Posts Tagged With: Southern Foodways Alliance

Lunch with Hugo Ortega

Posted on October 8, 2018 by eatsoneate

(Southern Foodways Alliance 2018 Symposium is almost here! The lunches are coming, the lunches are coming… Meanwhile, a look back at one of 2017’s noontime culinary artistry, courtesy of Tabasco and Chef Hugo Ortega of Houston.)

Houston, Texas. City of my birth. City of NASA, which is the reason it was the city of my birth. Not in any way due to an early-entry astronaut program (though I’m sure I would have qualified); rather, because my father was a mathematician for the Apollo Program. Despite only having lived there the first five or so weeks of my life, I claimed to be a Texan for many moons.

Houston has had a rough go of in recent years, particularly with all that Hurricane Harvey threw at it. But there are many good things happening in Houston, too, and one of those is Chef Hugo Ortega.

June 20, 2017, was Hugo Ortega Day in Houston. That’s right, the mayor of Houston, Texas, made a declaration. And if you read the list of Ortega’s accolades, this day was a long time coming. He was also awarded Best Chef Southwest by the James Beard Foundation. That’s kind of a big deal on its own, not to mention he was also the first Mexican-born chef to win a James Beard award.

Given the national attention he, his restaurants, and his cookbooks have earned in the last couple of decades, would it surprise you to learn that his culinary career began as a dishwasher in one of the restaurants he now co-owns? Chef Ortega immigrated to the US (Houston, in particular) in 1984, and after taking on a few other jobs, landed a position as a dishwasher at Backstreet Cafe. Fast forward through a few promotions and completion of the culinary arts program at Houston Community College, he and his wife now co-own at least four celebrated restaurants in the Houston area, including Backstreet.

At the Southern Foodways Alliance Symposium earlier this month (2017), he won something else: the Craig Claiborne Lifetime Achievement Award. Here is how the SFA describes this award: “The SFA’s Lifetime Achievement Award goes to an individual whom all thinking eaters should know, the sort of person who has made an indelible mark upon our cuisine and our culture, the sort of person who has set regional standards and catalyzed national dialogues.” I’ve only told you the highlights of Ortega’s remarkable career as a chef; add everything up, and this honor makes perfect sense.

Every year the honoree receives a commissioned art piece by Oxford artist Blair Hobbs, and a short film is made about his/her life. But it’s not every year that the attendees of the Symposium get to eat the honoree’s food. This year we had the privilege of experiencing the reasons he is a perennial winner.

As I have mentioned once or thrice, lunch at the SFA Symposium is so big that it requires a sponsor (this time, Tabasco) and has lately been served in multiple courses. The treats that awaited us at the table that day may surprise the average local reader-eater, but are apparently quite common in Puebla, and Oaxaca, Mexico. Bugs. Oh, there was some queso del rancho, some chicharrones, and some huaxmole rojo. But it was hard to overlook the bugs. Chicatanas (flying ants) – “rich and beefy”, per our menu. Chapulines (grasshoppers) – “taste acidic”. And gusanos de maguey (agave worms) – “soft and milky”. At first I just wasn’t sure. But after The Wife tried one, I couldn’t let her outdo me. Now I have been there and I have done that.

The next course was a tamal de elote (corn tamale) with queso fresco, crema and tomatillo criollo. I have racked my second brain (aka the internet) trying to find a good definition of a criollo, to no avail. But in this case, I think it was essentially a tomatillo salsa verde topping this tasty tamale.

Next we were presented with a plate of Chiles en Nogada. This was a wild one, though again, it appears to be a classic dish in certain parts of Mexico. Poblano chiles were stuffed with a picadillo, a mixture of shredded chicken, fruits, almonds and spices, then topped with a walnut cream sauce and pomegranate seeds. Anybody had that at your local Mexican restaurant lately? Yeah, I thought not. And that may be because it’s not exactly easy to make, even if you are a James Beard award-winning chef. We were told that Chef Ortega and his crew “began cleaning walnuts for the Chiles en Nogada this May.” Wow. Fascinating and beautiful.

The plate that followed was also a new entry into my Mexican lexicon: Tabasco Pepper Mash Mixiote de Res in Agave Skin. Translated? A Bag of Delicious. Okay, so I took French in high school, not Spanish. But surely that is close – at the very least, it is accruately descriptive. Upon opening the little bag, I found tender beef chunks (de res) and cactus paddles, seasoned with avocado leaves and the aforementioned Tabasco pepper mash. Traditionally this is cooked by burying in a pit, though it can be done in an oven. I was getting a little full by this point in the meal (gusanos de maguey are surprisingly filling), but of course I didn’t let that stop me.

Nor did I let a little fullness keep me from dessert: Flan de elote (corn) with guava-tequila gelee, and brioche croutons. Creamy and rich does not begin to describe this dish, of which I unashamedly ate at least two. (It pays to linger at the table after these lunches. Just sayin’.) We even got a chance to try a little glass of Tejate, “a nonalcoholic, pre-Hispanic beverage made with maize and cacao.”

Houston will recover, and you will want to visit – if not to calculate flight paths for the next space flight, at least to eat. While there, celebrate with Chef Hugo Ortega. Bugs optional.

Categories: Uncategorized | Tags: backstreet cafe, blair hobbs, edible insects, flan, houston tx, hugo ortega, james beard award, lunch, mexican food, nasa, picadillo, Southern Foodways Alliance, Tabasco, tamales | Leave a comment

Giving Lunch Its Due

Posted on October 5, 2018 by eatsoneate

(The 21st Southern Foodways Alliance Symposium is just days away. Lunch is a big deal there, and the one described below was perfectly suited to last year’s El Sur Latino focus.)

I think lunch in the good ol’ USA gets a bum rap. In some countries, lunch is the biggest meal of the day. There, if you’re going to get invited to a meal, it’s usually lunch. There are courses sometimes. And maybe tea afterwards. And the best places are the ones that encourage naps after all that, as the good Lord intended. (Otherwise why would we be sleepy after lunch?)

Meanwhile, in the 8 to 5-ish workweek here in America, if you get an hour to eat lunch (never mind the time it takes you to get to a restaurant and back) you’re pretty lucky. Some get a half hour, and many eat at their desks or standing up while continuing to work. Sunday lunch is about as close as many of us get to a leisurely noonday meal, save perhaps the occasional holiday feast.

That’s one of the reasons I so enjoy the lunches at the Southern Foodways Alliance Symposium. There, lunch is celebrated. The skills of the chef are extolled. The tables are decorated to the nth degree. The servers are given standing o’s. And the eaters partake of multiple dishes that yesterday we didn’t know we loved. These lunches are so big they require a sponsor.

