Podcasts about Anson Mills

In this episode of Chefs Without Restaurants, Chris Spear is joined by Glenn Roberts, the founder of Anson Mills, a company renowned for its dedication to preserving landrace crops and advancing sustainable farming practices. Glenn shares his fascinating journey from a career in restaurant design and management to becoming a passionate advocate for biosecurity and traditional farming methods.Topics Discussed:The Importance of Landrace Crops: A deep dive into what landrace crops are, their significance in agriculture, and why preserving these varieties is crucial for food security and biodiversity.Sustainable Farming Practices: The challenges and rewards of growing heritage grains like Carolina Gold rice, and how polyculture and biosecurity play a role in modern farming.The Intersection of Traditional Farming and Modern Challenges: Glenn and Chris explore the impact of climate change on farming and the importance of maintaining traditional agricultural practices in a rapidly changing world.Polycropping and Agricultural Diversity: How planting multiple crops together can enhance soil health, increase yield stability, and provide a more resilient farming system.The Role of Community in Sustainable Agriculture: Glenn shares insights on how local communities can engage with and support sustainable farming practices, and the importance of understanding where our food comes from.GLENN ROBERTS and ANSON MILLSThe Anson Mills WebsiteBuy Anson Mills ProductsAnson Mills on Instagram, Threads and FacebookCHEFS WITHOUT RESTAURANTSIf you enjoy the show and would like to support it financially, please check out our Sponsorship page (we get a commission when you use our links).Get the Chefs Without Restaurants NewsletterChefs Without Restaurants Instagram, Threads, TikTok and YouTubeThe Chefs Without Restaurants Private Facebook GroupChris Spear's personal chef business Perfect Little BitesSupport the Show.

Mike Switzer continues his discussion with Glenn Roberts, founder of Anson Mills in Columbia, S.C.

Mike Switzer interviews Glenn Roberts, founder of Anson Mills in Columbia, S.C.

Host and American Family Farmer, Doug Stephan www.eastleighfarm.com introduces us to Glenn Roberts founder of Anson Mills. www.ansonmills.com. Glenn grew up in San Diego, California, the son of a professional singer and photographer, and a former Southern belle from Edisto, South Carolina. Somewhere along the road Glenn's overarching interests distilled into the study of architectural history and the history of food. Glenn explored rural back roads looking for the famous white Carolina mill cornl. He found this corn in a bootlegger's field near Dillon, South Carolina in 1997 and planted and harvested his own first crop of 30 acres in 1998. Today, in addition to its collection of native heirloom grains, Anson Mills grows Japanese buckwheat, French oats and Mediterranean wheat, and Italian farro. Glen works tirelessly to manage his old grains, the land, and their growers, as well as chefs and retail customers.

A few months back when I covered the topic of landrace gardening and crop breeding, I had no idea what a passionate and knowledgeable community around the world that I was tapping into.  The seed savers and plant breeders who I've been in touch with, including quite a few who are part of the Discord community for this podcast, are working on everything from quinoa crosses for tough climate staple crop production, to the domestication of silverweed, adapted varieties for low maintenance, and so much more. For the most part though I've been coming across people who are doing this in their backyards and only occasionally on farms. It made me wonder if there was real potential in bringing heritage seed varieties and landrace breeding into larger operations and if it was even feasible at a large scale. Luckily, Joseph Lofthouse passed me the contact of Glenn Roberts promising that I wouldn't regret reaching out to him and learning about the work he's doing at Anson Mills.  Glenn Roberts founded Anson Mills in 1998 in Charleston, South Carolina, with the vision to rematriate lost foods of the 18th and 19th century Southern Pantry. Today, Anson Mills grows and produces artisan organic landrace grain, legume and oilseed ingredients for chefs and home cooks worldwide, and provides pro bono culinary research support for chefs, pastry chefs, bakers, brewers and distillers through AM Research Labs. Anson Mills provides pro bono seed biosecurity for the growing community of Southern organic place-based identity preserved landrace crop farmers. Glenn is the recipient of the USA Artisan of the Year and National Pathfinder Awards, a founding member of the Carolina Gold Rice Foundation and a pro bono consultant to the Board of Advisors, Stone Barns Center. From that bio, you can see that I hit the jackpot in my search for production scale farms working on landrace growing projects.  Beyond the work he's most known for though, Glenn is a very multifaceted and multi talented individual in many other fields which he describes at the beginning of the episode.  From there he took me through his journey of rediscovering Carolina Golden Rice, a heritage variety that he knew from his childhood but which had been all but lost by the time he grew up. Glenn also gave me a window into the process of reviving an endangered seed and food variety as well as the incredible network of people around the world studying and working on these challenges.  We also explore the culture that is connected to our traditional foods and how reviving lost genetics is about so much more than putting a different type of seeds in the ground, but rather rediscovering how to grow these strains and the management of the land and even community that is involved in caring for this food.  There are so many fascinating stories and ideas in this interview that open up the world and potential of landrace growing as well as a huge network and collection of resources that Glenn and his collaborators have created for those of you who might be interested in getting involved and assisting in these efforts so I really encourage you to listen through to the end on this one and to check out the links and resources in the show notes for this episode on the website as well.

Glenn Roberts founded Anson Mills in 1998 in Charleston, South Carolina, to rematriate lost foods of the 18th and 19th century Southern Pantry. Today, Anson Mills grows and produces artisan organic landrace grain, legume, and oil seed ingredients for chefs and home cooks worldwide and provides culinary research support for pastry chefs, bakers, brewers, and distillers through Anson Mills Research Lab. Anson Mills provides pro bono seed biosecurity for the growing community of Southern organic place based identity preserved landrace crop farmers. Glenn is a recipient of the USA Artisan of the Year and National Pathfinder Awards and a founding member of the Carolina Gold Rice Foundation. On this episode, Glenn joins host Mitchell Davis and offers a modern take on ancient grains, describes how geography-agriculture-history inform cuisine, and highlights the flavor of biosecurity. Follow Glenn on Twitter and Instagram: @ansonmills and on TikTok: @anson_mills. For more on Glenn and Anson Mills, visit: ansonmills.com. Plus, for more on his work and the field, visit: https://www.ars.usda.gov/southeast-area/stuttgart-ar/dale-bumpers-national-rice-research-center/ 

Why are historical foodstuffs important? And what might they have to offer to us living now about some of the biggest issues we're facing? Glenn Roberts of Anson Mills and AM Research in Columbia, SC is on a journey to address these questions through interacting with the foods themselves: finding the seed, growing them out, and working with his team and a host of others around the world to test and apply the results in a climates that are rapidly changing. I spoke with Glenn a few years ago, along with Dr. David Shields, about the Carolina Gold Rice Foundation, and many of you will associate Glenn with that iconic Southern grain. But he's now applying creative thinking to the companion plants and the ecosystems of the rice, and it's leading him to new questions about salt tolerance, growing cycles, and even which parts of the plant we harvest for food. Now, I'm intellectually flying by the seat of my pants in this conversation, but there's lots of good humor amid the scientific ideas, and Glenn provides us hope for the future of food by looking to the past.

