Carolina Eats

food media at UNC-Chapel Hill

[carolinaeats]

A family restaurant in a college town

by Abby Reimer

It was the ketchup that did it.

Turtle Harrison and brothers Juan Jose and Rolando Ordonez Ramos have a combined 50 years of restaurant experience. So when they opened Roots Bistro, Bakery and Bar across from the UNC-Chapel Hill campus a few months ago, Harrison didn’t think there would be many surprises.

But three owners hadn’t worked with students much — their management experience in the last few years has been in full-service restaurants like Squid’s, Spanky’s and Nantucket Grill. Opening a restaurant on student-saturated East Franklin meant different types of requests. Like ketchup.

“I really forgot, like holy crap, people like ketchup,” Turtle says. “Or, ‘Can we have a tequila shot?’ It keeps me on my feet.”

Turtle, Juan Jose and Rolando wanted to open a restaurant that fused their Guatemalan and North Carolina roots for years. But when Turtle got a call about renting the newly empty East Franklin location (Top This! closed in November), he was hesitant.

Durham’s food scene was better, and all three owners already lived there. Plus, Chapel Hill restaurants seemed to turn over every couple of years, and they weren’t interested in opening up a quick pizza or hot dog spot popular with students.

But in the end, they decided to go for it, thinking, “Why not go for it? Maybe we’ll give them something they haven’t seen before.”

“We’re not just cowboys”

So far, the restaurant has seen a mix of families, students and professionals. The restaurant serves breakfast (everything from plantains to French toast), to late night cocktails (like the “Tea Tortuga” named after Turtle). They’ve even expanded started offering a Latin dance night on Saturdays.

Turtle says they’re dedicated to serving food their own families would want to eat — fresh and authentic. They’re also very “service-minded” he says.

“We’re trying to produce something our families would love,” Turtle says. “We’re not just regular cowboys that want to open a restaurant and spend a lot of money.”

And it looks like they succeeded. After close on a rainy Sunday, the owners; families are milling about the restaurant. Juan Jose’s family came after church for lunch. His son and daughter sit at the bar folding napkins. Turtle’s daughter is there too — but at 10 months, she’s not quite old enough to help.

“Bringing Guatemala to North Carolina”

Okra, watermelon and slow-roasted meats are all markers of Southern food.

They’re also popular in Central American cooking. Turtle grew up in North Carolina, graduating from UNC-Chapel Hill in 2007, and Juan Jose and Rolando are originally from Guatemala.

“The flavors, the seasoning... they’re all really close,” Turtle says. “So it’s not that hard to do, it’s just no ones tried to do it.”

The menu reflects both Guatemala and North Carolina. There’s fried chicken, pork and grits and lots of fresh fish. But there are also tamales, pupusas and ceviche. And while some dishes may seem classically Southern, they reflect a shared food language.

“Every single plate in there is going to have a taste of both. We roast all our meats in house, which is culturally relevant to both,” Turtle says.

Turtle says his favorite dish is the fried chicken. It’s simple and “sometimes you have to go simple to be more delicious.”

That’s one of Juan Jose’s favorites too, and the tamales, which “people love.”

They’re both happy to have their own restaurant after years of working for someone else’s. They work all the time, Turtle says, and sometimes the days run together.

But Juan Jose says the family feel of the place — prepping the kitchen with Turtle and Rolando — has been his favorite part.

Because while Roots serves all kinds, the most important customer is family.

[carolinaeats]

Cheap food, cheese and buffets: exchange students’ take on American food culture

by Valérie van Kemenade

As a food lover and exchange student from the Netherlands, I experienced many differences in the food cultures here and back home. I wondered if this was just me, or if more exchange students shared my opinion. To find this out, I interviewed six exchange students from different parts of the world and asked them about their experiences with American food culture. 

I interviewed two students from New Zealand, one student from China, one student from Denmark, one student from Australia. I also added my own thoughts about food culture here and in the Netherlands. 

What is your experience with going out for dinner here in Chapel Hill compared to going out for dinner back home?

Vicky Tang (New Zealand): My experience with going out for dinner here in Chapel Hill and back home in New Zealand is pretty much the same. Although the waiters seem more dedicated here then back home, that is probably because we don’t have tips. Going out for dinner is also more expensive in New Zealand compared to Chapel Hill, especially in the central city area you can be expected to pay $30 dollars for a dinner. I also think that there is more variety in restaurants in New Zealand, this might be because of the different demographics New Zealand has compared to Chapel Hill.

Scarlett Li (China): My experience with going out to dinner here and back home in China is also pretty much the same. In the fancy restaurants in China dinner will take longer than here, you can easily spent three hours for dinner when you go to a fancy restaurant. This, however, only happens when you have family reunions. 

Françoise Hadfield (New Zealand): The experience of going out for dinner in Chapel Hill compared to New Zealand is not really different, rather the food that is served in restaurants is different. I think that in American restaurants the food is more similar to what Americans eat as home as well. When you go out for dinner in New Zealand you eat things that you would not usually eat at home.

Isabelle Twist (Australia): For me the experience of going out for dinner in Chapel Hill and Melbourne is not that different. The range of food options is smaller in Chapel Hill then in Melbourne and the standard of food is a bit lower than in Melbourne. But the costs for eating out are also lower, so it is a nice compromise. 

Christian Gleerup-Mørch (Denmark): I was really surprised by how cheap going out for dinner is in Chapel Hill. 

“Back home in Denmark going out for dinner is more expensive and it seems to be a bigger thing in Denmark, more special to go out for dinner, whereas it seems pretty normal here. Another difference is that here you can just go out for dinner spontaneously if you want to, in Denmark you plan beforehand, it is not very spontaneous.”

van Kemenade (the Netherlands): Going out for dinner here in Chapel Hill is very different then going out for dinner back home in the Netherlands. For one thing it is so much faster here. I was really surprised the first time I went out for dinner in Chapel Hill, I think that within 30 minutes I was outside again. In the Netherlands when you go out for dinner it takes a lot longer, sometimes a whole evening. That is also because in the Netherlands you usually only go out for a special occasion, like a birthday, whereas here you can go out for dinner every night if you want to. Another difference is that it is really cheap to go out for dinner here. In the Netherlands you also have some cheap restaurants, especially in the student cities, but groceries are cheaper in the Netherlands so going out for dinner will always be more expensive then cooking yourself. 

“Also the waiters in the restaurants are all very friendly here, probably because you need to give them a tip. In the Netherlands you only give a tip if you think that the service was really good, it can therefore happen that the service is really bad.”

What does dinner mean for your family at home?

Tang: My family is Chinese and we always have a traditional Chinese dinner. This means that we share plates, everybody has their own bowl of rice, and additionally we have four or five shared dishes. It is furthermore the one time of the day when everybody is in the same place at the same time. Dinner is a chance to be together as a family.

Li : Dinner for my family means attention for your family. We don’t have our phones during dinner and we don’t even have the TV on, it is really family time.

Hadfield: Dinner is family time for my family. We always have dinner together but depending on how much energy we have we’ll sit at the table or have dinner in front of the TV. Dinnertime is also the time to have people, like family friends, come over.

Twist : Dinner is definitely family time for us. We do have dinner on the couch though, but this is just because it is comfortable.

