick houses. On the parking apron/patio outside, there are a couple of picnic tables supplementing the limited seating inside, which consists of half a dozen stools lining a narrow counter that parallels a plexiglass-covered wall behind which gleaming silver trays of Big Momma's fare are invitingly displayed.

The décor is sparse, too. A giant aquarium fills most of the wall perpendicular to the counter and tucked in the corner a TV is mounted.

On the wall above the plexiglass "sneeze" barrier, the regular specials are neatly painted below the days of the week. Big Momma's is open Monday through Friday from noon to 7 p.m.

We arrived on a Tuesday, so the specials included fried pork chops smothered in gravy, meatloaf and mashed potatoes, fried chicken, green beans mixed with great chunks of ham, okra and lima beans and of course, cornbread. Though cornbread is available every day, sadly, greens are only on the menu Sundays.

Big Momma, whose real name is Jessie Davis, appeared at the door leading to the kitchen area that takes up most of the building and smilingly explained to Jan that cooking greens "is a lot of work."

Davis, who got her start cooking mass quantities at church, rises every day at 5 a.m. and is at her eatery by 6:30 a.m. preparing for the noontime opening. On Sundays, that routine includes cooking five bushels of greens which sell out in two or three hours.

Though she is not very big at all, Davis explains with a shrug of her shoulders that the neighborhood children, like Michael, stuck her with the moniker "Big Momma" long before when she "was kinda heavy." When she opened her restaurant in 2004, after cooking for people out of her house for several years, she adopted the name.

"Everything is special," she said of her fare, and proudly boasts that "everything is made fresh. All from scratch." She generously shared her recipe for "apple dump," made from cut-up Granny Smith apples, cinnamon, brown sugar, white sugar, melted butter and a crust of cake mix, all "dumped together."

Big Momma insisted we try it, scooped hot from sizzling pan that had at least a half-inch of melted butter and sugar on the bottom.

We also sampled another of Big Momma's special desserts: Big Red Cake, a frozen confection of Big Red Cola, vanilla and whipped cream that one of her assistants declared was "the most popular dessert in Louisville."

Before we left Big Momma's we had also tried the cornbread, which, as advertised, was cakelike in consistency and richness. We both ate the green beans and ham as well as the okra with lima beans. All the vegetables dripped with rich, buttery flavor and Jan -- whose own mother is a peerless cook -- said that even in Alabama, she had never tasted okra quite so deliciously prepared.

Later that day, our intrepid "Nightline" team ventured to Louisville's upscale Fourth Street pedestrian mall, lined with themed restaurants featuring every kind of food imaginable all supposedly marinated in Kentucky's famed bourbon.

At one posh establishment, we ordered from a wildly overpriced menu. Jan's New York strip looked stringy and inedible, which she later confirmed. I picked over a salad awash in a watery Blue Cheese dressing that must have been squeezed from a bottle. The Fourth Street dining experience was not worthy of a "Nightline" Taste of the World review.

However, it did reinforce our impressions of Big Momma's: a true oasis of lovingly prepared home cooking that delivers great taste at a great price.

Since Big Momma's is principally a carry out -- judging by the steady stream of customers who nearly emptied the pans of food during our mid-afternoon hourlong visit -- we decided we couldn't give it a "five light bulb" rating of perfection. So, counting the votes of Jan Crawford Greenburg, myself and our guide, Michael Sloan, we have to rate Big Momma's a solid four light bulbs.