Just an average lunch setup at the SFA…

Our first lunch of the weekend, brought to us by Springer Mountain Farms, featured Chef Eddie Hernandez of Taqueria Del Sol. I was first introduced to this group of restaurants a few years ago in the Atlanta metro area – they have since expanded into Nashville. Chef Eddie has developed a menu there that blends the flavors and traditions of his home, Monterrey, Mexico, and the American South. I think I can say with 97% certainty that it was in one of his restaurants that I enjoyed my first barbecue taco, which he calls The Memphis: chopped smoked pork with a spicy jalapeño coleslaw and tequila BBQ sauce. Since then I have had many, but Chef Eddie’s was my gateway barbecue taco.

This SFA lunch was also given a name. (Do you name your lunches? No? See what I mean? No respect.) He called it, “Five Stops on a Journey from Monterrey.” The first stop on the journey was waiting for us on the tables: Cajun boiled peanuts with chile de arbol, a blend of flavors from Georgia, Louisiana and Mexico. Boiled peanuts are a snack that I didn’t appreciate till I’d been overseas a few years and someone sent a pack to a friend of mine. All of a sudden I became the expert in the room.

Next we were served a red chile pork tamale, inspired by his travels through Texas as a musician, where he learned, “just about everything goes with tamales.” Apparently, even armadillo. We were not served armadillo that day. But I was intrigued by the story he told of the crawfish tamale with the etouffee sauce. Tamales are another food I didn’t appreciate until adulthood – perhaps because as a youngster, I’d never seen one that didn’t emerge from a can. Now that I’ve made them myself, it’s a whole new world of masa and more.

The next plate to come out was refried pinto bean tostadas with Doe’s Salad. I haven’t been to Doe’s yet (I know, I know…it’s time to change that), so I haven’t had the salad. But apparently their style of salad is similar to what is served in the ports of western Mexico, dressed with lemon and oil. I was stunned at the brightness of flavor this salad brought to a refried bean tostada. And somehow, some way, they also tasted buttery – it must have been the beans. This was one of my favorite bites of the weekend, and from an informal poll (so informal you could call it eavesdropping, I guess) many others agreed with me.

Another favorite bite was his Chicken Pot Pie with a side of turnip greens. How many times have you heard about a taqueria with amazing turnip greens? These turnip greens are served at Taqueria del Sol and were featured in Garden and Gun magazine as one of 100 Southern Foods You Absolutely Must Eat Before You Die. (I carry that list when I travle. Now make that 14 down, 86 to go.) TDS greens have onion, garlic, diced tomatoes, chicken stock (no pork in these), and more chile de arbol. Side note: my uber-powerful search engine tells me this pepper is also known as a bird’s beak chile or rat-tail chile, but I bet those names won’t be on the placard at the grocery.

Okay, back to the pot pie. I grew up with chicken pot pie – the kind that started as a frozen block which could be used as a weapon, then after an interminable wait (those were the days before microwaves) were delivered with lava-hot insides to unsuspecting children. This one was very, very different. The secret, says Chef Eddie, was in roasting the chicken before putting it in the sauce. And that sauce; it was so rich it almost had a sweet taste – I couldn’t get enough. But what set this pot pie apart from any and all others I have ever enjoyed was the “crust”. All this deliciousness came in a bowl made from a tortilla. It was not crispy like a taco salad shell, but just hard enough to hold the filling. Now I’m spoiled forever.

Dessert was one more blend of Mexico and the South: chocolate chimichanga with tequila-Grand Marnier cream sauce. The dark chocolate filling and that drizzle of cream were made for each other, a want-to-lick-the-plate kind of experience. (I settled for a serious plate-scraping with my fork. There were lots of cameras around.)

If you find yourself in Atlanta (and who doesn’t, eventually?), I suggest you find yourself at a Taqueria del Sol.

Categories: Uncategorized | Tags: atlanta restaurants, boiled peanuts, chicken pot pie, chimichanga, chocolate, doe's salad, eddie hernandez, el sur latino, lunch, mexican food, Southern Foodways Alliance, springer mountain farms, tamales, taqueria del sol, tostadas | Leave a comment

Fish are Friends..and Food

Posted on September 26, 2018 by eatsoneate

(Once again, I am back to the blog in anticipation of the 21st Southern Foodways Alliance Symposium, coming in just a couple of weeks. Over those weeks I’ll be re-living the meals and mood of last year’s Symposium, El Sur Latino, by way of these written reflections.)

From toddler days through college years, much of the time I spent at my maternal grandparents’ house was on the golf course at the Redmont Country Club (in Red Bay, Alabama). My grandfather, Pappy, was a pretty decent golfer; when it came to long drives, however, I was more interested in the cart than the club. But my golf course memories actually have very little to do with golf, because most of that time we were fishing. There’s no telling how many hours my brother and I spent out there with Pappy and Ma-Manie, our great-grandmother, who absolutely loved to fish. In the early days we fished on the lakes for bream, maybe some bass. Later, they built another lake, and it was there that I first came across the catfish.

Generally, Pappy did all the hands-on work once Younger Brother and I reeled them in – he didn’t want us to get cut by the fins, and that was perfectly fine by us. Once they were cleaned (again, Pappy), Granny took over and handled the frying: usually whole fish coated in cornmeal and scored into finger-sized segments. Oh, and she cooked it in the same oil every time. (Fun fact: Granny passed away in 2013, and she had probably not fried fish since sometime shortly after Y2K. Not long ago, after much wondering aloud about where it may have ended up, we found her cast iron pot in a corner of her outside kitchen…still full of grease. We opted not to fry in it.)

Of course this was long before aquaculture (a fancy word for catfish farming) became one of Mississippi’s top five agricultural products (netstate.com). And long before I was introduced to Taylor Grocery and some of the fine folks from Simmons Catfish. Over the past few years, thanks to the Southern Foodways Alliance Symposium, those introductions have turned into friendships.

Okay, I don’t know if you can have a friendship with a catfish joint, but I do like spending time with it. Or in it, as the case may be. Son even had some of his senior pictures made there. In all the years I’ve gone to the SFA Symposium, we’ve been bussed out to Taylor for the Friday evening meal. At first it was just a big plate of fresh-fried catfish with all the trimmings, and that was enough. For folks like me who attended the Ole Alma Mater, it is a nostalgic trip (made even more so by the school bus style of carpooling.) For those coming from out of town, out of state, and outside of the South, it provides a true taste of an Oxford institution. In the past few years, however, the organizers have upped the ante, adding a couple of appetizer stations outside the restaurant.

I’m not talking about fried cheese and wings here, people. Not that kind of appetizer. These are special. The chefs who are invited to make these have essentially one guideline: they have to use the Simmons Catfish Delacata cut. I’ve talked about this cut before, but let’s review. The Delacata is a deep-skinned filet cut from the center, thickest part of the fish. It’s skinless, boneless, hand-trimmed, and mild in flavor – sort of the filet mignon of the catfish.

