The New Encyclopedia of Southern Food: N-Z

These twenty-six people, places, and ingredients are changing the way we eat right now.

From Garden & Gun

Book art by Luciana Frigerio

N

Native Chestnuts

In the early twentieth century, an aggressive blight all but destroyed the once-mighty American chestnut. Arborists have been trying to resurrect the tree for decades. Now revivalists, including members of the Asheville, North Carolina–based American Chestnut Foundation and heirloom seed evangelists Glenn Roberts, of Anson Mills, and Professor David Shields, of the University of South Carolina, are making progress with disease-resistant hybrids. All of which means, one of these days soon, you might be able to find this old Southern staple at farmers’ markets once again.

O

Olive Oil

Thomas Jefferson dreamed of the South as an olive-growing region, proclaiming the tree “the most interesting plant in existence.” Turns out, he was just a couple hundred years early. Today, operations such as Georgia Olive Farms, in Lakeland, and the Texas Hill Country Olive Company, in Dripping Springs, are producing true homegrown olive oil, making old T.J.’s vision seem a lot less fanciful.

SEE ALSO: Crowd-Pleasing Holiday Whiskey Punch

P

Plow-to-Pint Beer

At Fullsteam Brewery in Durham, North Carolina, founder Sean Lilly Wilson works with locally grown sweet potatoes and basil, and wild-harvested pawpaws and persimmons. He isn’t the only one bringing the garden to the glass. Outer Banks Brewing Station in North Carolina produces beers flavored with muscadine grapes as well as local oyster shells, and Coast Brewing Company in North Charleston, South Carolina, earlier this year released a saison brewed with Carolina Gold rice.

Photograph by Tara Donne

Q

Quality Soda

As high-fructose corn syrup falls out of fashion, the South isn’t turning its back on soda; instead, we’re reviving its wholesome roots. Leading the charge: bartenders such as J. P. Fetherston, who serves a white whiskey and homemade cola drink at Southern Efficiency in Washington, D.C.; and bottlers such as Chattanooga’s Pure Sodaworks.

R

Ramen

We’re not talking about your dorm-room Cup o’ Noodles. Southern cooks are putting their own spin on the Japanese staple. At her Nashville pop-up restaurant Otaku South, Sarah Gavigan combines locally grown ingredients, such as okra and eggplant, and crunchy fried chicken marinated in ginger, mirin, sake, and soy, with Japanese noodles to make dishes that taste like home.

S

Sake

Of course, where’s there’s a bowl of ramen, there should also be sake. Fortunately, Japan’s traditional rice wine is finding a welcome in the South, where its principal ingredient is one of the region’s most iconic crops. Two of the best at brewing the beverage are Blue Kudzu Sake Co., in Asheville, and Texas Saké Co., in Austin, which uses Texas-grown rice to infuse Lone Star flavor.

T

Truffles

High-profile chefs such as Atlanta’s Linton Hopkins know the power of pecan truffles. He uses them with crab, country ham broth, and grits. Less pungent than European black truffles, they’ve grown in Southeast pecan orchards for years. But recently, with new research into their tricky cultivation and keener dogs on the hunt, larger quantities have come out of the earth and onto plates.

SEE ALSO: Garden & Gun's Favorite Cocktail Recipes

U

Unchained Supermarkets

While Southern chefs have long given local farmers and purveyors their due, chain supermarkets rarely afford them the same consideration. As a remedy, more neighborhood grocers are popping up, offering specialized product selections in a more community-oriented environment. From seasonal goods at the package-free, zero-waste market called in.gredients in Austin, Texas, to freshly baked bread and handmade sausages and pastas at Baltimore’s Fleet Street Market, homegrown products are finally getting shelf space they deserve.

V

Vinegar

First came the ascension of Southern beer and wine. Now a crop of restaurants and small businesses are making the most of the leftovers by transforming them into vinegars. In Nelson County, Virginia, Jay and Steph Rostow of Virginia Vinegar Works make them from local wines and a Starr Hill Brewery amber ale, using a centuries-old French method. In Alabama, the Back Forty Beer Co. produces its own beer vinegar. And, fittingly, the pattern even extends to barbecue sauces; at hipster smokehouse County Club, in Lexington, Kentucky, the house vinegar-pepper sauce’s base is an acetified IPA from nearby West Sixth Brewing Company.

Photograph by Margaret Houston

W

Waxing Kara

Sure, you’ve tried tupelo honey, but have you ever tasted butter-bean honey? At her Maryland honey company, Waxing Kara, Kara Brook pays homage to the Eastern Shore land where her bees pollinate an ever-changing array of plants. Her new Honey House, in Owings Mills, is open to the public Mondays, Tuesdays, and by appointment.

X

XX Chromosomes

More than sixty years after a renegade cook named Leah Chase ventured into the male-dominated restaurant world, a new vanguard of female chefs is rising to power throughout the South—and getting some recognition. At this year’s James Beard Awards, chef-restaurateur Ashley Christensen, whose ever- expanding mini-empire has changed the culinary landscape of Raleigh, North Carolina, won Best Chef: Southeast, while Sue Zemanick, the star in the kitchen at Gautreau’s in New Orleans, took home Best Chef: South. It’s about time.

Y

Yaupon Holly

In pre-Columbian days, the leaves of this plant were used to make the caffeinated beverage of choice for people from the South Carolina coast to the heart of the Midwest. As the only measurably caffeinated plant native to North America, it was traded all over the country. Now that a handful of small companies, including Cat Spring Tea in Cat Spring, Texas, are betting on yaupon holly tea as the South’s next big drink, you might soon see it next to the oolong at your local grocery store.

Z

Zombie

The recipe for the drink that kicked off the tiki movement had remained a carefully guarded secret since Los Angeles bartender Don the Beachcomber invented it in 1934. But after years of legwork, tiki historian Jeff “Beachbum” Berry re-created the cocktail from a complex mosaic of interviews and decades-old notes. He plans to serve the drink and other classics at his new tiki bar, Latitude 29, set to open in New Orleans this year.

Zombie Punch
adapted by Beachbum Berry

Ingredients

¾ oz. fresh lime juice
1 oz. white grapefruit juice
½ oz. cinnamon syrup*
½ oz. 151-proof amber rum, such as Cruzan, El Dorado, or Bacardi
1 oz. dark Jamaican rum
1 mint sprig, for garnish

Preparation

Combine liquid ingredients in a cocktail shaker; shake well with ice cubes and pour unstrained into a tall glass, adding more ice to fill if necessary. Garnish with a sprig of mint.

*To make your own: Crush 3 cinnamon sticks and place in a saucepan with 1 cup sugar and 1 cup water. Bring to a boil, stirring until cinnamon dissolves. Lower heat, cover saucepan, and simmer for 2 minutes. Remove from heat, keep covered, and let sit at least 2 hours before straining and bottling. Syrup will keep for about a month in the fridge.

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