Charleston: "In the Right Place at the Right Time"

Local, free range pigs munching on natural vegetable leftovers.
(Photo courtesy of McCrady's)

Here in Charleston, we benefit from easy access to local farms and producers, that in turn benefit from a climate conducive to year long production. The cuisine of the Lowcountry has long been a point of pride for South Carolina natives, and an attractive feature for yankee interlopers like me, and as the country begins its slow but steady transformation from heavily processed, pre-packaged meals to the more healthy lifestyle of conscious eating, Charleston finds itself, as the article below states, "in the right place at the right time." 

The diehard foodies and environmentalists throughout Charleston have long been enjoying the bounty of our local farms, such as Ambrose, Rosebank and Joseph Fields, many of which offer the convenience of seasonal CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) subscriptions. But now we are reaching a point at which those on the fringe, that have long taken the time to drive out to John's Island to pick up their fresh bacon or heirloom tomatoes, or anxiously await their next CSA box, taste buds abuzz with anticipation of its contents, are being seen less as health-nut, granola-crunching wackos and more as admirable trailblazers to be imitated. With the infrastructure of local, natural foods already mostly in place, Charleston is ripe to become a destination for epicurean adventurers and could breath fresh life into the bygone era of le grande cuisine, an era known for chefs for whom the culinary arts were a true calling and whose passion for the best and freshest ingredients bordered on the obsessive and demanded nothing less than an intimate, personal relationship with their producers.

Many people are working hard to ensure the survival of the old methods of farming and the historic biodiversity of the Lowcountry, first and foremost the farmers themselves. They are persevering through what to many seems an anachronistic profession and they do it out of love. Farming for them is not a job, it is a calling. But a resurgence of interest in their products has brought with it the support of local businesses, trying to position themselves at the forefront of the local foods movement, as well as the support of local organizations such as Lowcountry Local First, a constant champion of our local farmers.  Their Growing New Farmers Incubator Program, which places eager young apprentices at local farms to learn the craft from the now ageing veteran farmers, is helping to ensure that generations of knowledge are not lost to posterity. Equally important, they are strengthening the connection between farmer and chef by creating an online marketplace to be sure that the freshest products can be selected by local restaurants so that they can be ordered, delivered and served at their peak freshness.

All of this hard work is what is making the enthusiasm for fresh, local foods possible and Charleston is lucky enough to have such great people and resources that it is not hard to imagine the city becoming a gastronomic capital of the resurgent local foods movement. We have all the tools we need, all we have to do is commit ourselves to seeing this through.

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Why Charleston is the Place to Eat Right Now
By Jeff Allen (Charleston City Paper) 8/11/10

Over the past year, we've lost some dear old stalwarts and few restaurants have opened to replace them, but if you've followed the Charleston food scene, you have to be excited. Yes, the headline remains our continued dominance of the James Beard Best Chef: Southeast category — this year featuring a win by Sean Brock of McCrady's — but a larger, more global shift has been taking place, and in the process it's redefined the essence of what it means to cook and eat in Charleston.

To understand this shift, it's helpful to identify what it is not, at least not anymore. Restaurants that in good times milked past success or banked on the steady flow of the tourist trade have grown more irrelevant in the critical sphere. And those who've hewn closely to a mythologized representation of "Lowcountry" cuisine have found themselves surpassed by the vanguard leading a surprising transformation of sorts. While the rest of the country begins to awaken to the benefits of locally grown, sustainable foodways, we find ourselves in an agreeable position.

Of course, guys like Mike Lata of FIG and Frank Lee of Slightly North of Broad must chuckle to themselves every time another menu around town focuses on heirloom tomatoes or line-caught sustainable seafood — they've been practicing this way for years. But our newfound reverence for local food has surpassed even their lofty aspirations. The guys at EVO were tossing out seasonally inspired pies before they were cool, and the Glass Onion could hardly operate if not for local shrimp, collards, and heirloom pork. Simply put, when the trend turned toward sustainable agriculture, Charleston found itself in the right place at the right time, with the right people already evangelizing for a return to the dirt. What was a fad of sorts became a redefining trend that changed our restaurant culture for the better.

These changes connect local diners to the experience of eating out in ways we've not seen before. This is not nostalgia for some communal enterprise based on a return to agrarian values. This is about flavor. While the environmental and sociopolitical aspects of local food occupy a prominent place in our community, ultimately, the trend means diners enjoy a more distinctive relationship with their meal. In an age that sees celebrity chefs born from reality-show elimination challenges, dining has become a participatory culture.

A few times a week, you can read a Twitter post from Mike Lata, usually describing the nightly special, some delectable morsel that's crossing the kitchen door, a beautiful whole tuna or half a heirloom hog. Sometimes there is a picture, a visual offering of the catch before it is broken down and transformed into dinner, and sometimes Lata opens up his thought process on how to use the ingredient and what to pair it with. He's not the only one using emergent technology to change our understanding of dining. Blogs and Facebook pages abound, and we follow the progress of Chef Brett McKee's latest tattoo as eagerly as a new load of roe shrimp cooking down at Carolina's.

In this brave new world, we have become participants in the daily lives of our favorite restaurants. We explore the cuisines alongside the chefs, peering over their shoulder and cooking vicariously alongside them. In this communication, they engender an interest in how food is treated and prepared, and if we decide that the fresh tuna at FIG will become dinner, then that interest is vested. We now demand that chefs treat our ingredients with respect, and we want to know about the fields, farmers, and fishermen from which they came.

All of this is not unique to Charleston. For sure, we have adopted these movements and helped to define them in concert with other leading centers of creative dining. But Charleston possesses a unique set of attributes that place it near the forefront of modern American cuisine. First of all, we have a rich cultural heritage that's being preserved and rediscovered through heirloom seed-saving efforts, heritage crops, and livestock breeding. Carolina Gold rice and heirloom grits are only the beginning of what we can expect in the future. Secondly, we benefit from a fecund climate that, nestled alongside our active fishing fleet, provides a cornucopia of opportunities to source fresh, local products throughout the entire year. Finally and most importantly, we enjoy a camaraderie among our top chefs that more often results in friendly collaboration than derisive forms of competition.

This loose team of culinarians works together, staffing our local cooking schools and supporting charitable causes to create a demand for local food. In planting this seed, they ensure that Charleston's cuisine isn't merely chasing a fad. Instead, they have educated us all, making us aware of the importance of quality and provenance in sourcing our food, and they are taking us along on a journey of transformation that makes Charleston the place to cook and eat now.

Instead of sending chefs to other cities to train in famous kitchens, ours are now filled with aspiring apprentices. Farmers who used to send loads of produce to Columbia to be shipped north now withhold the best for local markets, and local heirloom animal production puts old-school pork and beef on dozens of menus across town. We have reawakened to the bounty of our environment, letting it inform our understanding of what Charleston's culinary future might entail. It will be distinctive, to be sure, but we have fully moved beyond the cliché. No longer do we have just a collection of dishes. Now we have a style, one that cannot be collected and reproduced from afar. Indeed, it can only be fully appreciated right here, on the ground, in the heart of the Lowcountry.