Lis Hernandez, Chef-Owner of Arepa Mia in Atlanta, was manning the first station we came to. Again, a quick review. An arepa is a sandwich made from a corn cake that is split and stuffed with all kinds of deliciousness. Chef Lis is originally from Venezuela, where she learned to make arepas from her mom. A few years ago she served us breakfast arepas at the symposium, and I fell in love. Just this year I was able to make it to one of her two Arepa Mia restaurants in Atlanta. I’m a big fan. On this night she made Delacata arepas, with a piece of the fried fish, jalapeno pico, cilantro sauce, lettuce and tomato. Ours came right off the grill, piping hot and could have almost served as a small meal of its own. That didn’t stop me, of course, and I didn’t leave a single crumb.

Arepa Mia Delacata

Up on the porch, Chef Jesus Carmona from Tacos Mariachi in Dallas, was dishing out Delacata tostadas. I haven’t been to Dallas in a few years, but after taking a look at his menu, I think a trip may be in order. He offers all the normal fillings like chicken, pork, steak, and tongue. For the more daring, there are also tacos with grilled marinated octopus and huitlacoche (Mexican corn truffle, aka corn smut). I also noted mole fries and pork chicharron-crusted cod. I already know my order. For Symposium attendees he grilled the Delacata and dressed it with avocado crema, a dab of pico-like relish, and a generous portion of cilantro. It was crunchy, creamy, and salty all in one great bite.

I call this, “Delaca-ta-co with Halo.”

For those who travel, particularly those who eat while you travel – or like me, those who travel to eat – consider this column a travel guide. East to Atlanta for arepas, West to Dallas for all manner of tacos, north to Oxford for catfish and the trimmings, and south of the border to see where El Sur Latino was born. And please save a seat for me.

Categories: Uncategorized | Tags: arepa mia, catfish, el sur latino, Oxford MS, simmons catfish, Southern Foodways Alliance, tacos, tacos mariachi, taylor grocery | Leave a comment

SFA 2016, The Final Chapter

Posted on September 30, 2017 by eatsoneate

[This is fifth and final post reflecting on the Southern Foodways Alliance Symposium of 2016. As this posts, we are just a few days away from the 2017 Symposium. And I. Am. So. Ready.]

It’s always a little bittersweet as the weekend of the Southern Foodways Alliance Symposium comes to a close. Mostly bitter, I guess, because The Wife and I always wish we had another day or three there before getting back to reality. But also sweet – there are desserts involved.
This year’s theme was corn, and it even showed up in the small bites. In fact, some of the edible highlights of the weekend happen in the margins. (Yes – in between all the amazing multiple course meals, there are snacks!)
Truth be told, the bittersweetness starts at registration, because we know it’s going to fly from there. Then they feed us, so we forgive or forget – one or the other. This time it was a corn dog from Chef Kelly English. Corn dogs are simple to pick up, easy to eat, but not so easy to make. At least that’s my experience at home – my one experience. All that to say I can appreciate a good corn dog in my old age.
A Madeleine, so I’m told, is a little French butter cake that seems more like a cookie in the shape of a shell. One website described them as “often decorated with coconut”, which is probably the reason I don’t have them very often. And now I’ve been spoiled, because Chef Jean-Paul Bourgeois (Blue Smoke, NYC) made his out of cornbread and gave me warm Steen’s cane syrup mixed with butter to dip it in. Since the cookie is French and the syrup is Cajun, I think it was a match made heavenly in my mouth.
To wash things down, for the first time ever perhaps, we had a choice of fun sodas. I’m not saying we’ve ever gone thirsty – don’t forget the cedar tea, the corncob tea, the nitro coffee, etc. – but sodas are not usually part of the mix. Cannonborough Beverage Company of Charleston takes seasonal fresh fruits and herbs to make their sodas. That’s right: seasonal soda. We got to try Grapefruit Elderflower and Ginger Beer. I am eager to try their Raspberry Mint and Sorghum Thyme.

The next evening, as we enjoyed another presentation, we had a Corncuit. Give it a minute and you can probably figure this one out. Cornbread. Biscuit. Corncuit. This one was created by Chef Vishwesh Bhatt of Snackbar in Oxford. It was savory with a touch of sweet, shaped something like a parallelogram, and seemed to have a light glaze. Then the coup de gravy was a little tub of sorghum-curry leaf ghee to dip it in. Had there been a basketful, I would have probably made a fool of myself.

Of course, another reason they did not pass around baskets of corncuits is because dinner was coming shortly: The Saturday night Lodge Cast Iron Four Sisters Supper. According to our guide, “In Native American agricultural tradition, corn, beans, and squash are the Three Sisters.” All grow together, benefitting each other. Our supper was put together by four sisters, “because, sometimes, three isn’t enough.”
This meal always has a touch of home cookin’, and we saw that again this year. Dora Charles, chef and cookbook author from Savannah, Georgia, gave us butterbeans and okra, along with a crooked neck squash casserole. Helen Turner, pitmaster from Helen’s Bar-B-Q in Brownsville, Tennessee provided the Brownsville-style pork shoulder. These were the anchors – the bookends, so to speak. And solid anchors they were. Then things got twisty.

Cassidee Dabney of Blackberry Farm in Walland, Tennessee had two wildly different dishes. The first was Cherokee Trail of Tears Beans (a black bean thought to have been carried along said trail) with Smoked Venison and Wild Mint Pickled Onions. I’ve done similar combinations at home, but the pickled onions really cut through the creamy beans in this dish. The second dish was Crispy Hickory King Cornmeal Mush with Hominy, Pepper Jam, Dill Yogurt and Hazelnuts. This one reminded The Wife and me of Shafoot, a similar dish we had in the Middle East made with spongy bread and yogurt.
The other cornbread concoction emerged from the creative cooking of Cheetie Kumar of Raleigh (Garland restaurant): Indian Spiced Cornbread in a little square atop Wilted Greens, Charred Onion Compote and Paneer, with Butternut Squash Achaar (Indian pickles) on the side. This was yet another take on fusion of Southern and fill-in-the-blank food, and it was one of my favorites of the evening.
Sunday’s good-bye lunch has evolved over the years, and for the past two symposia we have been given a “Traveler’s Meal” as the last session ended. It’s a box lunch, but no less fabulous than the others. Chef Jean-Paul (Blue Smoke) was responsible for the smoky and tender beef jerky. Alex Raij (Txikito, NYC) introduced us to Gilda (not Radner) – a little skewer of anchovy, guindilla pepper (a favorite in the Basque region of Spain), and olives. A staple of Southern picnics, Cold Fried Chicken was cornmeal-crusted, crunchy and courtesy of Kelly English and Camron Razavi (Restaurant Iris, Memphis). For a little more corn, John Currence (City Grocery, Oxford) came up with a Sweet Corn Elote Salad. I love Mexican street corn, and this was a neat take on that concept that I intend to adapt early and often. The sweet of this bittersweet last meal was a sweet potato cookie from Chef Edouardo Jordan (Salare, Seattle). This was a hearty cookie – big and thick and chewy. And it had a kick, unusual for a cookie but welcome nonetheless.