Donna and Lonna celebrate Black History Month by exploring the work of Jessica Harris, author and food historian and also talk about the cookbook "Jubilee: Recipes from Two Centuries of African American Cooking" by Toni Tipton-Martin.   The Black diaspora has brought many ingredients and diverse culinary skills to our modern plates. And they talk about Glenn Roberts, the founder of Anson Mills. Biscuits, waffles, Carolina Gold Rice, Thirteen Colonies flours, okra and deep fat frying.  

So many Links this week!But great places to visit - a blog, a rice foundation, a shop for all things (many things?) Carib - I admit I'm excited about that one. There's not much Caribbean representation on my Global Shopping Street.But most exciting of all - the exposure of fakes and the possibility of breaking news!Rice pretends like its a background player - but it's a drama grain.A savory calas (rice croquette) recipe: https://www.poppytooker.com/calasOh - just look up Poppy Tooker, this a New Orleans name of note. (I know the French are the Enemy right now, but its OK) https://www.poppytooker.com/this-weeks-showWoah - can no longer find the digital version of the Lucayos Cook Book I snagged. Sloppy of me... and it looks like I have a pirated book! As a work published between 1924 and 1978 - it has a 95 year copyright... So I won't be slapping up a PDF. But! When do my bonus episode, I will be providing extensive recipes as quotations, and you'll definitely get the flavor of it.In the meantime, a fair selection of smaller University libraries seem to have a copy of those book, so you can check it out. Modern-ish take on Carolina Snowballs with Turnspit & Tablehttps://www.turnspitandtable.com/uncategorized/carolina-snowballs-re-do/ Anson Mills - https://www.ansonmills.com/Get some Carolina Gold - regular rice, or rice grits - https://www.ansonmills.com/productsCarolina Gold Foundation - http://www.thecarolinagoldricefoundation.org/But you can buy the red rice from Trinidad! Caribshopper:https://caribshopper.com/blogs/caribshopper-blog/moruga-hill-rice-the-red-grain-with-a-great-story-and-tasteLinks to the better red rice information:Michael Twitty - https://leitesculinaria.com/325844/writings-the-history-of-rice.htmlAbena Offeh-Gyimah - https://abenaoffehgyimah.com/blog/oryza-glaberrima-and-the-decline-of-indigenous-african-foodsMusic Credit: Fingerlympics by Doctor TurtleShow Notes: https://thehistoryofamericanfood.blogspot.com/Email: TheHistoryofAmericanFood@gmail.com Twitter: @THoAFoodInstagram: @THoAFood

Show notes at Keith Snow.com If you have ever visited Charleston SC you quickly realize that among the southern charm and historic buildings there is something else that has visitors flocking to the Holy City. Charleston was founded in 1670 as Charles Town, honoring King Charles 11, and is literally a living history book. Once the heart of the slave trade almost half of all slaves arrived at Charleston, or course this stain on the city's past should never be forgotten. One of the results of this slave trade was that many slaves from Africa brought their Gullah cuisine and cooking methods with them as well as other traditions such as basket weaving, these recipes, methods, and skills have become a treasure to the Charleston area and all who visit. it Many ingredients that are considered basic commodity staples like rice and corn are now heralded in the Charleston area and have become the stuff of obsession. A reading from Fast Company….The Grit Awakening: Why Antebellum-Style Cornmeal Has Risen Again Tim Mills remembers that as a boy growing up on a North Carolina farm, one of his favorite chores was riding with his grandfather to the local mill to get the corn ground. So when “the still voice of God” told the 71-year-old Methodist farmer to build a grist mill on his small farm in Clarke County, Georgia, Mills says he at least had some idea what The Almighty was talking about. God had great timing: Mills' brand of grits, made with 19th-century techniques and a pair of mules, are now a hit in upscale Southern restaurants. Mills' brand, Red Mule, is one of a slew of successful pre-industrial cornmeal companies that are seeing sales surge across the New South and beyond. There are a number of trends that help explain the increasing appeal of Antebellum-style grits. First there's the increasing preferences among consumers for less-processed, locally sourced foods. There's the well-documented Southern instinct to celebrate old ways of doing things. But above all, the success of Red Mule is probably about their taste, which for most Southerners is older than living memory. “I grew up eating those bland grits, and they didn't have any taste, other than the butter, salt, and pepper you'd put on them,” says food historian John T. Edge, director of the Southern Foodways Alliance. He's referring to the familiar white stuff pooling beside fried eggs on breakfast plates. Those grits are processed on high-speed roller mills, which heat to a high temperature, damaging the flavor of the corn and smashing the germ to dust. Edge has watched, happily, as grits have been resurrected into an artisanal food. “What's happened to the South isn't some fad but a genuine unearthing of old foods and varieties,” he says. “Grits are a reintegration of a very old food being enjoyed in a very new time.” Now grits or corn are just one staple that is being celebrated and the focus of many Charleston area menu items, also oats, Carolina Gold Rice and other simple staples are making a huge comeback, and rightfully so. Several years ago I had the pleasure of filming an episode of Harvest Eating TV in an old steel building behind the railroad tracks in downtown Columbia SC with Glenn Roberts founder and principal of one of the most important companies in America, Anson Mills. And then there's Anson Mills in Columbia, S.C., which takes the term “heirloom” to a new level. Owner Glenn Roberts produces grits and meal made of corns that were raised as crops in the nineteenth century. But Roberts' mission isn't just to sell grits. He's spent the last 20 years finding, protecting, and cultivating corn and other pre-industrial domesticated plants–called “landraces”–and resurrecting agricultural systems that existed in North America centuries ago. His Carolina Gold Rice, grown in the coastal area of South Carolina, is of the same variety that people were eating at the end of the Revolutionary War. In old journals and diaries Roberts discovered that in the South Carolina of the 1700s, many farmers followed a 17-year-long cycle of rotating specific crops to enhance their flavor, hardiness, and nutritional value without depleting the soil. -Fast Company I literally could go on and on about how important the work Glenn Roberts does at Anson mills but suffice to say we all owe Glenn a debt of gratitude for his dedication to Antebellum grains and preserving southern foodways. Resourced for this episode: https://ansonmills.com/ https://www.coastalconservationleague.org/projects/growfood/ https://huskrestaurant.com/about/suppliers/ https://www.jstor.org/stable/3740433 https://www.fastcompany.com/3035287/the-grit-awakening-why-antebellum-style-cornmeal-has-risen-again https://www.southernfoodways.org/ https://www.southernfoodways.org/gravy/