Gleerup-Mørch: Now that I don’t live at home anymore, dinner at my parent’s house is different. When I am home now and it is dinner time we sit down and talk, now it is more like I am a guest around dinner time.

van Kemenade: When I lived at home it was hard to have dinner with the whole family because we are a pretty big family and everybody is always busy. Now that me and my sister don’t live at home anymore, whenever we come home dinner is usually family time. This is one of the rare occasions that we are all in the same room at the same time. We always try not to be on our phones during dinner time, so that we pay attention to one another.

What was your experience with the dining hall and what are the food facilities at your home university?

Tang: My experience with the dining hall was a positive experience. I was surprised that there are no restrictions to how many you can eat here. At my home university we have food corners on campus like Lenoir. That is convenient and the food is all right but it is expensive. For the people who live on campus back home there is a dining hall, you cannot enter the dining hall back home if you’re not living on campus.

Li: Universities in China have dining halls but they don’t have a buffet like they have here. You pick a meal and you pay for that meal. Back home it is partly funded by the government so it is cheaper than here. The food is not good though, nobody likes it, but every university has it.

“The dining hall here is much nicer. When I came here for the first time I was kind of shocked by seeing the buffet and the many choices of food that they have here.”

Hadfield: I think that the idea of a dining hall is a good idea. Especially since you can also have a meal plan when you live off campus. I, however, do think it is overpriced, they should make it more affordable. In France, for example, it is subsidized by the government, there you pay three dollars for a nice meal. My home university does not really have a dining hall but when you live on campus you get food in your dorm, comparable to Granville Towers here.

Twist: I think the food in the dining hall is okay here, it is good that there are lots of options but that also makes it tempting to eat a lot of unhealthy food. Back home we don’t have dining halls, but if you live on campus you just get food in your dorm, like Granville here. The food back home is better than here though.

Gleerup-Mørch: Going to the dining hall the first time I was surprised that you can eat so much. I don’t have anything to compare with though, in Denmark you don’t have dining halls only cafeterias. Most students live in apartments in Denmark, like I do, I therefore never eat at the university. You bring your own lunch to the uni and you cook your own dinner. Here you live on school so to say and back home you live in the city.

van Kemenade: I was surprised the first time I went to the dining hall, there is so much choice, it is basically all you can eat. Back home we don’t have a dining hall, like in Denmark we only have cafeterias. You can have dinner there, but you can chose from just three meals. We usually bring our own lunch to university if we have lunch at university at all. Back home students usually live in a house or apartment with other students so you cook your own dinner. We don’t have on campus living at all back home.

What struck you or stood out for you with your first experience with American food?

Tang: I was really surprised by the price of food here. You pay so little for what you get.

Li: What stands out for me from American food is that there is too much oil and too much uncooked stuff. Chinese food is always fully cooked, that’s a real Asian thing. We don’t drink cold milk either, and we always drink our water room temperature and not ice water like they do here. 

“American food is also too unhealthy, it is actually the worst food I have seen in my life.”

Hadfield: What stands out for me most I think is that people eat out a lot more here. Not just us because we’re exchange students but the Americans as well.

Twist: I was also surprised by how cheap the food is here. You get so much food for so little money.

Gleerup-Mørch: What was most surprising for me was that it is so cheap. 

“What also surprised me is that they put cheese on everything here.”

van Kemenade: I was also surprised by how much food you actually get and how little you pay for it, you always hear this but you think it is more like a myth. Another thing that surprised me is that Americans go out for dinner so often, although considering the living situation for students here it is not really surprising.

[carolinaeats]

Eats 101: exemplary or unattainable?

by Abby Reimer

Carolina Eats members are often asked if we’re affiliated with Eats 101 — we’re not, and we can’t help you get in. But we do have some slight connections, so in the interest of full disclosure, here they are:

Two Carolina Eats staff writers have applied for Eats 101. None have taken the class.

Two years ago, before I had ever heard about the class, I received a text saying a friend of a friend couldn’t make it to the Eats 101 interest meeting and I should take her spot. When I arrived, I was reluctantly admitted (turns out the event was invite only). I never applied for the class.

If you talk to students, guest speakers and outsiders about Eats 101, you’ll hear the same thing over and over again.

The class, formally “Honors Seminar in Food and Culture,” is different from other classes at UNC-Chapel Hill. One former student called it “legendary and semi-mythic.”

Many say it’s experiential education at its finest— with dinners at the Biltmore Estate, wandering lectures through St. John of the Divine in New York City, trips to San Francisco, stacks of reading and intense, probing discussions.

Eats 101 is a “model interdisciplinary” course, covering food’s role in health, religion, culture and the environment, said James Leloudis, associate dean for Honors Carolina.

Yet even a model class has its limits. Demand for the class far exceeds supply. Roughly 15 students take the class per year, but the wait list is extensive — most students I talked to first applied as freshman and were accepted into the class as seniors.

It’s also a course that couldn’t exist without outside funding.

Honors Carolina provides some money to defray the costs of travel, Leloudis said, but the “extra” learning experiences (the trips and dinners that many former students said made the class) are funded by Professor Jim Ferguson.

“A pioneering course”

Food studies, or at least a concern with food issues, has become ubiquitous at UNC-CH. First there are the classes: Eats 101, Carolina Eats Carolina Cooks, Agriculture and the Environment, Agriculture, Food and Society and more. Then there’s the student groups: Fair Local Organic, Sonder Market, Carolina Campus Community Garden, and even Carolina Eats.

And finally, Carolina went all in, making “food” its two-year campus wide theme.

Eats 101, while holding a special mythic place within the food ecosystem at Chapel Hill, might not seem that innovative.

Except that Eats 101 did it first.

Former Honors Carolina Associate Dean Bobby Allen asked Ferguson to start a course on food in 1995.

At first, Ferguson protested, saying that social psychology was his field, not food.

“He (Allen) said, ‘But I know a lot of people, and you know the most about food of anyone I’ve ever run across,’” Ferguson said.

So Eats 101 started in 1997 as an experiment. An experiment that launched food studies as a serious academic field at UNC-CH, Leloudis said.

“Late 90s food studies was really just beginning as an academic endeavor,” he said. “This really was a pioneering course, right there at the leading edge.”

Students can now double major in the interdisciplinary Food Agriculture and Sustainable Development, an outgrowth of Eats 101.

When he first started the class, the syllabus was one page, Ferguson said. Now, the class covers more and more topics, with a syllabus that has grown to 18 pages.

“Really, there’s no way to stop it,” Ferguson said. “One of the things that’s really cool is how exciting this whole field is becoming.”

“The highest standards”

James McWilliams, author of “Just Food: How Locavores are Endangering the Future of Food and How We can Truly Eat Responsibly,” started visiting the Eats 101 class in 2010.

He’s gone back a few times since, challenging students on the ethics of eating and killing animals.

Williams, a history professor at Texas State University San Marcos, has been in higher education for more than 20 years. But he said Eats 101 is the most impressive course he’s ever seen.

Higher education is moving away from small, rigorous classes. But Eats 101 has “dug in its heels,” he said.

“It’s inspiring to see what higher education can accomplish,” he said.