The SFA Symposium is not all about the food we eat while we’re there. We’ve met fascinating folks from all over the South and beyond, as you can tell, from Seattle to NYC. And even corn is a fascinating subject to spend a weekend contemplating.

But I’m glad we get to eat.

Categories: Uncategorized | Tags: Blackberry Farm, blue smoke, camron razavi, cannonborough beverage company, cassidee dabney, cheetie kumar, corn, corn salad, dora charles, fried chicken, helen's bbq, jean-paul bourgeois, john currence, kelly english, lodge cast iron, madeleine, restaurant iris, salare, SFA, snackbar, Southern Foodways Alliance, steen's cane syrup, three sisters, Txikito, vishwesh bhatt | Leave a comment

A Tale of Two Suppers

Posted on September 29, 2017 by eatsoneate

[Part the Fourth of this whirlwind series looking back at Southern Foodways Alliance Symposium 2016, with the 2017 celebration in my sights.]

It has recently occurred to me that we human beings tend to eat by themes. In large part, restaurants set their menus by themes. Italian, Mexican, Thai, Southern, etc. Even in the home you can see it: pizza night, taco night, greens-and-peas-and-cornbread night. The idea doesn’t really stand out until you find places that shake up our thinking. For example, I ran across a place in Birmingham last week called Wasabi Juan’s Sushi Burritos. I kid a lot, but this place is for real. In Dothan, Alabama I found a place that featured hibachi and yogurt, another with Indian food and barbecue. I guess this is what those in the biz call “fusion”.
Suppertime at the Southern Foodways Alliance Symposium can certainly be classified as fusion of many sorts. Our opening meal on Thursday night was branded the Brunswick Stew Welcome Supper with Rainbows, Unicorns and Pie. Though many were involved in the meal in one way or another, the coordinator extraordinaire was Nancie McDermott of Chapel Hill, North Carolina. Nancie is a terribly nice lady I met last year who happens to be a prolific cookbook author and cooking teacher, among other gifts I’m quite sure. When we arrived at the table, a bounty was already awaiting us: deviled eggs with cilantro and curry, watermelon rind pickles, Erika Council’s cornmeal cream biscuits with country ham, Bill Neal’s pimento cheese, and spiced pecans. It was a veritable picnic on the grounds, except these grounds had been taken over by a herd of unicorns.

The hot part of the meal was Brunswick Stew with hominy, creamed corn and edamame. Remember that this weekend was all about corn? And remember I said there was fusion? Thus the edamame. I’ve never had Brunswick stew with relishes, either, but we had pico de gallo, curried apple chutney, and John Martin Taylor’s chow-chow – and saltines, of course. Fusion. On the side were Virginia Willis’s Sweet Potato Spoonbread (one of hundreds of names of corn-based bread) and Eugene Walter’s Hoecakes with butter and Muddy Pond Sorghum. Hot stew with cornbread and syrup on the side? Yessir, anytime. For dessert it was Bill Smith Sr.’s Sweet Potato Pie (deliciously spiced, I must add) and Sweet Corn Custard Pie with Bourbon Whipped Cream.

Now that you’ve got an idea of what the table held – barely – let me backtrack a little and ponder aloud on the fusion idea as a whole. Towards the end of our meal, Nancie was brought out from the tent kitchen – still in her apron – to talk to us about how the meal came to be, and what she said really resonated with me. Because I didn’t have the good sense to record the moment, I’ll paraphrase. She said that when it comes to food, cooking, or iconic dishes like Brunswick Stew or barbecue, we say there are “rules” – but really there aren’t. One eater may like the stew from the annual volunteer fire department fund raiser, while the other may prefer her grandmother’s recipe. Was it odd that Nancie’s stew (for that night anyway) had edamame in it? Compared to traditional recipes, yes – it wasn’t “normal”. It was still good, and it still had the familiar flavors of most other Brunswick stews I have come upon. But my first with edamame.

Sadly, I couldn’t get out to Starkville, Mississippi’s Oktoc Country Store this year, but in previous years I have bought their stew by the gallon, with nary a soybean (aka edamame) to be found. It is consistently hearty and I measure all other Brunswick stews on the Oktoc stick. I came across a similar dilemma in my years in North Carolina when it came to Western North Carolina barbecue (tomato-based sauce, usually shoulder) or Eastern style (whole hog with vinegar sauce). What is best? What is “right”? What is “normal”? The answer is “D: All of the Above.” It’s all good to somebody.
Food can be a divider, as we have studied in previous symposia, but it’s much more fun when it brings us together to a level table, regardless of how the bowl in the center is filled or who filled it. This meal, with friends and well-behaved unicorns all around, was a great introduction to our corn-centric weekend.
Friday night dinner at the SFA has come to be a fusion of tradition and experimentation. The annual fried catfish dinner at Taylor Grocery – complete with fries, hush puppies and slaw – was somehow even more satisfying than usual. The bonus bites on these nights are the chefs that transform Simmons Catfish Delacata cuts into some pretty amazing creations. Chef Alex Raij of Txikito in NYC created a Delacata catfish empanada infused with the flavors of Spain and the Basque regions that her restaurants celebrate. Jeremiah Bacon of The Macintosh in Charleston, South Carolina, used that same Mississippi catfish to create Delacata Mortadella Sandwiches. I need to tell you that I had a vision of what Mortadella was supposed to be, and I didn’t have high expectations. My experience with traditional Mortadella, though limited, was not especially positive. Perhaps I need to try your Italian grandmother’s Mortadella and re-evaluate. My wish for you, though, is to one day try this catfish-infused version. These perfectly round slices were pan-fried, dabbed with tartar sauce, and served on a little slider bun. They were incredible. I seriously considered making a meal of them and skipping the catfish inside. I didn’t consider it very long, but I considered it, and that says a lot.

I confess I did not test the sushi burrito, the hibachi chef’s yogurt, or the Indian barbecue, but I absolutely appreciate their willingness to go there. Somebody had to be the first to say, “Instead of throwing away these watermelon rinds, let’s pickle them.”

Why not edamame in my stew, or Mississippi catfish in my Spanish empanada?

Why not, indeed.

Categories: Uncategorized | Tags: alex raij, brunswick stew, corn, corn custard, delacata, fusion, jeremiah bacon, mortadella, SFA, simmons catfish, Southern Foodways Alliance, spoonbread, taylor grocery, the macintosh, Txikito, unicorns | Leave a comment

Literary Lunchtime at the SFA (2016)

Posted on September 28, 2017 by eatsoneate

[What follows is Part the Third of this series on the 2016 Southern Foodways Alliance Symposium. Working up an appetite for the 2017 meeting…as if that were necessary.]

