I can’t think of a more appropriate way to kick off this whole thing than by talking about my three favorite champions of Southern food: John T. Edge and the Lee Brothers, Matt and Ted.
John T. , as he’s known, is director of the Southern Foodways Alliance at the University of Mississippi. The man writes about food in the way prophets wrote about the Lord – with complete reverence and honest admiration. He is the author of a number of books, including his
An American Story series on the classics:
Apple Pie (2002),
Fried Chicken (2002),
Hamburgers & Fries (2003) and
Donuts (2004). His guide to road food,
Southern Belly (rev. 2007), belongs in the glove compartment of any car on any highway, road or pig path south of I-40.
Yours truly gets a lesson in BBQ from John T. Edge, 2007
Matt and Ted Lee are native Charlestonians who found themselves living in New York City with no access to boiled peanuts (which, to me, is one of the most tragic food stories I’ve heard). They started a catalog business selling boiled peanuts and other regional staples to displaced Southerners, thus launching a career celebrating the art and esteem of the Southern plate. They have since published two cookbooks:
The Lee Bros. Southern Cookbook (2006) and
Simple Fresh Southern (2009).
John T. and the Lee Bros. sat down with Dr. Walter Edgar of the University of South Carolina this week on SCETV’s
Take on the South in an effort to answer the question, “What is Southern Cooking?” Though the debate will rage for decades, both had interesting perspectives on the question. John T. takes a view of Southern fare as a “cultural product,” just as important to the fabric of the South as Fort Sumter or a magnolia tree. While the Lee Bros. spoke of the richness and diversity of Southern food-- they recognize the continuous evolution of this style of cooking as being “mindful of tradition, but never bound by it"-- John T. talked of the “strumpet-ing up” of traditional Southern dishes, including a tale of a shrimp & grits recipe that would make you clutch your pearls. (Seriously? Indonesian prawns and pesto in the grits? WHO DOES THAT?) He insists he’s not opposed to the evolution of Southern cooking, but made an excellent point when he implored chefs to first consider those roots from which the dish originated.
I had the fortunate opportunity to taste the Lee Bros.’ cooking when they did a demo of some of their new recipes here in Charleston, and these guys are totally down with that. They use traditional ingredients creatively and still manage to evoke fried-chicken-and-creamed-corn memories of Sunday afternoons at my Nannie’s without making their dishes overwhelming or unfamiliar. They understand the history, and Ted speaks the truth when he says, “We Southerners need not apologize one iota for our cuisine.”
Nope.
Watch the full episode
here. (Click the 'watch' tab - informal discussion starts at 29:40.)
Links:Southern Foodways AllianceThe Lee Bros. Boiled Peanuts Catalogue
I stopped in at one of the two restaurants in town, T.W. Graham & Company Seafood, where I had my way with a pretty standard (though very tasty) fried shrimp sandwich and what was, by far, the best tartar sauce I've ever slathered on bread. For me, tartar sauce is a necessary component of seafood sandwiches, though I can't say the gloppy mayonnaise-y texture is particularly memorable. I hate a dry sandwich and find it somewhat blasphemous to accessorize seafood with plain mayo. In the case of T.W. Graham, theirs is a house-made recipe of carrot, onion, dill pickle, and minimal mayo -- literally just enough to hold it together. It's perfect. (810 Pinckney Street, McClellanville)