The class starts with “how to ask questions,” Eats 101 teaching assistant Samantha Buckner Terhune said. From there, the class dives into food studies through multiple viewpoints and guest speakers (it’s a “prism,” Ferguson said.) Finally, each student writes a final research paper.

“Our goal is for the kids to think differently, and maybe critically, about food than they ever have before,” Buckner Terhune said. “Our goal is not to promote any one thing but to promote a broader, overall understanding of food.”

UNC-CH American Studies Professor Joy Kasson has led Eats 101 in discussions about the intersection of food, art and feminism for the last ten years.

The class’s constant shifting and “re-envisioning” sets it class apart, she said.

“Jim is so interested in so many topics,” Kasson said. “He keeps thinking, that’s why he’s such a creative and inspiring teacher.”

Many former students of Eats 101 called the class the best class they took at Carolina.

Blake O’Connor, a Robertson scholar who graduated in May 2014, took the class in fall 2013. He first heard about it from friends his freshman year and was told that if he didn’t apply by his second semester he would never get in.

But he did — the fall semester of his senior year.

“It was by far the most enriching academic experience I had in college,” he said.

Kelsey Kessler, who took the class the same semester, applied as soon as she started UNC-CH.

“I heard it was really competitive, a lot of people were Moreheads and Robertsons and that kind of scared me away,” she said.

She was contacted by Buckner Terhune as a senior and called the class, “the best experience I had in Chapel Hill.”

Ferguson said the abundance of scholars is coincidental. Though he did emphasis it wasn’t just Morehead-Cains and Robertsons.

“We have an abundance of class presidents too, by the way,” Ferguson said. “We’ve had like seven.”

There is a word-of-mouth element to the class, with friends telling friends to apply, and apply early. Still, Ferguson said he tries to keep clumps of friends from coming in together.

“We want students who will create a diverse mixture,” Buckner Terhune said. “We look for more than people who say they’re foodies or that they love to eat.”

Both Leloudis and Ferguson said the current rolling waiting-list system means “not too many” students who apply are turned away.

It just might take a couple of years.

“It’s very hard to compare”

O’Connor said Eats 101 was effective because it used experiences, not just lectures and discussion, to teach.

“Usually when you take a class, it stays in the lines,” he said. “This class was more morphous.”

Eats 101 has taken students on trips to New York, Asheville and San Francisco, and hosted countless class dinners. The current Eats 101 class traveled to Asheville and New York City.

“Jim is incredibly generous and makes sure the class is accessible to anyone — most things are taken care of by him,” current student Nikita Shamdasani said in an email.

Many students said these experiences led to greater depth of learning and community building. But it is also impossible to scale up.

“That can’t happen in other classes, granted UNC is very limited in it’s resources,” O’Connor said.

Universities are increasingly relying on private funds to support undergraduate learning, Leloudis said. However, he said Ferguson’s gift and the class itself is “unusual” at UNC-CH.

“I think its often easy to look at the meals and the trips and think, ‘Oh this is just about going and eating out,’” Leloudis said. “But that could not be further from accurate. Those meals are learning and teaching exercises.”

O’Connor also recognized the tendency to see Eats 101 as “unattainable.”

Stefanie Schwemlein, a Robertson scholar who took the class in fall 2012, said that people tend to think of the class as “super elitist.”

Eats 101 students discuss food issues affecting low-income populations, but do so while eating food that is simply out of reach for those populations.

“We found it really difficult to be talking about food deserts and running out of food supplies while dining opulently,” Schwemlein said.

Schwemlein said her class eventually came to an understanding that the lifestyle of Eats 101 was a temporary one, and that, “if we don’t change something about our food system soon, no one can experience food in the way we did.”

O’Connor also called experiencing fine dining while talking about macro-food concerns, “uncomfortable.”

“The typical Carolina student is more solutions oriented. People would come up with solutions and they weren’t really feasible,” he said. “It’s not really realistic for everyone.”

“This is not a foie gras and caviar class”

Ferguson said he wouldn’t describe the class or food as “high-end,” but just very particular about sourcing. The class visits creameries, farmers markets and beef operations to see what it takes to produce the food they’re eating, he said. 

“This is not a foie gras and caviar class,” Ferguson said. “There is always tension in any system where there is a disequilibrium.”

The class attempts to bring people closer to issues they’re already passionate about, while expanding their ways of thinking about food policy, Ferguson said.

“We have so many people going to Africa and Southeast Asia and South America. But you want to say, ‘Wait a minute, Appalachia is in tough shape too,’” Ferguson said. “So food justice is something we talk about in class.”

Brendan Yorke, a Morehead-Cain scholar who took the class in spring 2013, said a diversity of experience is crucial when talking about food, which crosses all socioeconomic divides.

Yet the class naturally tends to favor privileged perspectives with an application focused on extracurricular leadership, he said.

If you have to work through college, gaining leadership experience is a lot harder, he said. The class itself, which requires a large time and work commitment, would be difficult to take while working.

O’Connor said that while the class had students from many majors and interests, it could have been more ethnically and socioeconomically diverse.

Patrick Healy, who took the class in fall 2013, said his class was “pretty much as vanilla as it gets.”

Still, O’Connor and Yorke said that the class has been trending toward more diverse perspectives.

O’Connor said there were rumors that his class, in fall 2013, was selected differently, with less emphasis on traditional leadership experience.

“I didn’t expect my classmates to be so curious and genuinely interested,” he said.  “More weight went into our experiences with food.”

Ferguson said there was a shift toward more tangible food experience but that like the class as a whole, it was not “a deliberate binary shift, but evolutionary over time.”

[carolinaeats]

Rita Balaban and her waffle iron

by Anna Simon

UNC-Chapel Hill Economics Lecturer Rita Balaban, respected for her passion and general badassery, (due in part to her famed unmasking of some disruptive streakers last semester) talks curry, mashed turnips and beach necessities.

Describe your morning routine: I wake up early. Sometimes 4 a.m. I always enjoy my coffee — drink it black, straight up. I take a little time to think about the day, check emails, do some last minute class prep. I don't eat right away though. On days I don't teach I make an omelet. Sometimes simple with just feta and eggs, but sometimes I’ll add some vegetables in there.

On days I teach though I make this brain-boosting smoothie that I got from the People’s Pharmacy. One day they were holding a discussion about what really comprises the ideal breakfast, and they talked about putting a lot of protein into it. So this particular smoothie's got egg whites, Greek yogurt, whey powder, and it comes out to like 50 grams of protein. It's a pure energy punch and it keeps me filled.

How about your coffee? I like a good coffee bean so I'm not gonna use Folgers, but I'm not a snob on the process. But oh my god I love my coffee. I think that’s half the reason I like waking up so early.

On waffles: 

"I take my waffle iron everywhere." 

Seriously. My friend invited me to the beach and I'm like, "well I'm bringing my waffle iron.” I love experimenting with all kinds of waffles. My favorite one is a pecan and cinnamon, not that I make the batter from scratch — but sometimes I'll do pumpkin waffles and put a little pumpkin puree in there. Of course I use real maple syrup — none of that fake stuff. But really, if they’re good enough you don't need any of that.

Thin mint or samoa? I don't like girl scout cookies. I have to admit, I don't like ‘em. That’s because growing up my mother always baked, and it’s hard for me to eat a store-bought cookie.