Over my lifetime the significance of the noontime meal has ebbed and flowed. Even the names have changed. As a kid, we ate dinner at noon and supper in the evening. Meanwhile my friends were having lunch and dinner. If a buddy invited me over for dinner, I wasn’t sure when to show up.
During those early years lunch was likely to be light: sandwiches, soup, maybe just peanut butter and crackers. Either that or whatever the school was serving. Dinner – supper, I mean – was the big meal. That’s where we had the barbecued chicken, lemon pepper pork chops, lasagna, or casseroles. Then I got married and moved across the world. Over there lunch was the big meal, and the evening meal was basically a repeat of breakfast.
So now I’m back where I started, and I have a wife and kids and a chaotic schedule. It’s difficult to find a pattern anymore. One weekend a year, however, we go to a magical place where no meals are to be missed. That place is the Southern Foodways Alliance Symposium. But even there, lunch is particularly celebrated and this year brought some interesting twists.
Most of the meals at SFA have a name – “lunch” is just not sufficient. On Day One we were served a “Midday Meal Absent Colonial Thought.” That took some explaining. Chef Sean Sherman of Minneapolis – aka the Sioux Chef – put together a pre-colonial meal taken from the pantry of the South, “when all Southern foods were Native and so were all Southern cooks.” This meant no sugar, no eggs, no pork, no wheat. Nothing that was brought to the land by the colonists. I could not have imagined how to put a meal like that together, but Chef Sherman has been studying this for a piece. And though not everything on the table was something my 21st century taste buds will crave again, it was truly a meal for the bucket list.
The focus of the symposium was corn, and we learned that a grass known as Teosinte is one of the corn plant’s ancestors. For this meal, the Teosinte was bound with a white bean pulse and smoked fish, garnished with wild greens and a crisp piece of fish skin. Consuming the ancient great-great-granddaddy of corn: that’s definitely pre-colonial. Slightly more recognizable were the slices of duck, with a dollop of honey, crab apple, and corn mush. The salad was a mix of wild greens, mixed with sumac-stewed sun-dried rabbit. I didn’t even know sumac-stewed sun-dried rabbit was on my bucket list, but it is checked off now.

Another meaty dish was cedar bison (that is, bison slightly flavored with cedar) with a corn cake made from Anson Mills Native Coarse Blue Corn Grits. This was probably my favorite dish of the meal. I have looked into buying blue corn grits before – they just look like fun. (Green Eggs and Ham, with a side of Blue Grits – I can definitely see that.) Another favorite at the table was a savory little cake made with sunflower and acorn, highlighted by tiny little beads of popped amaranth.
Would you like to guess what we washed all this down with? You won’t get it right, trust me, so I’ll just tell you. Cedar tea. That’s right. We drank tea flavored by boughs from cedar trees, at least some of which came from Rowan Oak, the home of William Faulkner. One swig and I felt downright literary.

Lunch on Day Two bore the name “Georgia Corn Husker Luncheon” but could have also been called “Corn – Fourteen Ways.” To prepare for this meal, we were told, Chef Steven Satterfield of Miller Union in Atlanta kept a year-long running list of corn dishes. It turned out to be almost a contest to see how many variations of corn he could plant into one lunch. I don’t know who he was competing against, but he surely won the game. Let’s count.
One: Corn Cob Iced Tea. What can I say? We drank corn-flavored tea, and it was better than it sounds.
Two: Homemade Corn Nuts from nixtamalized hominy marinated in lime juice, lime zest and Tabasco. Side note here. Nixtamalization is the process by which corn is soaked in lime (not the fruit – the other kind), hulled, and turned into things like masa, which is then turned into tortillas and such. It essentially transforms the corn into something more nutritious. I’ve certainly oversimplified it, but it’s an important process. The more you know…
Three: Paprika Popcorn. Just a little snack.
Four: Pickled Cornlettes. AKA baby corn on the cob.
Five: Anson Mills Blue Corn Nachos topped with black-eyed peas, green tomato pico, turnip greens, pickled jalapeno, radish. If we had stopped there and jumped to dessert I would have been completely satisfied. But there are nine to go.

Six, seven, eight and nine: Smoked trout, (6) Jimmy Red Grits, pepper gravy, (7) corn and pepper relish, (8) charred corn, crispy trout skin, (9) skillet cornbread and greens. Just a word here: loved the color-speckled grits. Except for the cornbread, this was all together in one big bowl – as delicious as it was colorful. And the greens were all up in the cornbread – I’ve eaten greens and cornbread together before, but not greens baked into the cornbread.

Ten and eleven: (10) Sweet corn, field pea and duck confit succotash, (11) cornmeal spoonbread, pumpkin-persimmon jam and arugula. Maybe my favorite (until dessert). The spoonbread had two layers, creamy on top with a little more texture on the lower part. This was a plate for the ages.
And finally, corn-coctions twelve, thirteen and fourteen: Ice cream sandwiches made with (12) cornmeal blondie cookies, (13) sweet corn ice cream (much better and milder than the batch I made a few years ago), rolled in (14) corn dust. I ate several of these. They were little and I am not. Definitely not now.

Categories: Uncategorized | Tags: anson mills, corn, corn ice cream, corn nuts, ice cream sandwich, iced tea, miller union, nixtamalization, sean sherman, SFA, souix chef, Southern Foodways Alliance, steven satterfield, teosinte | Leave a comment

Breaking Breakfast Barriers at the SFA (2016)

Posted on September 27, 2017 by eatsoneate

[This is Part the Second of my throwback series, reminiscing about last year’s Southern Foodways Alliance Symposium as I prepare for the 2017 iteration.]