Rick brought a list today and we went through it.  I wanted to let you all know about Nichelle Stephens and her podcast and email newsletter. Email Newsletter: https://nichelle.substack.com/ Podcast  https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/nichelle-newsletter-podcast/id1513445424 High on the Hog: A Culinary Journey from Africa to America Jessica Harris Local Bookshop: https://bookshop.org/books/high-on-the-hog-a-culinary-journey-from-africa-to-america/9781608194506 Amazon: https://amzn.to/3xc3Bzs Watch on Netflix: https://www.netflix.com/title/81034518 Caralina Gold Rice from Anson Mills https://www.ansonmills.com/products/23 https://neeva.com/ ad free search engine FireFox Browswer & VPN https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/ EFF Electronic Frontier Foundation Plug Ins: https://www.eff.org/pages/tools ODNS DNS over HTTPS Discount coupon for Rad Power Bikes: https://www.talkable.com/x/IeJbX6 Support GardenFork, become a monthly supporter on Patreon: http://patreon.com/gardenfork Start your Amazon shopping here: https://amazon.com/shop/gardenfork Get My GardenFork Email Newsletter: https://www.gardenfork.tv/sign-up-for-our-email-newsletter/ GF Sweaters and T Shirts https://teespring.com/stores/gardenfork-2 Email me: radio@gardenfork.tv Watch us on YouTube: www.youtube.com/gardenfork GardenFork's Facebook Discussion group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/1692616594342396/ Produced by Sean O'Neil http://seaninbrooklyn.com/ GardenFork Radio is produced by GardenFork Media LLC in Brooklyn, NY ©2021 All Rights Reserved GardenFork Media LLC Music is licensed from Unique Tracks and AudioBlocks.

Tony and Chef Cindy check in with one of the leading purveyors of ancient and heirloom grains. Glenn Roberts of Anson Mills gives us a ring from the grain fields for a deep dive into grain heritages, milling techniques and how he got into the business of repatriating variates that were nearly lost to time. From Carolina Gold rice to the difference between polenta and grits, Glenn gives a crash course on why these heirloom grains are so important to our history, our culture and our tables. Plus, Tony and Cindy give you a crash course on food and wine pairings. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

From the humble chickpea to lavish saffron rice. Tony and Chef Cindy talk about their favorite types of beans and peas and some delicious preparations for grains and rice.  If you are interested in exploring some heritage varieties to cook at home, you can check out Anson Mills for some great ideas. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

With Thanksgiving right around the corner, we’ve been thinking about the many ways this holiday bolsters colonial narratives, as well as opportunities to push back on them. This episode spotlights individual people, dishes and ingredients that are decolonizing our food system. We’re looking at our Thanksgiving plates and beyond to explore efforts to reclaim food sovereignty in Native American culture, the African diaspora, and Puerto Rico. We start by revisiting the Thanksgiving myth and investigating the forces that continue to shape Native Americans’ food access and culinary legacy. Then we’ll share a recipe that brings Geechee culture to the Thanksgiving table. We track the history of a West African rice strain that is reintroducing a rich heritage as well as environmental resilience to American soil. And finally we learn about how one food justice collective is working to bring power and healing to Puerto Rico. Further Reading and Listening:Check out Sean Sherman and his platform,  The Sioux Chef – Revitalizing Native American Cuisine / Re-Identifying North American CuisineSubscribe to Jupiter’s Almanac wherever you get your podcasts. (Apple Podcasts | Stitcher | Spotify | RSS). Find Matthew Raiford’s Thanksgiving recipe for oyster dressing here.Learn more about Dr. Anna McClung and the Dale Bumpers National Rice Research Center here. Find out more about Glenn Roberts and Anson Mills here. Check out Luz Cruz and Cuir Kitchen Brigade here. Here’s an NPR article on the history of Puerto Rican debt, and here’s a 2019 study on the effects of the Jones ActKeep Meat and Three on the air: become an HRN Member today! Go to heritageradionetwork.org/donate. Meat and Three is powered by Simplecast.

Rice is central to the agricultural history of the Low Country and will become an increasingly important crop as the world’s population deals with climate change and rising sea levels. Some of our favorite strains, like Carolina Gold, aren’t salt tolerant enough to deal with the growing unpredictability of hurricane seasons and coastal flooding events. Glenn Roberts of Anson Mills and Brian Ward of Clemson University’s Coastal Research and Education Center are working to develop new rice strains that combine high salt tolerance with preferred flavor profiles. Not only will this work help feed growing and shifting populations of people, it will also provide sustenance for migratory birds who face many challenges to finding enough food on their seasonal journeys. Kat Johnson and Harry Rosenblum sit down with Roberts and Ward in Charleston to discuss this important work and how Anson Mills, Clemson University, government organizations, and farmers are all working together to ensure rice production remains sustainable in a changing world.HRN On Tour is powered by Simplecast.

