southern cuisine

Television has played a starring role in advancing culinary culture in the United States. From Food Network shows that have introduced bashful eaters to a world of new, global flavors to culinary competitions which have served as launchpads for chefs’ careers, the rise of food TV has undeniably influenced the role food plays in our everyday lives.

Among many chefs who’ve seen the impact of television appearances on their careers is Jamika Pessoa, a Southern-born chef with roots in the Caribbean whose vibrant personality and unique culinary style has endeared her to television audiences across the nation.

In this week’s episode, we chat with Pessoa about her culinary background, her experience on shows like “The Next Food Network Star,” Good Morning America and Dr. Oz’s new series, “The Dish on Oz.” Along the way, she shares her passion for sharing her culinary talents, gives us a glimpse of her plans for the future and offers insights on her upcoming appearance at the Kohler Food & Wine Festival, which kicks off on Thursday, Oct. 21, 2021.

Joining Jackie this week is Chris Hastings, chef/owner of Hot and Hot Fish Club and Ovenbird in Birmingham (two of the best restaurants in the South, if not the whole country). Chris and his wife Idie have been serving modern Southern/French cuisine that celebrates Alabama’s farmers and fishermen since they opened their restaurant in 1995. A few years ago, Chris not only won a James Beard award, but he also beat chef Bobby Flay at his own game: battle sausage on Iron Chef America. Listen in as Chris Hastings shares a few of his secrets with Jackie.

The apology tour returns and the guys once again find themselves in the home of Evan Richardson. An early auditory casualty of this podcast (see episode 7, if you dare), Evan owns Portland's Eaux! and South Portand's soon-to-be Cafe Louis. An awful lot has happened in the 18 months since we last caught up, and Evan reflects on the early days of COVID,  the massive strain it put on his restaurant, how he dealt with the very foreign feeling of having spare time, and the myriad of positive impacts the pandemic ultimately has yielded on both a personal and professional level. The rolling conversation also yields a refresher on Cajun vs. Creole cooking, a dive into what makes bread baking so addictive, and an extremely important discourse around the genres of music that are most representative of the various roles and personalities within a kitchen. Finally, the (rice and) beans are fully spilled on Evan's new concept Cafe Louis; he explains what a Costa Rican-style meal looks like, why brunch gets a bad rap, and how Eaux! represents where he's from while Cafe Louis will represent WHO he's from. 
There's not a cooler cat to be found this side of the Mason Dixon. Go in with a notepad, an appetite, and 'lil a kernel of hope, and you'll leave feeling a hell of a lot better (and hungrier) about 2021.  .............. ............................ ........................................................... .............................................  .......... Music: "Mountain Climb" by Jake Hill

These days, everyone is hungry for more advice, especially about being an entrepreneur or finding smarter ways to run a business. For Follow The Leader, our special mini-series, we’re talking to four women at different stages of their careers about how they handle key aspects of their business. On this episode, host Kerry Diamond sits down with Tren’ness Woods-Black, the vice president of communications for the historic Sylvia's in Harlem. Tren’ness’s grandmother Sylvia Woods opened the business in 1962 and today, her namesake spot is one of the most famous restaurants in the country. Tren’ness shares how the family has kept the legacy and the business alive through a combination of community, authenticity, and real estate smarts. 

Thank you to Uber Eats for supporting Follow The Leader. To learn more about working with Uber Eats, visit UberEats.com/Bombesquad.

John Currence doesn't hold back. From his politics to his convictions about Southern cuisine to his feelings about industry awards and what defines a chef, this Oxford, Mississippi-based chef/restaurateur/author/advocate lays it all out there. Who better to chat with the weekend before Election Day 2018? Andrew and "Johnny Snack" go deep and wide, touching on his earliest days as a cook, evolution as a chef, and his no-holds-barred opinions on myriad aspects of his chosen profession and of society at-large, the early days of the Southern Foodways Alliance, and more. A one-of-a-kind open, honest, and philosophical conversation. Give it a listen, and (if you're a US-based listener) VOTE on Tuesday, November 6!