How did you get your start cooking? It’s funny, I first started cooking in grad school, and it was with some of the other grad students who were Indian. I first learned making curry and for years I was more comfortable making a curry than I was putting a roast in the oven. I'm not afraid to experiment with different curries or even Asian food, but put a pork chop in front of me? I don't know what to do with it. I go to a Greek Orthodox church so I'm not afraid to work with phyllo dough or anything like that. 

"Nothing really intimidates me except a hunk of meat."

Best thing you ever made? Dessert wise... and it takes a group so it's fun... is Croatian apple strudel, and that’s different than German strudel because it’s got phyllo dough. I make my own dough so you just sit there and you stretch it and it gets paper thin, and then whether you fill it with just apples, cinnamon and sugar or an apple and cherry mixture — it’s great.

Any particular music you like to listen to while you cook? Oh yeah. And that’s my thing. I love putting the music on and cooking (a little cocktail too). There's a radio station outside of Philadelphia — WXPN, and it's constantly playing in my house. You hear “adult alternative” and you think of people like Barry Manilow — this is way above that. This is intelligent adult music. So it’s anything from The War on Drugs, Hozier, Ryan Adams. It’s a fabulous radio station. In fact, when we moved here, I told my husband we couldn't have a TV in the kitchen, or even on the first floor because I wanted that to be my music space.

Favorite root vegetable? If they’re done right—and I don't eat them very often — turnips. I really like mashed turnips. Getting a good turnip and taking the time to cook it right, there aren’t many times a year you can do that.

A food you absolutely hate: If this even qualifies as food: Kraft Mac & Cheese. I can't stand it.

Favorite kitchen tool? I have this knife. Don't even know what kind of knife, but I use it all the time. I couldn't live without it. I’ll even travel with my knife. You know the knives they have at the beach are terrible…so I'll take my knife. My knife and my waffle iron. 

If you were a pizza topping what would you be? Eggplant. Love eggplant. Eggplant and ricotta. The best pizza I ever had in my life was in Boston and I've been trying to perfect it ever since. It was at Ernesto’s on the north end of Boston. It was eggplant with clumps of ricotta, a little garlic, very little sauce…oh it was perfect. I love pizza. The bread doesn't like me, but I love the pizza.

A pretzel monologue we never saw coming: I'm a Pennsylvania girl, so I love pretzels. God I love pretzels. Whether they're Philly soft pretzels (not Auntie Anne's, a Philly soft pretzel) or even just like Snyder's. I just love pretzels.

"My favorite are those little sourdough nugget things. I won't eat Rold Gold or any of that stuff, that's not a real pretzel."

If I'm flying somewhere, I'm going through Philly just so I can get my pretzel in the airport. I even tell my students if they're going up to Philly: ‘Here's five bucks get me a pretzel’ I don't care if its two days old, it’s still better than any pretzel I could get around here. That was my diet in college. On the street corners in certain parts of the city, there were literally shopping carts with bags of pretzels and you could get four for a dollar. Every morning I'd give Louis my buck and get my four pretzels.

[carolinaeats]

Dumplings 101

by Maddy Sweitzer-Lamme

When Yin Song was growing up in the Shandong province of China, dumplings were a luxury. Now, as one of the original partners of the Chirba Chirba dumpling truck, he estimates he has folded over 200,000.

Although he is no longer associated with the truck, his passion for dumplings continues.

“When I was growing up, [dumplings were] huge, but that’s because we never got to eat them when we were little,” Song said.

Though the origin of dumplings in many cultures was initially to spread meat and other nutritious ingredients a little further, Song said that in China they later became a luxury. There was a rationing system in place right after China’s Cultural Revolution that only allowed a small portion of pork each month.

“It was a minuscule amount,” he said. “Like what one person eats in a meal or two. So they would save up that stuff and make dumplings.”

Song said the dumplings he ate as a child consisted mostly of cabbage, with just a bit of meat and some salt.

“When we came to America, we started eating dumplings every week, so that was when we started really adapting the recipe,” he said.“Even as dumplings became a more every day food, they remained special,” Song said. 

“Whenever we were going to make dumplings, it always meant that everybody was going to come together.”

Carmella Alvaro of Melina’s Fresh Pasta, echoed Song’s sentiment.

“A lot of people will walk up to us at the different farmer’s markets where we sell and say things like ‘Oh, I used to make these with my Grandma at Christmas,’ and get excited and buy them,” Alvaro said of her company’s homemade dumplings and pierogies.

Alvaro’s Italian-American family didn’t eat dumplings much growing up, but her interest was piqued when she studied at a pasta school in Bologna, Italy. When she returned, she started her company.

Vimala Rajendran, owner of Vimala’s Curryblossom Cafe, has a similar story behind her samosas, fried Indian dumplings typically filled with potato and beef or lamb and wrapped in a crust similar to that of a pie.

Rajendran’s family, originally from Kerala, didn’t eat samosas. She first experienced them when she moved to Bombay, now called Mumbai, with her mother at age two. There, she took what she saw other cooks doing and translated their work into her own recipe. The only change that Rajendran made is the scalloped edge that she and her employees work to create.

While dumplings are popular, they’re not a simple food to make.

“We were idiots to pick dumplings,” Song said. “They take by far the most labor of almost any other food there is.”

Alvaro agreed, explaining that while the company now uses some machinery to speed up the process, she originally learned to make ravioli by hand, using a rolling pin to roll out the dough.

“A lot of people don’t do that anymore, I think it reminds our customers of a time when people used to make things by hand,” Alvaro said.

Song said there’s an appeal to the dumpling gift-like look, or that people may love them because they’re a surprise. While with most other foods it’s pretty clear what is involved, there’s an element of mystery to dumplings.

“You could buy a piece of chicken, and you can see it. But if you get a chicken dumpling, you don’t know what else is in there, or what you’re going to get,” Song said. “They are more than the sum of their parts.” 

The recipe developed the Song and the Chirba Chirba team, for example, includes not just pork, but also various sauces and a few vegetables. Alvaro mentioned that some of the more popular flavor combinations are pimento cheese and lemon ricotta, where the tastes create a new experience of a familiar food. Rajendran produces vegetarian samosas filled with potatoes and peas, as well as beef and lamb varieties.

“When they’re together, it’s something different,” Song said. “Dumplings signify a union. One single bite is everything.”

“People love things that can be picked up, that’s already pre-packaged in an edible covering. That’s what this whole dumpling concept is about,” Rajendran said. “People love them.”

[carolinaeats]

TOPO's Scott Maitland has a Frittata Dance

by Anna Simon

Scott Maitland, founder of Top of The Hill Restaurant, Brewery and Distillery (and adjunct professor of entrepreneurship at UNC), discusses his love for the South, his current fascination with savory oatmeal dishes and overrated food.

What do you have for breakfast? Usually I get up around 5:30 or 6 to beat the kids up, check emails [etc.]. [I'll have] a piece of toast, my toast preference is actually very specific—sprouted grain bread-- then I top that with some good old peanut butter and jelly. 

