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ROUSES.COM
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t’s not uncommon to see little quail
families trotting along the side of the
road in Tylertown, Mississippi, mom
in the front, a row of babies following
behind. Chef Slade Rushing recalls one
such Sunday encounter. “We were driving
home from church when my dad spotted
a covey of adult quail walking next to the
road. He got out of the car in his Sunday
suit and cowboy boots, popped the trunk,
grabbed his 12-guage, and boom-boom-
boom-boom-boom-boom, he took out six
quail. We had them that day for supper.”
Mississippi quail is a popular selection in
Rouses Butcher Shop, especially around the
holidays. It’s available semi-boneless and
deboned.“People expect quail to have a liver-y
flavor like dove or wild duck,” says Rushing,
“but it has more of a red meat flavor.”
Tylertown is near the city of McComb,
where Rushing was born. The area has
the perfect climate and environment for
bobwhite quail, with its hills and hollows
(or “hollers” as Rushing calls them), trees
(timberland, pine and oakwood), and fields
of hay. “The quails like to nestle in the hay
fields. You roam the hollows and when you
hear them, you can send a bird dog in to
wrestle them out of the grass.”
Rushing’s father Doug, owned a real estate
company with offices in Tylertown and
McComb. “He knew everyone in the state
of Mississippi and most of Louisiana, too.
He did some business with Donald Rouse
and was very proud of the grocery’s success.”
Doug Rushing taught Slade and his two
older sisters and older brother how to fish and
hunt. “Every time dad got a property listing,
he’d finagle the hunting rights with it, or
the fishing rights if they had a pond.” Quail
hunting lessons started at a young age. “I
probably went quail hunting for the first time
when I was eight. I had a 4-10 single shot
— it’s pretty hard to kill a bird with a 4-10.
Eight-year-olds are pretty fidgety and quails
are very skittish — they have good survival
instincts. I didn’t kill anything. Over the years
I’ve learned you have to be very stealthy when
you hunt. And that you need a 12-gauge.”
Doug Rushing passed away in February
this year. “My dad really instilled in us a
love of the outdoors. He took us fishing
in Venice and Grand Isle. We’d run trout
lines on the Bogue Chitto River. He took
us elk hunting in Colorado. One November
when I was cooking in New York, he flew
my brother and me up to Saskatchewan
to hunt whitetail deer. I shot an 8-point
buck, and I couldn’t stop smiling because I
knew I still had it. You can take the chef
out of Mississippi, but you can’t take the
Mississippi out of the chef.”
It was in New York where Rushing met
his wife Allison Vines-Rushing. The two
cooked together at Jack’s Luxury Oyster Bar,
a New Orleans themed restaurant in New
York where Vines-Rushing was executive
chef and won a 2004 James Beard Award
for her work. They opened Longbranch
in Abita Springs in 2005. In 2007, they
followed with MiLa in the New Orleans’
Central Business District.They also wrote a
cookbook,
Southern Comfort
:
A NewTake on
the Recipes We Grew Up With
, which was a
2013 James Beard Award finalist.The book
is available online and at area bookstores.
The couple shuttered MiLa in 2014 shortly
after Rushing left to become executive
chef at Brennan’s Restaurant in the French
Quarter. Vines-Rushing wanted to be
home for their two young children, Ida Lou
and Rosco. But with the kids now in school,
she’s back in the commercial kitchen,
teaching private classes and doing monthly
pop-ups at Jacques-Imo’s Café.
The couple still cooks together at home
in New Orleans, and quail is often on the
menu. Rushing uses a variety of recipes. “I’ll
make a simple marinade of olive oil and
balsamic vinegar, then grill it.You get a great
lacquer to skin. I also make a Vietnamese
marinade with palm sugar or coconut sugar,
garlic, lime juice, sliced jalapeños and fish
sauce. I’d put that version up against any
quail I’ve ever eaten.”
Rushing was a James Beard Award finalist in
2015 and 2016.
A Quail of Two Cities
by
Marcy, Rouses Creative Director
Slade Rushing
photo courtesy
Ralph Brennan Restaurant Group
HUNTING