The Wife and I just returned from this year’s Southern Foodways Alliance Symposium. I have decided that this once-a-year weekend full of food tasting, food knowledge, and a touch of food frivolity is akin to college football season: when it’s over, we just kinda’ live for the next one to start. This year’s theme was “Corn as Symbol, Sustenance, and Syrupy Problem.” I had no idea how much there was to know about corn. This new hat I’m wearing – Corn Expert (check out my authority here) – is liable to keep me pretty busy.
Breakfast is my favorite meal of the day, so let’s start there. Our first morning began with Royal Cup Coffee out of Birmingham. The Wife likes to get the fancy stuff, like lattes and cappuccinos. I’m not averse to waiting for pour-overs when I have the time, but my favorite beverage from the Royal Cup truck is the nitrogen-infused cold brew. I’ve lauded this coffee a number of times before – it’s cold (but not iced) and it’s strong (but not bitter). And somehow, miraculously, it needs no cream or sugar. But wait – there’s more!
This time I learned a little more about how it’s made. With Royal Cup’s “tap” the coffee is infused with the nitrogen as it is dispensed, which helps keep the nitrogen from over-interacting with the coffee in the tank. And instead of carrying around giant nitrogen tanks, they have a machine that generates the nitrogen from the ambient air. It’s true that I mostly care about how great the coffee is, but my inner nerd did find that fascinating. Now, on to the eats.
Breakfast number one was performed (because it’s art, people) by Chef Edouardo Jordan of Salare restaurant in Seattle, Washington. Yes, we know that is not in the South, but this gathering draws folks from all over. He’s actually from Florida (which by some accounts is not in the South, either, but I’ll leave that for a later debate), and the menu at Salare lists the American South as one of the influences. Case in point: one of the first things you’ll see on the menu is Pork Trotters served with Collard Greens. Chef Jordan was also listed as one of Food & Wine magazine’s Best New Chefs of 2016. So his Washington license plates didn’t really cause a stir, and no one asked him to produce a birth certificate.
There were no pig’s feet to be seen in our breakfast, but it was nevertheless unique: Okra Stew with Whole Duck Confit, Berbere, Egg and Cornbread. One of the hallmarks of the SFA is to break down barriers, so that we can understand each other more fully, more fairly. Other folks do that, too – we just do it over amazing meals. This one helped break down the barrier of what someone “should” have for breakfast. “Egg” was the only thing I recognized from previous morning meals – never had okra, duck, or cornbread that early. Berbere is an Ethiopian spice blend, and I’ve been to Ethiopia several times, which – oddly enough – probably means that it’s the only other component of this dish I may have eaten for the morning repast. Barrier broken: okra stew for breakfast is a winner.

These are a few of my favorite things…

At a corn conference, how do you top the idea of serving cornbread for the first meal of the day? How about corn granola and a corn pot pie? That’s not exactly what Chef Jean-Paul Bourgeois of Blue Smoke restaurant in NYC called them, though. The Roster of Eats and Drinks for Day Two listed them as Andouille Breakfast Pot Pie and Corn Granola Custard Parfait. The pie did have an egg hidden amongst the corn and sausage, tucked under a beautiful crust, therefore: breakfast. The custard had a bottom layer of fruit and was topped with the corn granola – imagine your favorite crunchy, nutty granola, then add crunchy kernels of corn. Who would have thought the words “corn” and “parfait” would go together? Or “egg” and “pot pie”? And for breakfast to boot? Not me, for sure. But I won’t forget them, and would order them at any opportunity.

Breakfast on Day Three is always tough. It’s the next-to-last meal of the weekend. Mere hours from its consumption and we’ll be counting the days till next fall. It would be sadder if the food wasn’t so wonderful. Chef Jeremiah Bacon from The Macintosh in Charleston, South Carolina, keenly kept to the theme of “You’re giving us WHAT for breakfast?” with his Tabasco Clam Quiche. My primary experience with clams is of the fried variety, so I truly did not know what to expect. Tabasco I can deal with – I don’t always put hot sauce on my eggs, but it’s a familiar concept. And if you Google “breakfast quiche” the hits are legion. Clams, though. Clams not crisped with fried batter, or stewed in chowder. Again, however, my trepidation was for naught. Chef Bacon did us right and brought a little Charleston sunshine to our last day in Oxford.

One might say, who would want (fill-in-the-blank with okra, duck, corn or clams) for breakfast? Once upon a time I may have leaned in that direction. But somebody had to be the first to eat shrimp and grits in the morning, be it a citizen of South Carolina’s low country, or of Mozambique (the true origin of that dish, per culinary historian and symposium speaker Michael Twitty.) As a matter of fact, somebody had to be the first to eat a fried egg in the morning or decide that milk on corn flakes was a good idea.
So let’s raise a glass of nitrogen-infused cold-brewed Aztec organic coffee to the chefs who broke down those barriers and broadened our breakfast horizons. Cheers.

Categories: Uncategorized | Tags: andouille, berbere, Birmingham, blue smoke, edouardo jordan, granola, jean-paul bourgeois, jeremiah bacon, michael twitty, nitrogen infusion, quiche, royal cup coffee, salare, SFA, shrimp and grits, Southern Foodways Alliance, Tabasco, the macintosh | Leave a comment

County Corn Expert

Posted on September 26, 2017 by eatsoneate

[The 20th Symposium of the Southern Foodways Alliance is coming soon. To prepare for that auspicious weekend, I’m sharing my throwback recollections from last year’s Symposium, the theme of which was “Corn as Symbol, Sustenance, and Syrupy Problem.” Before I got into the details of the meeting, I was compelled to establish my authority…]

I am now my county’s foremost expert on corn. I know what you may be thinking: “I thought he was a Pharmacist, not a Farm…Assist.” Perhaps if you are in my immediate family or a close friend, you are recalling something I said that might have been “corny”- but hilarious nonetheless. (See play on words in previous sentence.) Perhaps you are a county extension agent whose specialty is corn, and you might be wondering if I have a degree in Zea Mays farming methods that I’ve never mentioned before. As it happens, I do not have such a degree, but I have recently been in four days of meetings about corn, and in between discussions have eaten ten corn-based meals. I think that ought to do it, don’t you? You do realize how many people on the world-wide interweb claim to be experts with much less experience than that? They are legion.
But before I ruminate aloud on all that new knowledge, I’m going to offer a prelude, with some of my favorite corn memories that have prepared me for this season of life.
My most vivid memory is the summer that I worked in the research cornfields of Mississippi State University’s North Farm. I’m not sure I’ve ever worked as hard as I did that summer. And I’m certain I was in the best physical shape of my life by the time it was over. We hoed corn. We sprayed stuff on corn. We hoed corn again. We cross-pollinated corn. And … that’s where my corn career ended. Apparently I was allergic to corn pollen. And when you start shaking the stalks to facilitate the separation of the pollen from the thingamawhich that produces the pollen (remember I wasn’t an expert then), it will rain down on your head and turn someone like me into a giant, sneezing, itchy, red minefield of whelps. But it was fun while it lasted, and I had a rockin’ tan.
Growing up, Mama made two kinds of cornbread: regular and Kentucky. Both were baked in a cast iron skillet, as the good Lord intended, but the recipes were different. Regular cornbread was pretty much made of corn meal, and I preferred that version for the times I slathered it with butter prior to covering it with Blackburn’s syrup for dessert. Kentucky cornbread had a can of actual corn mixed in it, and it was my favorite for eating alongside beans and greens and such. In college I moved into an apartment and found a new recipe for Kentucky cornbread left in a drawer by a former resident. This one had chopped onions and sour cream added to it, and was kind of an antithesis to “regular cornbread” – in other words, it was very moist. It’s still my favorite one to make, so shout-out to that mystery former apartment dweller.