What is your dream breakfast? It doesn't impact my belly? I really love like two or three eggs over soft or medium with true homemade hash and a nice biscuit. But I make omelets all the time—I make lots of frittatas too. I have my first breakfast at around 6:30 when the kids get up then around 8:30 or so I'll make myself something.

If I get fired up and I've got the right ingredients, I'll make a full on frittata…and then I do the frittata dance but we don't need to get into that. 

Bloody mary or mimosa? Bloody Mary. With TOPO vodka. But don't forget about the Ramos Fizz. It's got gin, egg whites, orange blossom water, simple syrup. It's just frothy and awesome and you can add a little nutmeg on top.

Describe your coffee routine throughout the day: Well, you know, I drink it…throughout the day. I drink a lot of black coffee. Typically in the afternoon, if I've got a sweet tooth, I'll add some cream and some sweetener. I do have an espresso machine. Usually in the afternoon or evening, but sometimes in the morning, I'll make some espresso and add some sweetener in the coffee, but I'll also add some into the milk before frothing it.

What is the most underrated food? Oatmeal. Because I feel like you can do so much with oatmeal. We typically think of it as sweet, but it can be savory. I'll sometimes partially cook the oatmeal, crack an egg into it and stir that in, and then cook it a little more. It gets almost soufflé-ish. I'm fascinated right now with savory aspects of oatmeal—and really a lot of the base grains like quinoa. 

Polenta shouldn't be the only one having fun.

What about the most overrated food? That's a hard question. I don't know how to describe this but I feel like sometimes we get a little too pretentious about our food—like we're trying to create a new genre of food. Like a cronut. Don't get me wrong cronuts are great, but I'm not gonna wait an hour in line to get a cronut. When food goes into an obsession it gets weird. 

All food deserves respect.

We as a society will put too much emphasis on a certain type of food [when we should] just respect the food we eat throughout the day. Apply the proper technique to a fried egg and it's sublime.

Do you have a food weakness? Yes. Oreos. You know, some people have addictions, and thank God I don't work in an oreo factory. Double Stuf specifically.

On breakfast and family: One of my great joys is that my mother moved to Chapel Hill. We have family dinners on both sides of the family 2-3 times a week. That generational transfer—that's what I'm trying to do with my kids and pancakes. When my kids were little [they would eat] frozen pancakes. [I have since] convinced them that Daddy's pancakes are better—and I've really created little [pancake] monsters. Breakfast is a very accessible meal, and it's great for teaching basic cooking techniques.

Are there any off-the-menu meals your chefs make for you at TOPO? Yes but they end up finding their way onto the menu. Chicken Burger Caesar was literally me saying put a chicken burger on my caesar. Our current TOPO Whiskey Braised Beef dish was the result of my buddy coming back from Italy with a bunch of really great wines like Brunello and me asking my chef to make something to stand up to [them].

There's a menu item at TOPO called Thumbs and Toes. How do you feel about eating parts of the animal other than the meat?  You know, it depends on presentation and preparation. I love pate. I've had sweetbreads that are to die for and I've had sweetbreads that are awful. I understand that there are ethical issues surrounding things like that, and [offal] is not a routine part of my diet.

So nothing disgusts you about it? [No] nothing really disgusts me. The whole reasoning behind Thumbs and Toes is that I do not like to have carcass remaining on the plate when I'm finished eating. [Case and point is] wings—

What in the world is up with you animals and wings?!

Best thing you ever ate? I was in Tuscany and I was walking in Cortona, saw a simple trattoria, it said pasta with truffles-in Italian of course-and I stopped and ordered this thing for 8 bucks. I got it and I said "oh, I didn't know this had mushrooms in it"--it was all truffles. I'll be very frank, with the distillery and the kids, I've had to become very simple, I haven't had the chance to enjoy a lot of those things [recently]. The most important product I'm developing right now is my family.

Favorite root vegetable? 

Onions are God's gift to the world. 

I love 'em all. If I'm making an omelet I'm gonna sauté onions first. What I really love about onions is that the varieties really have different flavors. [There's a real difference] between sautéing a yellow onion and sautéing a vidalia onion.

On the South: I love the sense of place in the South. It's such a common observation, it runs the risk of being trite. But to dismiss it as trite is to dismiss the truth of it. The longer I'm here the more I appreciate and want to reflect [that sense] in the food in my restaurant. The distillery is allowing me to explore the South and interact with the best chefs. It's just fantastic. And when you talk to the best chefs —they're going back to the beginning.

Person you'd most like to cook with? Vivian Howard, who got nominated for the James Beard Award. She's just a fun person. She's been in TOPO a couple of times, and I like that she's exploring her roots with her cooking. I would be completely intimidated though and just do what she said.

Closing remarks: I feel like the downside of this whole "foodie" thing is that people are putting too many expectations on themselves. Everybody should know basic cooking techniques and draw on the expertise of their parents and grandparents. Food and cooking is such a part of our culture—let's engage with it in a meaningful way and really understand where our food comes from.

[carolinaeats]

Fried Chicken's Secret History

by Bo McMillan 

Fried chicken’s place in the repertoire of Southern cuisine is archetypal, and, in many ways, defining: Mama Dip’s, for those of us at Chapel Hill, is a town icon whose image largely revolves around its signature fried chicken. For UNC-Chapel Hill students from Charlotte, N.C., Price’s Chicken Coop, whose fryers fill Camden Avenue with permanent olfactory bliss, is an institution.

But how did fried get to that iconic position in the eyes of all Southerners, as opposed to its roots as a feast of the gentry? How different is it today as opposed to its first incarnations, and how is it tied to the South’s history? These questions and more can be answered by tracing the bird to its roots.

The first Southern fried chicken recipe on the books is from Mary Randolph’s 1824 cookbook, “The Virginia Housewife.”

“It’s one of the earliest American published cookbooks, but before that women were keeping their own recipe books,” said Marcie Cohen-Ferris, an associate professor of American Studies at UNC-Chapel Hill and author of the book “The Edible South.” (Disclosure: Cohen-Ferris is the Carolina Eats advisor).

Because of that, while Randolph’s published book is a good point of reference for chicken’s history, it’s not necessarily definitive as a “first recipe,” so to speak.

Randolph was a member of the Richmond, Va., elite in the early 19th century, though she and her husband ran aground of hard times and had to open an elite boarding house. It was in this setting that Randolph put her cookbook together, and it was in that milieu that fried chicken’s history becomes entangled in the history of the South.

For one thing, the setting and class of Randolph helps explain the odd lack of measurements throughout her recipe.

“The way she’s writing, to the greatest degree, is for the housemistress who doesn’t have to have the exact measurements—because she doesn’t make the recipes—to give to her cooks to make,” said Leni Sorensen, a scholar who has studied Randolph and her cookbook, as well as other cookbooks of the South.

Sorensen said that roughly 98 percent of the meals from The Virginia Housewife were likely cooked by enslaved or rented, enslaved cooks.  And, to further the connection of class to chicken’s history, only the elite had access to chicken, which back then was a seasonal item, therefore fried chicken was reserved for the gentry.

Considering all the Kentucky Fried Chickens and “chicken shacks” of the South today, clearly that past connotation of fried chicken as a privileged meal is just one way our modern incarnation of the bird has departed from its roots.

Furthermore, Randolph’s social position helps explain the curious variance among the cookbook’s many editions, some of which don’t even have the fried chicken recipe.