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THINGS YOU SHOULD KNOW:

Andrew is a writer by trade. If you'd like to support him, there's no better way than by purchasing his most recent book, The Dish: The Lives and Labor Behind One Plate of Food (October 2023), about all the key people (in the restaurant, on farms, in delivery trucks, etc.) whose stories and work come together in a single restaurant dish.

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Please also follow Andrew's real-time journal of the travel, research, writing, and production of/for his next book The Opening (working title), which will track four restaurants in different parts of the U.S. from inception to launch.

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Thank you for listening—please don't hesitate to reach out with any feedback and/or suggestions!

In the summer season premiere of Eat Your Words, Cathy is joined in-studio by Virginia Willis, a James Beard-Award-winning author of 5 cookbooks, to discuss her latest: Secrets of the Southern Table. Virginia shares how much of a departure this book is from her rest, as she seeks to expose Southern cooking as the multicultural cuisine that it is. From Chinese immigrants to African ingredients cultivated by enslaved farmers, the diverse landscape and long growing season of the South has lent itself to a multifaceted cuisine that is far from just fried chicken & biscuits. Tune in to hear why Virginia thinks it's important to redefine Southern cuisine in today's divisive atmosphere.

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This week on Food Without Borders, Leah chats with two acclaimed chefs of Southern cuisine​:​ New Orleans native and restaurateur​,​ John Currence​,​ and India-born Vishwesh Bhatt​, ​executive chef​ of Currence's Snackbar in Oxford, Mississippi. Both men credit good luck and desperation ​to​ their entrance into the culinary world as college students​,​ through which they eventually became friends & collaborators. Each chef discusses the inspiration behind their approach to Southern cuisine and its broader connection to the global south—from Oxford, Mississippi to ​West India ​to​ West Africa. They talk about how current​ ​political unrest in the Trump era has altered life in and outside of the restaurant world.

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The American South is a diverse region with its own vocabulary, peculiarities, and complexities. Even Southerners can't always agree on all things Southern. A new book by the editors of Garden & Gun Magazine is a good source for answers. S is for Southern is an encyclopedia of Southern life, culture, and history, covering age-old traditions and current zeitgeists. Executive managing editor Phillip Rhodes, born and bred in the south, talks about the fun facts.

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This week on Food Without Borders, Leah speaks with culinary historian, Michael W. Twitty, whose acclaimed new book, The Cooking Gene: A Journey Through African American Culinary History in the Old South, traces the history of Southern cuisine, family ancestry, and African-American identity in the US. Leah and Michael talk about the discomfort entrenched in Southern cuisine and the cultural amnesia surrounding slavery (from rice paddies to plantation kitchens) that had previously blurred the contributions enslaved Africans made to American food culture. Michael's work peels back the layers of history, in an effort to reclaim the lost memories of his ancestors and transform our national consciousness at the intersection of race and food.

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Since 2013, David Shields has been the chairman of Slow Food's Ark of Taste Committee for the South, and will be a participant in Slow Food Nations Festival in Denver, July 14-16. There he will talk about the heirloom grains which have been revived with the help of farmers and chefs. He spoke with Linda about his work reviving many of the heirloom ingredients that made up the original flavors of southern cuisine.

Dr. Shields, Distinguished Professor at University of South Carolina, and the Chairman of the Carolina Gold Rice Foundation, is the author of Southern Provisions: the Creation and Revival of a Cuisine (Univ of Chicago Press: 2015).

Joining us in the studio is the one and only Lazarus Lynch, also known as Son of a Southern Chef. Lynch grew up living and breathing the food industry, and now works as a chef with a super active online presence (making YouTube videos to teach you how to cook miso honey ribs, gouda macaroni, and fried okra.

The 10th program in the ORIGINS series features a conversation with Bernie Herman, the department chair and George B. Tindall Professor of Southern Studies at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill. The discussion will focus on the food, foodways and culture of the Eastern Shore of Virginia. Herman, along with Tom Gallivan, Mills Wehner and Heather Terry Lusk, founded the ESVA Foodways, LLC. Their collective goal is to create one job for one person so one family doesn’t have to leave this area.