Grits With Attitude: The Times says we're cooking a revolution

The New York Times sent Julia Moskin to South Carolina in search of the latest proof of a Southern cooking revolution. While Moskin focused almost entirely on South Carolina (mostly Charleston, actually), she sussed out some interesting thinking from the new crop of Southern-centric young chefs and farmers (mostly Emile De Felice of Caw Caw Creek Farm).

De Felice is the heirloom-pig farmer who inspired people like Natalie Veres and Cassie Parsons of Grateful Growers and Sammy Koenigsberg of New Town Farms to try growing better pork chops.

Two interesting bits from Moskin's article: "Like California in the 1970s — when Alice Waters collaborated with farmers, foragers and cheesemakers on the food at Chez Panisse — the South today has just the right combination of climate, culinary skill, regional chic and receptive audience."

And this:

"Today, purists believe, Southern cooking is too often represented by its worst elements: feedlot hams, cheap fried chicken and chains like Cracker Barrel. 'My mother didn’t cook like that, and my grandmother didn’t cook like that,' Mr. DeFelice said. 'And if you want to come down here and talk about shrimp and grits, well, we’re tired of that, too. Southern cooking is a lot more interesting than people think.'"

The link is here, although remember that the Times has a paywall: If you're a member, you can only get a limited number of articles in a month.

The Times says: Go to Charleston, diners

New York Times reviewer Sam Sifton has always had an uncommon respect for the food of our Southland. When the Panthers were in the Super Bowl (seems so long ago now, doesn't it?), then-food editor Sifty was one of the few journalists who called me about Carolina food who had looked beyond the usual it's-all-barbecue cliches. He called about chicken bog -- how many people outside the Carolinas have ever even heard of it?

So I'm happy to see his report on a dining visit to Charleston: "Charleston, with fewer than 125,000 residents, is one of the great eating towns of the American South, on par with New Orleans for quality if nowhere near it for size or variety." Hear, hear, Mr. Sifton. I'll raise a julep cup to that.

For his review, he went specifically to look at the work of Sean Brock at the new restaurant Husk, and looked in at Brock's other post, McCrady's. I've been to McCrady's, where Brock was originally playing with applying molecular gastronomy to Southern ingredients, turning out things like nitrogen-frozen peanut ice cream and country ham cotton candy. At Huck, he's settled down but gone all-Southern and all-local, with a lot of ingredients grown on his own farm.

If you're heading down toward Charleston for the spring, take a look at Sifton's piece. Really, you'd have to work at it to find a bad meal in Charleston these days.