Sorensen said that the 1824 edition is the “definitive edition” of the cookbook because Randolph died shortly after first publication, and publishers butchered the book’s content in later editions, which were many due to the book’s popularity.

Sorensen said that part of the reason publishers muddled the book was because Randolph’s family had a documented disdain of her writing—to the elite, it was improper for her to go out on that endeavor—and therefore her family didn’t keep the book up. Sharon Holland, a professor of American Studies at UNC-Chapel Hill, however, thinks there might have been more than that in play as to her family’s distaste.

“You could surmise that it might not have been proper, but if you were a Quaker woman it would have been proper at the time,” Holland said. “There might have been a trope in her want-to-be planter family that caused that disdain.”

Another point of difference is that Randolph’s recipe uses no breading or battering. Instead, it modestly consists of skin-on chicken dusted in seasoned flour and fried in hot lard, then garnished with fried parsley and onions. And while KFC and other fast food joints have launched breading and crunchiness for fried chicken into a whole other strata, other respected establishments have parted with those origins, too.

“I think that’s fairly recent, like the second half of the twentieth century with commercialization and restaurants and people trying to 'outcrunch' one another,” Sorensen said of the more breaded version of fried chicken found often today.

Beasley’s Chicken and Honey in Raleigh, N.C., for instance, uses a buttermilk and flour coating. Mama Dip of Mama Dip’s in Chapel Hill, N.C., however, stays close to those humble origins, though she does brine her chicken, substitute shortening for lard and use self-rising flour, all of which slightly differ from Randolph’s recipe.

So how has fried chicken changed, and where does it fit into to Southern tradition and history as of today? It has evolved to a more complex dish belonging to a greater range of people, and the people who historically made it may now receive credit long due.

Sorensen has embarked on a project of recreating all of the dishes from Randolph’s cookbook, for and said that by understanding how enslaved cooks would have used those recipes might be the key to unlocking their long untold stories.

“They are to the greatest degree, unnamed and unknown, and in the historical re-unfolding of these people, these woman primarily, what did they have to know to do what they did?” Sorensen asked. “Can we tell the story of these cooks and producers and agriculturalists of this time that are often undocumented?”

[carolinaeats]

Triangle Restaurant Week Expands

by Maddy Sweitzer-Lamme

A record number of restaurants, 89, are participating in the the seventh annual winter Triangle Restaurant Week, which runs Jan. 26 through Feb. 1.

The event, which includes restaurants across Chapel Hill, Durham and Raleigh, encourages restaurants to offer three-course prix-fixe menus at a reduced price — $15 for lunch and between $20 and $30 for dinner.

Triangle Restaurant Week started out with 24 restaurants. This year showed the biggest leap in restaurants participating, said Samantha Rice, Triangle Restaurant Week manager.

“We’re trying to showcase the restaurants that the Triangle has to offer,” Rice said. “It is a great time for restaurants to show off their best menus. If you haven’t tried out a few restaurants in the area, it is a great time to do that.”

The event also draws in new people who wouldn’t normally be able to afford some of the higher priced restaurants, Rice said.

“It helps customers out a lot,” Saki Elefantis, the manager of Kipos Greek Taverna in Chapel Hill, said. “It gives an opportunity to people to taste many kinds of flavors.”

Kipos is featuring some of their most popular dishes for the prix fixe menu, said Sia Yazdanfar, waiter and sommelier at Kipos Greek Taverna. The menu includes squid stuffed with feta cheese, traditional Greek Moussaka, and a chocolate mousse drizzled with olive oil and sea salt.

“You can’t go wrong with seafood. I think it’s one of our fortes here,” he said.

In Chapel Hill, City Kitchen, Bin 54, Raaga, Talullas and Weathervane are all participating.

The summer edition of Triangle Restaurant week is scheduled for June 8-14.

[carolinaeats]

The Instagram Effect: How Social Media Is Changing Our Relationship with Food

by Della Romano 

Food porn. A juicy, perfectly stacked burger with bacon artfully dangling. Or that beautifully swirled frozen yogurt sitting atop a cone populated with sprinkles throughout. Apply a filter or #nofilter because it looks so damn good without one. Upload to Instagram. Now the eating can begin.

Now, all the food we eat saved for all eternity. There’s a lot of talk about how all the constant technology and simulation affects us, but does it affect how and what we eat?

The Root of it All

Jacqueline Nesi, a third-year clinical psychology PhD student at UNC-Chapel Hill, researches the effect of social and new media on adolescents and young adults.

To Nesi, the increasing presence of food on social media is a “strange thing.” Young people depend on their phones to stay updated and maintain a certain appearance, she says. But food is a fairly recent development on the social media scene.

Strange or not, she considers the effects of Instagramming food as relatively benign. When people post photos of themselves, they are making themselves most vulnerable. But posting food or recipes doesn’t carry the same weight. Feedback (or lack thereof) feels less like a personal attack when you’re posting a picture of what you ate versus what you look like.

Social Comparison

Social media, and particularly Instagram, is a bastion for social comparison. You can just sit and scroll as you take a peek into people’s lives – or at least what they choose to post.

Research indicates that “passive recipients,” or people who spend more time scrolling on social media have worse outcomes than “active posters.” Nesi says she wonders if the idle time and social comparisons encouraged while scrolling through pictures might affect self-esteem more strongly than people who spend their time posting to Instagram.

But how does food fit into this equation?

Pictures of food don’t set us up for social comparison the same way pictures of ourselves do. There’s no comparing the way we look or dress when it comes to pictures of food, but there is still plenty of room for social comparison.

In the filtered view of social media, there’s plenty of money for cool restaurants and time for trying out new recipes. It’s hard to keep things in perspective, Nesi says.

Interference with Social Life

Although posting pictures of food on social media does not seem to pose the same potential threats to mood as posting pictures of yourself, there are certainly negative implications. Nesi says that people are finding the Internet  as a “replacement” for relationships, instead of what most social media sites were intended to do – support relationships.

People have always gathered around food, so what happens when posting pictures of food becomes more important than the people we eat it with? Nesi says that constant posting can and often does hinder relationships and get in the way of simply “being present.”

Nesi says that it’s becoming more and more acceptable to be distracted even during times of active social interaction, like while at a restaurant with friends. It’s taking away from our ability to just be and connect with the people we’re around.

“It Didn’t Happen Unless It’s on Instagram”

Nesi explains this current attitude as a common reflection of social media’s ever-increasing presence on our lives. To her, this phenomenon is potentially dangerous as it indicates more interference with direct social contact than ever - and more and more in the future.

But to Danny Atembina, adventurous eater and food-poster, Instagram is more of a creative outlet than hindrance to real relationships. His phone is riddled with photos of food, from restaurant dishes to homemade Vietnamese food.

He is no stranger to international cuisine - he grew up eating Congolese food, but Vietnamese has since become his favorite after moving in with his girlfriend and her family. He uses Instagram to document his food journey.

“I absolutely love food and it’s nice to document all the different types of foods I've had from different places,” he says.

A Positive Spin

Natasha Kadimi posts vibrant photos of ingredients and meals often with captioned recipes and inspirational passages as @organicandhappy on Instagram. She began posting after graduating from college to share her fitness journey. She says she never sought out or expected to have the 112,000 followers she does.

