By Shirley Fong-Torres, 2007
The gravitational forces around the Beaumont Inn are so heavy with history, tradition and good food that it’s nearly impossible to get away without spending a night or two. Built in 1845 as a school for young women, it’s been an inn since 1919. The kitchen was converted from the former chapel. Oh, holy food!
Owners Chuck and Helen Dedman are the fourth-generation of their family to host guests in four historic buildings decorated by four generations of obsessive antique hunters. The decorating theme seems to be Chuck’s great-grandfather’s admiration for Robert E. Lee. (Wro asked if there weren’t any paintings of “hotter, younger soldiers.” Sigh.)
Room rates include a free cocktail with turn-down service and a rather famous Southern breakfast in the morning. This is served in the floral-wallpapered main dining room, by apron-wearing women who encourage guests to indulge in eggs, grits, bacon, biscuits, fruit and the piece de resistance - griddle corncakes, with real maple syrup. But that’s another story, you see; breakfast, unlike lunch and dinner, is not open to the public at Beaumont Inn.
Visiting the Ham House
We had come for other specialties, the first of which required us to visit a fifth historic building - the ham house.
“For years we bought green hams and salted and cured and smoked them here," Chuck explained. "We did that through the 1940’s, but then the USDA forced us to find pre-cured hams, in Western Kentucky. We get year old cured hams from Rodman Meacham now and then we hang them to age in our ham house.” (Meacham’s hams are legends in their own rite, going back to the 1930’s.)
Chuck showed us the ham house, where a bunch of sweet smelling delicacies hang for about 10 months. It used to take an extra year, but hams are averaging about 16 pounds now, instead of 21. So it doesn’t take as long to reach prosciutto-like perfection. This being Kentucky instead of Italy, they aren’t consumed like prosciutto though.
Chuck said they soak the hams overnight in cold water, then boil them, de-bone them, coat them in a 50-50 mix of corn meal and brown sugar and bake them. Thin sliced for serving, they are the main reason that holiday dinners here sell out months in advance. (Gourmet magazine named this one of the best places in America for Thanksgiving dinner.)
Chickens Are Stars, Too, at Beaumont Inn
The hams weren’t the only all star food at Beaumont Inn. Wro asked about the yellow legged and red velvet chickens. Chuck said his grandmother insisted that yellow legged chickens tasted best and that was what she chose to serve in the restaurant.
Beaumont Inn can’t vouch for leg color, but serves only fresh local chickens, flour battered and pan-fried in pure lard. Lard was also the secret we learned at Mama Dip‘s in North Carolina after tasting the best fried chicken we ever found.
Red velvet chickens are stuffed with goat cheese and spinach, then baked and served in red cherry reduction. In another touch of Kentucky hospitality, there are free seconds of chicken at Beaumont Inn. Corn pudding and cornmeal cakes are wonderful accompaniments.
Old Owl Tavern Celebrates
Stuck in a dry county for 71 years after Prohibition ended, the inn’s Old Owl Tavern is still celebrating the 2003 voter referendum that allowed alcohol consumption. With a porch in warm weather and a fireplace in cold, the tavern offers a less formal atmosphere to enjoy the sacred works of the holy kitchen.
On its brick walls, we noticed old photos of historic bourbon distilleries, including one once owned by a Dedman forebear where Kentucky Owl Sour Mash was made.
Besides ham and chicken, the tavern offered other regional specialties, including: their own variation on the Hot Brown made with roast pork loin; Maker’s Mark pecan cake; and Robert E. Lee cake, which, like many of dishes here, is made exactly like it was when the inn’s founder, Annie Bell Goddard, ran the kitchen three generations ago. You don’t mess around in a place of worship.