They say the best things in life are free, and what better way to enjoy food than to find free healthy food growing in the wild in your own neighborhood! In this episode, I’ll be speaking with Atlanta’s own Johnnie AppleSeed – forager and forester, Robby Astrove – who is absolutely passionate about making fruit accessible to people in urban centers by planting more fruit trees. I’ll also be speaking with Chris Willkins of the Root Baking Company, a wholesale bread bakery that was dounded in 2015 in Charleston, SC and moved to Atlanta, GA in 2018. Robby and Chris have been collaborating on some exciting wild food projects and we’re going to dive into some recent work they’ve done with wild serviceberry. About Robby Astrove Robby Astrove is an arborist, environmental educator, and consultant in Atlanta Georgia who has worked on behalf of nature and people for over 15 years. He manages the 2,500 acre Arabia Mountain Nature Preserve in Stonecrest, GA and specializes in native plants, edible landscaping, and connects people to nature. He also connects people to nature through the fruit he forages and shares with chefs, mixologists, medicine makers, and community groups. He volunteers with Concrete Jungle, an organization that donates foraged and grown produce to shelters, food banks, and instructs workshops on tree ID, planting, and pruning. During the winter months, Robby plants fruit trees, berry bushes, and herbs to support urban biodiversity and access to healthy, fresh, and affordable food in communities with limited food access. Link to Concrete Jungle: www.concrete-jungle.org Story on Robby’s work: https://www.nrdc.org/stories/robby-astroves-vision-atlanta-delicious About Root Baking Co. Root Baking Company is a Southern bakery and cafe specializing in European-style hearth breads, simple pastries, and vegetable-forward food, sourcing grains and ingredients from the southeast. Root Baking Co. started in the Fall of 2015 in Charleston, SC as a wholesale bread bakery. Their mission: to honor the baking traditions of time and craft, nourish our neighbors with high quality baked goods, and embrace the diverse character of the Southern food landscape to enrich our community.  They moved Root Baking to Ponce City Market, in Atlanta, GA in the fall of 2018, and while they’ve added pastries and a savory food program to our bread lineup, our mission remains the same. They believe in partnering with farmers and local/regional artisans to support our community in Atlanta, Georgia and the Southeast. They work with purveyors such as: Woodland Gardens Organics, Bartram Trail Farm, Woodsman and Wife Cheese, DaySpring Farms, Anson Mills, Geechie Boy Mill and more. About Cassandra Quave Prof. Cassandra Quave is best known for her ground-breaking research on the science of botanicals. Scientists in her research lab work to uncover some of nature’s deepest secrets as they search for new ways to fight life-threatening diseases, including antibiotic resistant infections. Working with a global network of scientists and healers, Cassandra and her team travel the world hunting for new plant ingredients, interviewing healers, and bringing plants back to the lab to study. Besides research, Cassandra is an award-winning teacher, and has developed and taught the college classes “Food, Health and Society” and “Botanical Medicine and Health” at Emory University. @QuaveEthnobot on Twitter @QuaveEthnobot on Instagram @QuaveMedicineWoman and “Foodie Pharmacology with Cassandra Quave” on Facebook

Steve dreamt of farming his entire life. He became an obsessed gardener and cook while studying philosophy in college. In 1994, while back in grad school for horticulture after three years as a bike messenger/wannabe farmer, he found a job in vineyards and orchards working for a small sustainable agriculture consulting firm. In 1999 he co-authored the California manual on sustainable vineyard practices. In 2002 he started consulting on vineyard practices in Napa. He still loves the challenge of solving vineyard problems for others, but since 2003 the primary focus has been on his own family farming and winemaking with his wife Jill. Steve is a life-long student of the craft of viticulture. Eric Asimov has said of Steve’s wines, “Matthiasson wines bear an agricultural stamp, as fresh, lively and alive as the best produce from a farmers’ market.” Steve is a James Beard Award Finalist in 2018 & 2019, and has been named Winemaker of the Year by both the San Francisco Chronicle and Food & Wine Magazine. Learn more about Steve with the show notes here.   In this episode we mention… Native Seeds Search Organization Gary Nabhan, author on native foods Anson Mills, heritage rices Chef Frank Stitt of Highlands Bar Chef Rodney Scott, James Beard Award Brownen Percival & Steve Matthiasson Sustainability Talks in London on Wine & Cheese Premier Viticulture, Steves Vineyard Company Tenets of Integrated Pest Management • Monitoring • Establishing an Economic Threshold • Cultural Controls 2012 Limerick Lane Pinot Noir 14 Inkas Vodka High Wire Distillery in Charleston, South Carolina Follow Steve On… INSTAGRAMFACEBOOKWEBSITE

We met Henry Jones two years ago at the first International Symposium on Bread in 2017. Back then, he was making a name for himself as the head baker at Butcher & Bee in Charleston, SC. He’d initially joined the team to work under the head baker, Joe Shea, who left a few months into Jones’ tenure. Jones was named his successor (at only 22 years old) and quickly caught the attention of Glenn Roberts of Anson Mills. We sit down with Jones two years after first meeting at the third annual symposium. He’s now working with Roberts and Kay Rentschler developing recipes for the Anson Mills website. We talk about working with some of the more unusual Anson Mills products and his transition to writing recipes aimed at home bakers. HRN On Tour is powered by Simplecast.

Host Kat Johnson continues her exploration of historic Southern ingredients and traditions at Charleston Wine + Food this year with a compelling conversation about Jimmy Red Corn. Distillers Ann Marshall and Scott Blackwell of High Wire Distilling Co. weigh in on using this variety to create a bourbon unlike anything you’ve ever tasted. They journeyed through Oaxaca with Glenn Roberts of Anson Mills to trace the origins of Jimmy Red Corn, and the three share highlights of that recent trip. HRN On Tour is powered by Simplecast.

Grits, Polenta, Corn Meal, and Corn Flour. No one does these better than Jon & Michelle Stauffer of Colonial Milling. They've taken their cues from Glenn Roberts of Anson Mills and forged their own path and are now getting lots of great press courtesy Southern Living, Town Carolina, and many more.

