I wrote for the Southern Foodways Alliance’s publication “Gravy” about a longtime soul food restaurant in Anchorage.
Here’s how the story begins:
A little before noon most days, in a strip mall just outside the gates to Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson (JBER) in Anchorage, Alaska, you can smell catfish frying.
It’s lunchtime at Mama Carol’s Soulfood Events and Catering, a family restaurant known until recently as Roscoe’s. An example of the far reaches of Southern cuisine, they’ve been serving catfish, pulled-pork sandwiches, collard greens, and peach cobbler in this northern city since 1988.
Almost all the food Alaskans eat travels at least 1,500 miles north from Seattle to reach grocery store shelves and restaurant kitchens. Since Russians built the first non-Indigenous settlement about 250 years ago, the food culture here has been influenced by waves of newcomers. Whether they came from San Francisco looking for gold or from Manila to work in the salmon canneries or from Tulsa to work in the oil patch, all of them brought a longing for the flavors of home.
Anchorage’s dining scene is now rich with restaurants that have opened to feed those cravings—from pancit to kimchi to African American soul food. Mama Carol’s is an institution whose fan base is nearly as diverse as the city itself. Its regulars include Southern service members stationed at the base.
“When my military guys come in here, that’s not with their family, they are like, ‘Oh my gosh, this tastes like home,’” said Rosalyn Wyche, who recently took over running the restaurant from her brother, Roscoe Wyche III.
Mama Carol’s is also beloved in Anchorage’s Black community, which numbers about 15,000 citizens, or roughly five percent of the city’s population.
On a fall morning, Rosalyn clicked open the front door lock to get ready for lunch customers. She also runs a beauty salon just across the street. Her phone constantly buzzes with texts from children, grandchildren, friends, and clients. Her family’s restaurant has served three generations of diners who come there to connect to the foods they miss—and to each other.
“That’s what soul food is all about, that homey feeling, that comforting mother’s love, grandmother’s love, of making things from scratch and putting it on the plate,” she said.