You think you know what Southern food is, even if you've never clutched a fork south of the Mason-Dixon. It's a sea of saucy mahogany and burnt beige splattered across checkered tablecloths, with a bucket of tea like melted cotton candy to wash it all down. Right?
Drive through the region and it's easy to see the Southern fried stereotypes. But pull over and start tasting, and you'll discover the remarkable complexity of this loaded land. "We're seeing a true renaissance in Southern food," says John T. Edge, director of the Southern Foodways Alliance. "We're doing it in our own way—it's honest and distinctive and real."
These days, a growing cadre of Southern cooks have cut down on grease, shaken off excess flour, and added freshness to their plates. And I'm setting off on a Deep South road trip to taste it all. As a guide, I've enlisted chef Sean Brock, James Beard Award winner and arguably the most influential voice in the Southern kitchen right now. Brock grew up eating butter beans from his grandma's garden; now he talks Southern food on TV with Charlie Rose. He's a busy man, but when I ask him if he can spare a few days for the journey, he's unequivocal: "Let's make it a week."
DAYS 1+2: CHARLESTON, SC
A journey of a thousand meals begins with a single bite, and if there is a better bite than Brock's crispy pig-ear lettuce wraps, I have yet to sink my teeth into it.
It's the New South in the palm of my hand: an unfairly maligned cut of pig brightened with fresh and pickled garden vegetables. Its flavors are classic Southern, while its form, borrowed from the lettuce-wrapping traditions of Asia, winks at the demographic shifts of a region that was once nearly all black and white. This bodes well for the week ahead.
My journey begins in Brock's backyard, where a new crop of Southern restaurants effortlessly balances richness and vibrancy. At the Macintosh, featherweight fare like red quinoa with seasonal vegetables sits side by side with bone-marrow bread pudding. The serious sandwich architects at Butcher & Bee tweak classics like pulled pork by swapping in pulled squash and crowning it with smoked coleslaw.
When I sit down at Brock's flagship restaurant, McCrady's, any remaining assumptions I had about Southern food evaporate: In nine courses, I eat nothing fried, nothing beige, and no meat to speak of. Instead I dine on tiles of raw swordfish with sea urchin and rose petals, grilled mako shark with sun-chokes and a shamrock-green herb puree, and cabbage-wrapped onion with a sweet puddle of rutabaga. Brock may look like a good ol' Southern boy, but I see proof of a true vegetable lover when I peer at his left arm: a tattooed mural of carrots and candy-stripe beets. One hundred hours of needles have rendered his skin a fleshy vegetable garden.
As paradigm-pushing as McCrady's may be, Brock's other restaurant, Husk, has made an even deeper impact on Southern food in the 2 years since it opened. Brock's food weaves a tale of heroic farmers, regional history, and personal past. Take his cast-iron skillet of roasted snapper with risotto and tomato gravy. The snapper comes from Mark Marhefka, a Charleston fisherman who works hard to maintain sustainable fishing practices. The risotto is made from Carolina Gold Rice, an exquisite grain that Glenn Roberts of Anson Mills and David Shields of the University of South Carolina brought back into cultivation. And the tomato gravy, well, it's Brock's mom's recipe, right down to the bacon drippings.
This is food your grandma used to cook—if your grandma happened to have graduated from the Culinary Institute of America with a degree in soul-satisfying, hyperseasonal comfort food. "The menu writes itself. This is what today tastes like. Not this week, not this month. Today," Sean insists. Today for me means wood-fired pork chops with smoked field peas (one of dozens of items Husk smokes out back every day), along with the best shrimp and grits I've ever tasted—a perfect balance of spice and ocean brine. And, of course, those pig-ear lettuce wraps. A glorious today indeed.
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