Secrets of the Southern TableA Food Lover's Tour of the Global SouthBy Virginia Willis INTRO: Welcome to the Cookery by the Book Podcast with Suzy Chase! She's just a home cook in New York City sitting at her dining room table talking to cookbook authors.Virginia Willis: My name is Virginia Willis, and my most recent cookbook is Secret of the Southern Table: A Food Lover's Tour of the Global South.Suzy Chase: This cookbook was a real education for me. In the forward, Sean Brock wrote, "There is a misconception around the world that southern food is a singular cuisine." Explain that statement.Virginia Willis: Well, I think to what Sean does, he sort of expounds on the fact that the south is roughly one million square miles, and so I really ... What he wrote in terms of we don't say, "I love European food," I think that that application applies to the south, that same sort of philosophy would apply to the south. The coastal cuisine of Louisiana is tremendously different from the coastal cuisine of Florida or the low country or Texas. So this southern food, when people say southern food or southern cuisine, there's actually many sort of pockets and micro-pockets throughout the south.Suzy Chase: In terms of the pockets and micro-pockets, describe the differences between, let's say the food in Appalachia to coastal Carolina to the gulf.Virginia Willis: So the food of Appalachia would be more of mountain cuisine, so corn grows there. It's not a great area for grains, so there'd be less wheat production. The soil is rocky, and it's mountainous. It's a poor party of the country. It always has been. The cuisine of the deep south, of course, that's traditionally a long time ago would've been the plantations and cotton, but it's just huge expanses of land for crops. And then of course the coastal cuisines, the various different types of coastal cuisines would've heavily relied upon seafood. So each sort of geographic area by what grows in the region sort of dictates what the food of that region is.Suzy Chase: You wrote, "Memory shapes the story of our lives and allows us to interact with the world." I adore the visual of your grandmother Louise sitting you in one compartment of her double-sided steel sink while she shelled peas or snapped beans in her kitchen with blue and white gingham curtains!Virginia Willis: You can't paint a better picture, right? I mean, it's just ...Suzy Chase: I know! So how did this memory shape your life?Virginia Willis: Well, my earliest memories are being in the kitchen with my grandmother and with my mother ... my grandfather. I mean, really, truly I was three years old when my family moved from Georgia to Louisiana, which also had tremendous influence. The best times of my life have sort of been in the kitchen. That's always been what grounded me, what intrigued me, what excited me, and so that kitchen, my grandmother and grandfather's kitchen, those heart pine walls and the linoleum floor and the gingham checkered curtains ... That really distilled it for me about like where my love of food and cooking started.Suzy Chase: I love that. I want to go there right now! The kitchen sounds so cute!Virginia Willis: It was. She had it packed full. It was this tidy little kitchen with this little eat-in table for the two of them. And when I was a little girl, my sister and I both had stools that sort of were kept underneath the table that we would pull out so the two adults and the two children could sit and eat there. And of course we had a dining room, but I just remember grits for breakfast. And in the summertime, my grandfather would bring in tomatoes, and my grandmother would chop up fresh tomatoes for the top of the grits. So it really just truly ... I think my mouth is watering right now!Suzy Chase: I know! ... So talk about the questions of ownership of southern cooking. We often hear about the nameless black women who helped mold southern cuisine, but talk about the nameless faceless poor white women that we don't really hear about.Virginia Willis: Yeah ... It's so complicated, and it's so heavy. It is still ... It's only been a couple hundred years since the Civil War, right? In the scope of things, it just hasn't been that long, and of course the Jim Crow ... African-Americans have been kept sort of subjugated for the few hundred years since then. But in terms of the ownership and the faceless white women, one thing to consider is that there really has always been a 1%. I mean, we've sort of reflected upon that more recently with the crash a couple years ago and such, but there really has sort of been always this 1%. And so in the south, there's this perception of great plantations and people owning multiple slaves, and this was true, and this was also part of the 1%. So there was undoubtedly a system that kept different classes and cultures in place, and I'm actually reading this really sort of academic book called Masterless Men, and it's about poor whites in the antebellum south. And because slavery existed, there really wasn't a working white class because of course there was slavery, and so that was technically free, if that makes any sense. I mean, other than the cost of the person. So it's truly complicated, but one thing that does come back is that there has always been poverty in the south for a great many of the people, both black and white included. And so one of the things that I like to take into consideration or I want us to start taking into consideration with our dialogue is addressing and understanding the implications of slavery but also understanding the implications that there were poor whites as well that didn't have slaves. And so there always has been this sort of faceless women cooking food for people.Suzy Chase: Why have we never heard that story? I'm sitting here thinking, "Well yes, there were white people who were out of work because of slavery."Virginia Willis: It's really ... The thing is, is that I don't think that we've actually come to grips as a country with the fact that we were proponents of slavery for centuries, and it did live and exist in the south for far longer than it did in the north, but let's not kid ourselves. There was slavery in the northeast when the colonies were founded, and there was a tremendous slave trade between the Caribbean and salt cod in New England and Europe. So I feel like that's part of the complication. We really ... In this day and age, it's hard for us to sort of grasp the fact that the United States is so deeply involved with slavery for so long, for centuries, truly for centuries ... And it did last longer in the south, and it did become ... It was the primary instigation for the Civil War. But you, I have an expression like, "The truth is always in the middle." It's easily not one side or the other. The truth is always somewhere in between, and I feel like that's just part of it. We're still trying to figure it out. I feel it's just part of my organic desire as a southerner and a food person and a cook to try to figure out some of these questions, and then also just my place as a person, right? This is a person. How does this happen? How does this play out? How does this affect people's lives? You know, it's a tumultuous time.Suzy Chase: The largest population of Vietnamese in the United States outside of California is Houston. Talk a little bit about the Vietnamese shrimpers in Texas.Virginia Willis: So that is such a fascinating story because when I tell people that there are more Vietnamese in Houston than anywhere outside of California in the United States, people, their eyes just pop up. People think, Houston, Texas and cowboys or oil, right? There are some people who are little bit more geographically aware might realize that it's on actually pretty close the coast, and there's this seafooding industry. But essentially, after the Vietnam War, when the Vietnamese were displaced and there was this humanitarian crisis, the UN placed these Vietnamese refugees, they were unceremoniously called the boat people ... The UN placed them in different places throughout the world, and Texas was one of them. And so one of the things that's so fascinating there is that the Vietnamese came in. Of course, Vietnam has two coasts. It's a seafaring country, and so the Vietnamese entered the fishing and shrimping industry. And in my research, I learned that of course sort of history repeats itself time and time again. When a new population moves into an area and they start taking the jobs, then the dominant population reacts, and the dominant population, being white shrimpers in Houston and Galveston and in the area, it became sort of like the battle zone. And the KKK protested and became involved. It was fraught. Ships were burned, and shots were fired, and all these things. So how does that play into my cookbook? I felt like it's important to tell those stories too. I mean, southern food isn't solely dewy-eyed women with gingham aprons, right? So there's the good, the bad, and the ugly, and if you love something or if you love a place or you love someone, you love it all or have to acknowledge it all. So I wanted to tell that story, but what has also happened ... There's this sort of twofold realization that I had. The Vietnamese culture is still fairly closed. I mean, it was only like 40 years ago, so in time, that's not much time. So my goal in visiting Galveston and the Houston area was to try to talk to Vietnamese shrimpers and to talk to them about their experience. I gave it my best journalistic shot, and I couldn't get anyone to talk to me.Suzy Chase: Really?Virginia Willis: I couldn't get anyone ... Yeah. I contacted the Texas seafood marketing association and part of the department of agriculture and asked for assistance getting me in touch with the Vietnamese shrimpermen. They had nobody. It was eye-opening. It was really ... It was a lesson, right? It's like only 40 years later, and this community is still pretty closed. I literally found myself like wandering the docks, walking into a clearly Vietnamese-owned seafood company, and they're like, "Oh, we're busy." And I'm like, "Oh, that's fine. I'll wait." "No, we're busy, and we're gonna be busy." I just met a gentleman mending nets and asked him if we could take his photograph, and he said no. He didn't mind his back being shown, but he didn't want to be a part of the story. So it was sort of disheartening on that end, and then we did meet some young, early 20-something Vietnamese kids that are probably third-generation now, maybe second, and they're like, "Hey, yeah. You can take our picture." So they were brothers, and one was sort of like a version of like a Vietnamese Ken, right? Ken doll? You know Ken?Suzy Chase: Yeah.Virginia Willis: Super clean cut and t-shirt and buff and clearly works out ... this really clean cut. And his brother was sort of the Johnny Depp of Vietnamese culture! He was great! I mean, seriously, it's like somewhere between Johnny Depp and Pirates of the Caribbean kind of Keith Richards look. And they were very open and would talk to us and had no problem. So I feel like the tides will turn, right, eventually. Assimilation does happen. It just takes awhile. And then the only thing I'd say lastly to that is that open or closed, the presence of so many Vietnamese in the Houston area has definitely affected the local food and culture. It's just present. We went to a place to eat, and they had ... They called them Vietnamese fajitas because everyone of course knows fajitas, but they were Vietnamese fajitas. But it wasn't a fajita at all. It was a Vietnamese rice paper wrap, right? And lots of restaurants have Vietnamese influence throughout. It's taken awhile, but the presence the Vietnamese in Texas is definitely affecting the local food wave there.Suzy Chase: And I think I read in the book that they call it Viet-Tex?Virginia Willis: Yeah! There's a Viet-Tex, and then of course there're Vietnamese all along the gulf because they didn't just sort of stay in Texas. They moved to Louisiana, and there's Vietnamese in Mississippi and Alabama as well. And so in Louisiana, there's a Viet-Cajun-Suzy Chase: Oh my gosh!Virginia Willis: Sort of this incredible mashup of like the creole spices and the southeast-Asian spices with like ginger and lemongrass and garlic. And it's this incredible mashups or fusions or just this natural evolution of what southern food really is.Suzy Chase: In addition to the recipes in each chapter, you have two essays about a farmer, catcher, harvester, or maker. One that caught my eye was Many Fold Farm. Talk a bit about Ross and Rebecca William, the new face of farming and their hurdles with