How can I bake thee, cornbread? Let me count the ways.

A thesis on corn in my family wouldn’t be complete without another shout-out to Dawn, Hair Stylist to the Stars, who introduced us to her Corn Casserole. You might call it corn pudding, the staple dish of church potlucks, and that’s okay – they are at least close cousins. Jiffy Corn Muffin Mix, butter, sour cream, whole kernel corn and cream corn. Mix and bake. It’s easy, and it’s delicious. I have tried add-ons like cheese and Tony Chachere’s, but they don’t improve it. I’m not even sure bacon would make it better, and that’s near blasphemy.
Corn salad, the picnic dish made properly with white shoepeg corn, is also a family favorite, though I was probably a grown-up before I really began to crave it. We don’t have an heirloom recipe for this one, however – we just get it from The Little Dooey. Why mess up a good thing?
Here’s another question. Why don’t we see more corn in Mexican restaurants? That is, besides the ground up version that morphs into tortillas, tamales, or baskets of chips. I seriously dig what is often simply described as Mexican street corn. I don’t know how authentic the term is, as the only Mexican street I’ve ever walked down was in Cozumel on a cruise excursion, and I don’t think that counts. But I know it’s awesome. Grilled corn, slathered in a mix of mayo and sour cream, rolled in crumbled Cotija cheese, and sprinkled with chili powder and a squeeze of fresh lime. Delicioso. Let’s encourage our local restaurateur amigos to andale and arriba that onto their menus, okay? (My apologies to actual Spanish speakers. I’m a corn expert, not a linguist. My Spanish tutor was Speedy Gonzales.)
Long time readers may remember the corn-centric birthday I had a few years ago. I decided to make my own birthday cake and ice cream, and both were corn-flavored. The cake was sweet, but had a high percentage of corn meal in the recipe, giving it a texture somewhere between cornbread and standard cake. What made this particular cake even more unique was it’s color. I had a little bit of blue cornmeal in the pantry at the time, which I mixed in with the yellow cornmeal the recipe called for. You know what blue and yellow make, right? Yes, they make a green cake. Mold green, to be precise. Tasted great. Looked spoiled. Lesson learned. And the corn ice cream – well, it was certainly successful in the sense that it tasted like corn ice cream. I worked hard making that custard, and it was a smooth, rich result. But a couple of bowls and my curiosity was satisfied.

Can I get you another bowl of corn?

A man corn cob walks into a hipster coffee shop, sits next to a lady corn cob and says, “Come ear often?”
Yep, I’m an expert.

Categories: Uncategorized | Tags: corn, corn cake, corn ice cream, corn salad, cornbread, jiffy corn muffin mix, little dooey, lodge cast iron, mexican food, SFA, Southern Foodways Alliance, Symposium | 2 Comments

The Taste of Magnolia

Posted on October 11, 2016 by eatsoneate

I do my level best to go to the Southern Foodways Alliance Symposium every fall for a plethora of reasons. The post-symposium tales I tell usually involve detailed descriptions of the food, which never fails to be stupendous. But in between meals there are speakers, one of whom was author and chef Eddie Huang. His topic was barbecue, but what I remember most from the talk was his spice story.
I think it is fair to say that knowledge of spices is essential to a chef worth his or her…salt. Salt and pepper may be the Mama and Papa of the seasoning world, but they are really just the tip of the spice-berg. Chef Eddie’s method of study was simple: he tasted them. One by one. By themselves. The picture in my mind’s eye is of him sitting at a table with a row of spice jars lined up from left to right – a “flight” of spices, if you will – tasting them individually in order to understand the true flavor of each.
Since that talk I’ve been fascinated by this idea. And though I haven’t yet dragged out my entire seasoning collection for a full-on tasting (it is even more vast than my collection of barbecue sauces), I have certainly taken multiple opportunities to pour little bits into my palm for a lick. (Clean hands, of course.) Daughter likes to eat plain salt; I prefer blends.
About a year ago I had to buy a bigger spice rack. A gentleman I had never met before stopped by my office and told me a story about his company – Magnolia Seasoning. It’s a hop and a skip from my house – not even a jump – practically under my nose. And just like that, I was fascinated by spices again.
If you followed Mississippi food news in the last decade or so, you’ll know about Bryan Foods in West Point. You may also know that somewhere along the way, Bryan was purchased by Sara Lee. In the mix at Sara Lee was a division that created many of the seasoning blends used by the company for its food products. Then, when Sara Lee closed its operations in West Point, Mr. Z (the aforementioned gentleman, who oversaw that division) opened Magnolia Seasoning.
Today, Magnolia Seasoning is still growing after almost ten years in the spice business. In fact, they are the only company in the South who will make custom spice blends. Primarily, they sell in bulk to restaurants and grocery stores, but if you look hard enough, you might just find some of their offerings in your own neighborhood grocery.

Recently I had the rare opportunity to tour the Magnolia Seasoning operation. I saw a giant mixer where Mr. K was blending up what appeared to be a fresh batch of lemon pepper. Other mixers were so big I could have laid down inside them. (I didn’t.) Elsewhere on the production floor, bottles were being filled with a barbecue blend of some sort. And somewhere in the building is a computer that guides the measurement of each individual ingredient, maintaining consistency from batch to batch.
One of my biggest questions had to do with recipe development. How did they decide something tastes like it’s supposed to? As it turns out, they have a taster: Mr. G. In his own little laboratory, he develops each formula using a scale and what must be an exceptionally sensitive set of taste buds. For example, if a chef wants a certain blend similar to an expensive national brand, but a little hotter, a little more salty, or a little less garlicky, Mr. G can match it.
I had been playing at home with Magnolia Seasoning blends for a while, but some of the things I learned on this visit inspired me to take greater steps towards my spice education. For example, one of the best ways to taste spices is to put them on foods that have little flavor of their own, like chicken or cottage cheese. I haven’t tried the cottage cheese test yet (though I bought some for that purpose), but I did have some fun with chicken.
I had a dozen wings that I planned to cook using my wing rack on the grill, so I picked six different blends and got to shaking: 3 Gunslinger’s Old West Steak Dust, Kickin’ Chicken, Redneck Bob’s BBQ, Orange You Glad, My Smokey Butt, and Lemon Pepper. The Wife got the first bite when they came off the grill, and she was sold – lock, stock and gun barrel – on the Old West Steak Dust. (I know it wasn’t a steak, but this blend was so tasty in my palm that I figured it was worth a try.) My favorite was the Lemon Pepper, which Mr. Z told me had never lost a blind taste test versus lemon peppers from other companies.