Her issues with food began at age 15. For 7 years, she struggled with anorexia, binge eating, and bulimia. She also describes feeling “alone, or like I was missing out, or even that I wasn’t as good as other people” with her presence on Facebook and Instagram. So she deleted those two personal accounts in college.

She began the road to recovery and opened her Instagram account @organicandhappy as a means to track her eating, “like a food diary.”

And she’s enjoying her page.

“It's really amazing that I've been able to share positive energy with other people,” she says. “I consider myself very lucky. I think I would be a very different person, if not for Instagram. It has opened my eyes in a lot of ways, and I'm very thankful that I'm able to interact with so many people.”

She says her page is “body positive and positivity conscious.”

Connections 

Food is more than just eating.

For some people, it’s scary. It’s the day-to-day battle of wishing you were a size smaller but indulging anyways. Or binging on a day’s worth of calories in 15 minutes. Or taking in just enough calories to stay alive.

For others, it’s memories. It’s the warmth and comfort of Thanksgiving. Or that time you explored a new country and tried some local eats. Or your first date with a significant other.

Either way, food is more than just energy and nutrients to keep us going – it’s an experience. And people’s negative experiences can be heightened and positive experiences can be dulled with constant posting to and scrolling on social media.

The one thing that remains constant is, as Nesi says, “a very natural human desire to connect with other people.”

And that connection might just happen through a smartphone screen.

[carolinaeats]

Ugly and Proud

by Anna Simon

A new trend is upon us, and it's not pretty. 

You may be familiar with "The Ugly Food Movement" in France, a movement that has managed to make the issue of food waste a sexy one. But like many European movements adapted in the US, the message here has changed slightly.

After recognizing the potential for movements like these in America, a few inspired individuals adapted the ideas behind the Ugly Food Movement to address specific problems facing local farmers and food-insecure individuals in their own communities.

Campaigns, reports, television specials, companies, you name it. Advocates for ugly food are speaking up everywhere from The Food Network to The Pit. Just a few weeks ago, "Feeding the 5000," an initiative dedicated to inspiring positive change within the area of food waste, hosted a free meal in The Pit. Roughly 7,500 students and faculty ate entirely leftover, "undesirable" produce. Seal the Seasons is convinced it can take the movement even further.

Seal the Seasons' main objective is to "allow North Carolinians access to local produce year round," Co-Founder Patrick Mateer said.

A percentage of this produce will be sourced traditionally, but roughly 50 percent of this produce will be Grade B, unmarketable produce that Seal the Seasons will buy from farmers.

Worldwide, a significant portion of farmers' products is rejected for retail sale simply due to its "missized, non-uniform" classification. Oftentimes farmers lack the time or motivation to get this produce to food banks or other outlets. And even when they do, many times these facilities don't have a need or the appropriate storage facilities to make sure the food doesn't spoil. In a majority of the cases, these farmers use as much as they can as compost on their farms, but many times the excess produce is sent to a landfill.

Seal the Seasons wants to provide a solution: flash freezing. With its current business model Seal the Seasons will take any excess produce from farmers that would otherwise go to waste and freeze it using liquid nitrogen, extending its shelf life. They can then package and distribute their product knowing that it won’t go bad in someone’s fridge. 

While ugly food won't be Seal the Seasons only source for production, Co-Founder Will Chapman predicts that this "ugly" produce will supply about 50 percent of Seal the Seasons total production, expected to total 1,000 to 2,000 pounds weekly. 

The company has confirmed partnerships with two North Carolina farms, Wise Farms in Wayne County and Turtle Run Farm in Alamance, and has a number still in the works. Chapman is confident that the availability of produce directly from farmers won't be an issue. 

Seal the Seasons is expected to partner with institutional dining halls by fall of 2015. However, since public schools must comply with USDA regulations on food standards, this has proved to be a potential barrier for the company.

"That's where it becomes difficult,” Chapman said. “because the current USDA grading system isn't an indicator of quality, its only an indicator of appearance.” 

So what do the standards look like for a sweet potato, for instance? Well here are the guidelines for sweet potato inspection and grading as laid out by the revised USDA standards implemented in 2005.

These guidelines are significantly less strict than they used to be just 10 years ago. 

Yet food waste in the production phase is still uncomfortably high. Roughly 10 percent of food sent to manufacturers is rejected for superficial reasons and is ultimately wasted. This amounts to thousands of tons of edible food wasted annually.

Seal the Seasons isn’t the only organization fighting food waste in the area. The Jackson Center, located in Carrboro, has a program called Heavenly Groceries that reclaims excess food from three grocery stores in the area and distributes the food to roughly 3,500 individuals each month. And in Durham, Food FWD collects compostable food waste from restaurants and delivers it to a composting facility in Chatham County, diverting this waste from a spot in a landfill.

But Seal the Seasons definitely feels it has something to add. 

One of Seal the Seasons’ goals is to educate.

 “If people knew what food standards really measured, they might want change,” Chapman said.

[carolinaeats]

Loser Gets Decaf

by Bo McMillan

Five dollars, caffeine and a taste for espresso and glory. Plastic rimmed glasses and beards common, but not required. It is time to take your claim as the elite among Triangle baristas.

The Triangle has a killer coffee scene. As the home to Counter Culture, Caffé Driade (named by Gourmet as one of the top coffee shops in the country), Carrboro Coffee Roasters and Joe Van Gogh, it has to. And while each is trying to stake their territory in the coffee market, one of the coolest features of the Triangle scene is also one of its most syncretic: the latte art throwdown.

Tonight at 7 p.m., coffee-truck Caffé Bellezza will hold another throwdown and one-year anniversary celebration outside Caffé Driade in Chapel Hill.

On Oct. 21, it was Scratch Bakery. Opened past closing hours for the event, the predominant amount of attendees in the bakery was coffee cadres and competitors. Present were Joe Van Gogh, Market Street Café, Cocoa Cinnamon, Carrboro Coffee, Counter Culture and Scratch, among others, all mingling before the competition’s commencement over beers from a community fund (PBR was conspicuously absent). At 7:30, after the sign-ups (both amateurs and pros were welcome), a woman perched on table shouted out the ground rules.

The throwdown was structured as follows: head-to-head elimination rounds in which a neutral barista would pour single shots of espresso into competitor-chosen receptacles for each head-to-head barista to work his or her magic. A panel of three judges would pick the round-by-round winners based off contrast, definition, symmetry and originality. The big winner would go home with the entry donations, coffee and a tee. Runners-up would get coffee.

“Loser gets decaf!” someone yelled following the announcement.

A friend of mine who baristas at Caffé Driade, Asa Kimsey-White, participated in the last throwdown alongside three other of Carrboro Coffee workers. He was eliminated in the first round after facing a Scratch barista, but the loss didn’t ruin his night.

“There’s always next time,” he said.

One of the Carrboro crew’s representatives, Josh Kimbrough from The Open Eye Cafe, made it to third place.

Tonight’s throwdown will feature lattes made in the Bellezza coffee truck. Food trucks Belgian Waffology and Will & Pops will provide food for caffeinated attendees. 