a small farm.Virginia Willis: Oh, it's just sort of amazing. My goal of this book was to present this rich and diverse south, and so my goal was also to present the unexpected. So for example, in Georgia the average farmer is a 57 year old white male. I don't have any problems with 57 year old white men, and neither one did, but what I wanted to do is to not feature that, not to feature that man, to feature someone else. So Ross and Rebecca are this young couple. They've been high school sweethearts, stayed together through college, have purposefully chosen this region in Palmetto, which is 30, 45 minutes tops from Atlanta Hartsfield-Jackson, the world's busiest airport. But it's completely rural, tranquil, quiet, countryside only 30 minutes away from Atlanta. And they have chosen this region because there are some pretty strict zoning laws that have been put into place by local governance to restrict sprawl. Atlanta has a ton of sprawl, like in all directions, and big buck stores and malls and traffic, traffic, traffic. We've got terrible traffic in Atlanta. So Ross and Rebecca started with chickens and have moved to goat cheese and different sheep milk cheeses ... winning award fast, but when I went and interviewed them, shortly thereafter, they had to put pause on the farm because the challenges that farmers face, right? They wanted to continue making this beautiful award-winning cheese, but to scale up, they would've had to have imported sheep's milk from the Midwest. And it sort of flew in the face of their values. So there's so many different considerations in farming, and the first one of course, you can be sustainable, but if it's not economically sustainable, it's not sustainable at all. And so that's sort of where it was left. They're hitting pause for a bit, so they can sort of regroup and figure out what they're doing.Suzy Chase: Then I read about the gospel of ham, Nancy Newsom. Newsom's country hams! Describe the country hams that she makes.Virginia Willis: Oh my god. I love Ms. Nancy. She is just amazing! So she's this sort of powerhouse of a woman and the ham is like nothing you've ever tasted before. It's just amazing ... So it would be ... For folks who aren't familiar with country ham, country ham is a traditional means of preservation that's hundreds and hundreds of years old. It's been long practiced in Europe, and then those traditions came to the south. And primarily hams are salted, and in the United States, in specifically sort of like in Appalachia, in the mountains, they were salted and smoked. So there's like a twofold process. Because it's so hot in the south, we have to have like extra layer of preservation. But Nancy's hams are this amazing salty and sweet and intensely savory ... absolutely incredible. It would be similar to one of the finest prosciutto hams from Parma. When sliced really thinly, it's exactly the same sort of quality of prosciutto.Suzy Chase: How did ham become a secret of the southern table?Virginia Willis: So pig is the meat of the south. If you kind of think about it, how did that happen? There's these large expanses, and in Texas, definitely beef is king. And there are cattle raised in the south, but for much of the south, these wide expanses would not have been used for pastureland. They would've been used from crops, for growing soybeans or cotton or corn or whatever it is. So pigs have long been sort of the meat that sustained the south, and then of course cured ham would be a natural extension of that. The pigs would be raised throughout the year, and then there would be a hog killing the fall. Of course when it got cooler, so that would be the perfect time to sort of cure the hams and put them in the smokehouse so that there would be meat for the wintertime. So ham is a very integral part of southern food throughout the south. So I say that southern food is different cuisines. Southern food throughout the south involves ham.Suzy Chase: What is one southern dish that you make that immediately brings you back to growing up in the south?Virginia Willis: There's so many, right? Like okra ... I literally have an okra pendant around my neck. I think okra is a sort of aggressively southern vegetable. It primarily grows in the south. But if I were to be really truthfully honest, even though I'm trying to present all these different recipes from the south, from different cultures, I think that biscuits are probably the food that takes me back ... going back to that gingham curtain and the kitchen of my grandmother's. I've been making biscuits since I was three years old in the kitchen, so that is firmly burned into my memory.Suzy Chase: You've wrote in the back of the cookbook, "As we drove across 11 states, the radio sat silent for hours upon hours as we examined our thoughts and beliefs regarding our homeland, perused its difficult past, contemplated its complicated current situation, and voiced our hopes for its future." Was there one person you met traveling while researching your cookbook along the way that made a huge impression on you?Virginia Willis: I can't truly weigh like one experience more than the other because it really was just a sort of journey of a lifetime, and pulling out one person, I think, would be too problematic because I met so many different voices. I might point towards Glenn Roberts at Anson Mills because I think that what he is doing is really incredible. Many people may have heard of Anson Mills. It's become sort of the darling of chefs in the past decade or so. But Glenn is a seed saver, and so what he's doing sort of extends past just the food of the south. He's sort of saving the world, which is obviously tremendous. But there have been so many seeds lost. There's been such an impediment to seed diversity. And Glenn is famous for grits and Carolina gold rice, but he's actually bringing back all these heirloom breeds and heritage breeds that have sort of almost fallen off the face of the earth. And he's working with Indian tribes and Rhode Island and Massachusetts like bringing heirloom corn from colonial times there. So he's, I think, indicative of this really sort of life changing things that are happening around southern food that extend past southern food.Suzy Chase: Last night for dinner, I made your recipe for catfish mulldown on page 203.Virginia Willis: Yum!Suzy Chase: Nothing knocks my socks off more than a simple delicious dish, and this blew me away! Describe this old-fashioned dish and give us a little background on your uncle Marshal, the fishing guide.Virginia Willis: Yeah, okay, so uncle Marshal was a river guide ... I don't know. Working on the river has always been sort of a roughneck, a rough position. I mean, if you think about the bars were on the river, and the gambling houses were on the river and all that. And I don't know anything about uncle Marshal doing that, but I do know that he was sort of perceived as this sort of character, right? And would take people fishing. So I'm not certain that he had it, but a mulldown was sort of a catfish stew, catfish and potatoes, more of like a stew, and it would've been put into a dutch oven and sort of layered and cooked in potatoes and catfish and salt pork or something like that, maybe a little bit of ketchup or something. And I've sort of turned it, sort of chefed it up a bit, for a lack of a better word, with cream and potatoes and catfish, and it just sort of becomes this sort of really rich but undeniably simple and satisfying supper. And of course catfish are native to the south. There are lots of catfish that live in our rivers, and Mississippi now is a big state for raising farm raised catfish. So catfish is a very southern fish for the inland, not the coast, not the ocean, but catfish is super southern fish.Suzy Chase: I love catfish. This dish was so darn good, and it only has four ingredients!Virginia Willis: My philosophy with food in general is to just use really good ingredients and do as little to it as possible to mess with it. Just trust the ingredient and honor the ingredient, and that comes from not sort of some recent chef driven revelation. My grandfather had a garden ... We had a garden my whole entire life. We ate summer squash in season. We ate eggplant in season. We ate okra in season. We ate collard greens in season. We ate sweet potatoes. I mean, everything was in season, and it wasn't some sort of highfalutin thing. It was just what it was. And so when you're dealing with something that's fresh out of the garden, not for a week in a produce department, or a week and a half in the produce department, it just tastes so much better.Suzy Chase: So before we wrap up, one last little story I have to tell you. In the 90s, I was a cookbook publicist in Kansas City. You'll see where this is going. And desperately wanted to move out of Kansas City to work with cookbooks on a larger scale, and it was a no-brainer to contact the absolute pinnacle of cookbook publicity at that time, which as Lisa Ekus. So she said she would talk to me if I wanted to come to Massachusetts, but I really wanted to move to New York City. So I was bummed that I never got the chance to meet her, and I never got the chance to learn from her. So fast forward, I was pleasantly surprised to see her name mentioned in the back of your cookbook. Talk a little bit about Lisa Ekus for the cookbook lovers who may not know her name.Virginia Willis: Well, I first have to divulge that Lisa is my partner, so she and I-Suzy Chase: Yes!Virginia Willis: She was first my agent, and then we became friends, and then it was like, "Oh wow, hey!"Suzy Chase: I love that!Virginia Willis: And so we fell in love! ... Gosh, I have such a smile on my face right now! I'm so glad. Lisa has been in the business of cookbooks and publishing and all things culinary for roughly 35 years. When I chose to send her the book proposal for Bon Appetit, Y'all, which was my first book that out ten years ago. I knew her to be the best in the business. I mean, that was just sort of, for me, being in food for roughly 25 years now, I at the time, 10 years ago, was like, "Well, if I'm gonna get an agent, I want it to be Lisa Ekus." So I sent her my proposal with an exclusive and said, "You're the only agent I'm sending it to. I'll give you six to eight weeks before I take it out anywhere else." She has worked with Julia Child and Jacques Pepin, Marcella Hazan and Amanda Hesser from Food 52 and on and on. It's just sort of comical when we go to a bookstore and she's like, "Oh, I worked on that book. Oh wait, I worked on that book." And so she is sort of a behind the scenes person that has had a tremendous amount to do with food and cookbook publishing for the past three decades, and I love her!Suzy Chase: I love that!Virginia Willis: Yeah!Suzy Chase: So for season four of Cookery by the Book Podcast, I'm kicking off a new segment called: my last meal. If you had to place an order for your last meal on earth, what would it be?Virginia Willis: I've been able to enjoy and taste and have so many crazy different things from food that the bazaar in Turkey to handmade Italian pasta to foie grois in France. I mean, I feel very fortunate about my life and my travels. I guess at the end of the day, if I were to say what I would want for my last meal, it would probably involve fried chicken and biscuits and butter beans because that's my comfort food. That's the food of my people, and that's what I grew up with. And hopefully I won't be putting in that order anytime soon.Suzy Chase: Definitely not! Where can we find you on the web and social media?Virginia Willis: Oh awesome! Well thank you Suzy! So people can find out probably more than they ever wanted to know by going to virginiawillis.com, and at the top of that page, at the home page, there are links to all of my social, but essentially it's @VirginiaWillis for Twitter and Instagram and all that. But if they go to virginiawillis.com, they'll be able to find my books and find my blog and social media and all that kind of good stuff and events that I'll be doing throughout the year.Suzy Chase: It was such a pleasure chatting with you! Thanks Virginia for taking us on a food lover's tour of the global south, and thanks for coming on Cookery by the Book Podcast!Virginia Willis: Thank you so much, and I'd say, Suzy, Bon Appetit, y'all!Suzy Chase: Subscribe in Apple Podcasts, and while you're there, please take a moment to rate and review Cookery by the Book. You can also follow me on Instagram @CookeryByTheBook. Twitter is @IamSuzyChase, and download your kitchen mixtapes, Music to Cook By, on Spotify at Cookery by the Book. Thanks for listening!