Over Labor Day Weekend I used the same method, but with riblets. For these I used Gunpowder (which gets its name from the color), Steak & Rib, Smoky Steak & Rib, Barbeque, Memphis Baby Back BBQ, Whiskey Creek Bourbon BBQ, Hickory Smoked BBQ, and Buttery Mesquite BBQ . Have you noticed the names? Sometimes the name begets the mix, and sometimes the mix begets the name. Some blends require certain names, while others end up with something wild. Either way, they are having fun. And if there is an unofficial motto of Magnolia Seasonings, it’s this: “If it’s not fun, why mess with it?”
My tastebuds are also having fun with the Greens and Vegetable seasoning that I picked up at Vowell’s (a locally owned market) a few months back. Most recently I have sprinkled it on oven-roasted vegetables, as well as grilled mushrooms with a dash of Gunpowder to boot. (Son just about wiped out the shrooms before I could try them). Mr. Z suggests sprinkling it on eggs – pizza, too! This bottle has earned a prominent spot on my rack.
Tailgate time is here, and the holidays are coming. You need seasoning. And you know it’s better to eat local. Magnolia Seasoning covers it all. Taste and see.

(Disclosure: As mentioned above, Mr. Z did bring me some sample seasonings to try. However, I later discovered that I had experienced – and enjoyed – some of their products sold under a local store label. So I think it’s safe to say that my opinions, though broadened by the generosity of Mr. Z, are my own. JR.)

Categories: Uncategorized | Tags: barbecue, Eddie Huang, Magnolia Seasoning, Salt and Pepper, Seasoning Blends, Southern Foodways Alliance, Symposium, west point ms | 1 Comment

Dinner With the SFA

Posted on February 13, 2016 by eatsoneate

Winner, winner, chicken dinner! That’s what I felt like shouting after all three dinners at the 2015 Southern Foodways Alliance Symposium. But I didn’t. That would have been slightly inappropriate and surely would have embarrassed The Wife. Wouldn’t have surprised her, but would have embarrassed her. And come to think of it, there was hardly a chicken to be found.

On the first night, after the always fantastic foodways-focused taping of Thacker Mountain Radio, we sat down for a six-course dinner from Rob Newton, a Brooklyn, NY chef with Arkansas roots. At this dinner (as he does at his restaurant Nightingale 9) he took Southern standards and gave them an Asian spin.
A few things recognizable to most Southerners were waiting for us on the table: boiled peanuts in a Mason jar, slices of country ham, pickles. On the same plate: spiced duck breast and rolled rice sticks. This sort of snack would be served along with bia hois, a unique Vietnamese beer – much like bowls of pretzels and nuts at a local bar.

The next course was a little cup of pho bo, aka the national dish of Vietnam. This soup can be really simple, as was ours (rich beef broth with herbs), or it might have rice noodles, beef strips, chicken, vegetables, etc. In Vietnam it is often a breakfast dish, but I don’t think anybody was worried.
Post-pho we received a little take-out container full of grits congee. Congee, in the simplest terms, is a rice porridge; our version was Southernized with grits standing in for the rice. Field peas gave a little texture, butternut squash provided some sweet bites, chicken and chanterelles provided the umami – and the crispy chicken skin was the perfect garnish.

Then the salad, unlike any salad I’ve ever seen. When it was brought to the table, all we could see was a plate-sized piece of grilled rice paper covering a hidden bounty underneath. We shattered the rice paper to find pumpkin seeds, green papaya, herbs, fried shallots, and sorghum grains. Sorghum: that’s molasses, right? Yes, but wait! There’s more! In Asia it can be used as the base for spirits and aged vinegars or cooked, as it was in this salad.

The main course was grilled quail stuffed with a Vietnamese-style boudin sausage, served with duck hearts, peanuts and baby collards over shaved slices of green tomato. Duck hearts I had only seen on Chopped; they reminded me of liver, perhaps a little more dense. The green tomato gave just enough brightness to offset the rich, dark flavor of the grilled quail. I could have eaten at least another serving of this. (Quail are small, remember. Quail are small.)

Dessert was street style pineapple: fresh chunks of pineapple on a stick, with a sour coconut milk for dipping (The Wife represented on that one), plus Vietnamese chocolate, and a little tiny bag of spicy salt to sprinkle on the fruit. This was not my first time to combine chocolate with pineapple, but the spicy salt was a nice diversion from the norm.

The following night we were back, as usual, to a Taylor Grocery catfish feast. No big changes to the fare Taylor provides – and that’s the way I like it. What differs from year to year are the catfish samplings outside – aka the Degustation. Chef Katie Button (Asheville, NC, our home away from home) took the Simmons Delacata cut and came up with a Chow-Chow Delacata Ceviche, served in crunchy little cones. Chef Justin Devillier (New Orleans) made Delacata Andouille Dogs with Turtle Chili. I think I’ve had ceviche twice in my life, and both times were at these meetings – any other place I may have passed it by, but I try most everything here. On the other hand, I’ve had lots of hot dogs, made with a myriad of meats. Never had a catfish dog. Never had turtle chili – only soup. It was a good night for firsts and seconds.
The final dinner was certainly right up my alley: the Lodge Cast Iron “Blank and Grits” Feed. I love grits in every form; this was grits heaven. Chef David Carrier (St.Simon’s Island, Georgia) started us with Deviled Shrimp and Grits Eggs. The yolks were “infused” with grits and the eggs were topped with a tasso and shrimp remoulade. My shrimp and grits world was turned upside down. The next world-turner was the Krill and Grits Tart from Kim Floresca (Chapel Hill, North Carolina). I confess: I didn’t know what a krill was until I saw the movie Finding Nemo, and here I was eating crispy fried krill in (and on) a quiche-like grits tart. Slightly more familiar was the Crab Cream Grits (Ricky Moore, Durham, North Carolina) and the Yellow Corn Grits with Squash and Grit Crumbs. One of my favorite bites was the Crispy Rice Grits with a side of Greens: think hush puppy sized, super crispy on the outside, tender inside. Think yum.

Dessert that night was not grits-related, but it was served out of cast-iron skillets, so it still fit the theme. Seersucker Candy of Nashville sent three of their handmade candy spheres: Muzzle Loaders (salted bourbon caramel), Cherry Bombs (pickled cherry cordials), and Lemon Drops (lemon drop-ish crunchy outside, lemon curd-ish creamy inside). I was sitting way too close to that table. It’s a good thing grits are filling and I didn’t have bigger pockets. These should definitely be on your bucket list; in fact, I suggest ordering a bucketful.

From duck hearts to Delecata, congee to Cherry Bombs, and oh my goodness that black pepper pastry filled with spicy green tomato jam, my taste buds have once again made memories. Thanks, SFA.

Categories: Uncategorized | Tags: boiled peanuts, grits, lodge cast iron, mason jar, seersucker candy company, Southern Foodways Alliance, taylor grocery | Leave a comment