On today's show, I discuss making a simple but delicious Southern specialty; corn spoonbread. This soul food classic is simple to prepare, uses common ingredients and delivers the comfort-food feeling we all love about Southern food. Spoonbread is not cornbread which tends to be dry and crumbly. This is rich, soft, creamy and delicious. You need a spoon to eat it, almost pudding-like, hence the name-spoonbread. If you're serving some Carolina BBQ, a pot of greens or green beans this HAS to be served alongside. I really do love this dish. To make it properly you will need some real stone-ground cornmeal. Not the crap in the baking aisle of most supermarkets. Unless its Bob's Redmill, that will do the trick. Also, farm-fresh eggs. For those of you who really appreciate the finer things in life, I suggest sourcing this cornmeal from Anson Mills, my go-to source for all fine grains. You can also get AMAZING oats from Anson Mills too. Steel cut oats are available from Bob's Redmill and in supermarkets also. I do follow a lower carb diet so I avoid sugar at all costs. In this dish, I use Lakanto Golden, a sugar sub. that tastes great without the creepy aftertaste so many others have. If you give it a try this dish please tag my Instagram account @harvesteating Thanks...oh..dont forget to get a free bag of my Harvest Eating Seasonings at Try Harvest Eating.com    

On this episode, Linda welcomes Kat Johnson, HRN's Communications Director, to share an panel she moderated at the 2018 Charleston Wine + Food festival. Kat welcomed Jerome Dixon and Doc Bill Thomas from Georgia Coastal Gourmet Farms, Chef Sean Brock of Husk, and Glenn Roberts of Anson Mills to talk about the repatriation of Purple Ribbon Sugar Cane to Sapelo Island, home of the Gullah-Gechee community Hog Hammock. A Taste of the Past is powered by Simplecast

According to Sean Brock, the first time he smelled Sapelo Island Purple Ribbon Cane Syrup, it reminded him of truffles. Sean, along with Glenn Roberts, Stephen Kresovich, and many others, have become fans and advocates of the syrup. They are supporting the efforts of Doc Bill Thomas and Jerome Dixon, the partners behind Georgia Coastal Gourmet Farm, to bring purple ribbon cane back to an island that is home to a small community of Gullah-Geechee decent. This is the first of two panels at the Charleston Wine + Food about the history and current state of South Carolina’s foodways. Specifically, we take a look at crops that have been on the brink of extinction but through dedicated collaboration have been brought back, so these valuable genetics can be preserved for future generations. Sean Brock is the Chef/Partner behind Husk restaurant, which most recently opened a location in Savannah, GA. Not only has he brought attention to Southern cuisine through his award-winning restaurants and coookbooks, Sean has also spent time developing his own farm to experiment in resurrecting and growing crops that were at risk of extinction, such as those indigenous to this area pre-Civil War. Glenn Roberts is the Founder of Anson Mills. Glenn is a visionary who is best known for his work with Carolina Gold Rice, but he has supported the efforts to revive many Southern crops. He works tirelessly to manage his old grains, the land, and their growers, as well as chefs and retail customers. It’s a relentless effort. But only rarely must he wear a suit. Doc Bill Thomas has been a resident of Hog Hammock – the small community on Sapelo Island, and is of Gullah Geeche descent. Doc Bill has edited and co-authored Cherokee and Sapelo Island cookbooks and posted a series of YouTube videos about Sapelo cooking. Jerome Dixon is the co-owner of Georgia Coastal Gourmet Farms. Georgia Coastal Gourmet Farms produces Sapelo Island Red Peas and Sour Oranges. Jerome and Doc Bill are business partners and have led the charge to bring Purple Ribbon Sugar Cane back to Sapelo Island and begin production of the syrup. Heritage Radio Network On Tour is powered by Simplecast

When most people sit down to enjoy a pour of whiskey, they aren't thinking about where the grain that it is made with comes from, nor do they think much about how it's produced agriculturally. Though spirits are distilled from wheat, potatoes, rice, and even quinoa, many don’t view the end result as an agricultural product. The discussion about composition of whiskey’s mashbill is usually where the conversation about the grain begins and ends, creating a disconnect between the way in which we perceive the food on our plates and the alcohol in our snifters. When we do start to engage with this aspect of spirits in a meaningful way, however, we can start to notice their terroir.Reporter-producer Shanna Farrell explores how whiskey can have a sense of place, as seen through High Wire Distilling Company's use of landrace grains in their spirit production. Husband and wife duo Scott Blackwell and Ann Marshall founded High Wire Distilling in 2013, the first distillery in South Carolina since Prohibition. Their mission is to source the best possible ingredients to make small batch spirits. They work with the farm community, as well as with Anson Mills, to source the raw materials for their product. This is true of their Jimmy Red Bourbon, which has a terroir unique to the three farms on which it is grown. Their work in using landrace grains grown locally is a great example of the strong connection between spirit production and agriculture.

From the humble chickpea to lavish saffron rice. Tony and Chef Cindy talk about their favorite types of beans and peas and some delicious preparations for grains and rice. Tune in and don't forget to soak your beans! If you are interested in exploring some heritage varieties to cook at home, you can check out Anson Mills for some great ideas.

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On today's episode of THE FOOD SEEN, we share the tradition of Southern storytelling with Sean Brock, chef of McCrady's, Husk,Minero, in Charleston SC and Nashville TN. The son of a coal mining family in rural Wise County, Virginia, Sean never forgot his Appalachian upbringing while finding himself in the Lowcountry. It all started over a simple bowl of Hoppin' John, and continued itself with a side of cornbread. These dishes are emblematic, not only in the South, put as far as West Africa for the Gullah people. To understand his roots better, Sean researched and traveled, in hopes of reviving ingredients, preserving said tradition, through seed saving, and working with Anson Mills and their Carolina gold rice. Sean celebrates this journey in his debut cookbook, HERITAGE, fittingly holding a handful of heirloom beans on the cover. Of course there's BBQ, the smell of smoke, and a sip of whiskey or two, but it's really about his manifesto, and finding yourself through cooking. Then the food has much meaning far deeper than fried chicken. This program was brought to you by Edwards VA Ham. photo by Andrea Behrends “I'm a very obsessive person. When I get excited about something I take it way too far.” [13:00] “The most important thing we can do is raise awareness. As chefs we have an incredibly opportunity to do that with a plate of food.” [16:00] “There's way more bad BBQ than there is good BBQ and it didn't used to be that way.” [20:00] “These days, we're able to cook strange species of seafood and people trust us now. as chefs it kind of came out of necessity – we were overfishing. 25:00 –Sean Brock on The Food Seen