“Anybody can do it and you get free beer if you participate,” said Jared Brattoli, another barista from Driade, about tonight’s throwdown. “Well I’m not sure if you actually get beer if you participate, but there’s beer there. Most importantly, it’s fun.”

Brattoli also said that the competitions’ unpredictability is a reason to come.

“You can have some of your best baristas out there, but you never know who is going to be on top,” he said.

[carolinaeats]

Ceviche

by guest contributor Bradley Allf

He wasn’t even hungry, poor fish;

barb through his underbelly, caught

by the tow of the boat line, not

Captain Fede lets me try: drag him up,

unhook him, fillet his sides off

to soak in lemon juice, then drop

what’s left portside for the reef sharks.

The leemone attackeh the boktaireeah

he assures me, rinsing the knife off

by cutting up vegetables, taut

skin salt-stretched over fisherman fingers.

I look back in the water at the barracuda:

with muscles stripped away in two easy rips

the arteries stream from missing bone slots,

while vertebrae serpentine after a fish-head

lost in barrel rolls and tangling gut.

[carolinaeats]

Brain Sweetbreads and Liver Beans: A Halloween Story

by Bo McMillan, graphic by Connor Elledge 

It is perhaps one of the most famous movies of all time. Special agent Clarice Starling walks down the dank and dark cement hallway of a Baltimore psychiatric hospital. She comes up to a thick plexiglass wall, beyond which are the slicked back hair and beady eyes of Dr. Hannibal Lecter. Amid their conversation, he mentions a past census taker who came to pick his brain. As to that man’s fate, Lecter says to Starling with bone-chilling, cold glee:

“I ate his liver with some fava beans and a nice chianti.”

He then slurps up the man’s brains as if they were in front of him once again, and the squeamish in the audience squirm; eating and villainy are perfectly entwined.

A popular Halloween guise, Lecter is known for his penchant to combine cannibalism with traditional European fare. In both Thomas Harris’ book series and the tangential movies, Lecter often carries classic French cooking books and cooks haute cuisine.

If you plan on dressing up as Lecter, or if you seek to emulate his eerie ways, it would be awesome to render seasonal energy into authenticity. This could be accomplished by serving up a riff on his most famous gustatory preference: grilled sweetbreads (a Roman favorite, although Lecter used human brains), fava beans and a nice Chianti. This would go along with your costume splendidly for a more complete effect.   

Rustic Italian and implied murder. Sounds like the next Halloween staple to me.

Don’t forget Patrick Bateman from American Psycho, either. To emulate that mass murdering, overly narcissistic and materialistic stock-broking fiend, you need nothing more than to splatter some fake blood across your face, rant about how you can’t get into Dorsia, and maybe complain about the oh-so-shitty crust of Pastel’s red snapper pizza (damn to hell McDermott’s praises).

Maybe carry around a raspberry sauce-covered wedge of Brie for good measure. But don’t forget to hydrate with a glass bottle of mineral water.

Remember, to be Bateman is to assert that plastic is junk, and that Evian is only for ice cubes. This is common sense: it is far too sweet for drinking.  

The references go on and on: Barbossa with his poisoned apple (Snow White, too, for that matter) and Capt. Jack with his rum; Marie Antoinette and her petit fours and macaroons (though the “let them eat cake” statement refers to the “cake” of an oven—the burnt bits crust about the oven’s interior—and not actual cake); chilled monkey brains in the Temple of Doom, Alice and her mushrooms, the feasts of Lord of the Rings (mead and turkey legs? Yes please). The references and links to food and dining alongside pop culture’s beasts, ghouls and villainy, as you think about them, go on and on and on…

To be really festive this Halloween season, think about your food. Go beyond the usual pale of “witch’s brew” (and whatever that may entail to you) and trick-or-treated candy.  

Personally, I am yearning for the moment at a party when some Capt. Jack-dressed genius decries:

“Why is the rum always gone?!”

Corny? Yes. But awesome? Of course.

[carolinaeats]

Crowdfunding Beer

by Abby Reimer

Stephanie and Dustin Williams were in graduate school at UNC-Chapel Hill when they ran into a problem.

They wanted to start drinking better beer, but didn’t always have the money.

So they borrowed a friend’s “Mr. Beer Kit” and tried making their own. And they tried again, and again.

“It was terrible,” Stephanie Williams said.

But eventually, they got the hang of it.

Seven years later the Williams and their friends Anna MacDonald Dobbs and Ryan Dobbs, are starting Regulator Brewery.

The nanobrewery will supply at least 75 percent of its ingredients from local farms and is scheduled to open in spring in Hillsborough. The team used a Kickstarter online crowdfunding campaign to pay for equipment. 

The campaign surpassed its $11,000 goal, making $13,793 with 13 days left.

“Trying to build a local, community-based business, it (the Kickstarter) seemed like a cool way to do that,” Dustin Williams said.

The campaign also allowed them to gauge community interest, Stephanie Williams said.

“The Kickstarter community had supported us a lot and the Hillsborough community,” Dustin Williams said. 

Regulator is starting small, on purpose. They’re keeping their full-time jobs, and only making three regular beers to start.

Stephanie Williams said they plan to grow only as fast as their suppliers.

The brewery will sell to bottle shops and restaurants in the area. They’re tentatively planning to open a tasting room in Hillsborough once the brewery is open, Dustin Williams said.

But for now, they’re happy to keep it small.

“We’re not looking to distribute even statewide,” Dustin Williams said.

The Beer

The Regulator team first got serious about taking their beer further at last year’s Homebrew for Hunger in Carrboro.

People kept on asking where they could buy the beer, and they ended up winning first place.

“We just stayed up for a few hours after talking about it, asking ‘could we really do this?’” Dustin Williams said.

The team continued competing, winning first place at the 2014 NC Hops and Roots Fest and third place at the 2014 Nash Street Homebrew Club Pale Ale Competition.

The brewery’s biggest supplier is Farm Boy Farms in Pittsboro, which grows American Malting Barley Association recommended barley, wheat and hops for microbrewers and home brewers.

Dan Gridley, owner of Farm Boy Farms, first started growing ingredients for beer, there were 32 microbreweries in the area. Now there are 140 microbreweries.

The farm cannot grow enough to supply all their customers, and has recently partnered with Grady Farms in Seven Springs to grow more AMBA 2-row grains.

With an “exploding North Carolina craft beer industry,” Gridley said microbreweries must find a niche in the increasingly saturated market.

Crank Arm Brewing Co., for instance, uses milo from Farm Boy Farms to brew “gluten-less” beer. The brewery just released its the first registered gluten-free beer in North Carolina on Friday. 

Stephanie Williams said Regulator’s small-scale production and commitment to local ingredients set them apart from other breweries. The brewery will start with 50 barrels a year on a one-barrel system.

They will start brewing a kolsch, a hazelnut brown ale and an IPA, along with seasonal beers like their pepper pale ale, which just won first place at PepperFest in Chapel Hill, Dustin Williams said.

 They are also planning on polling their Kickstarter supporters to create a “crowd-funded” beer.            

[carolinaeats]

More Than Just Kale

by Abby Reimer 

When Sprout, a Nourish venture, started its community supported agriculture program back in 2012, they had about 100 customers.

But by last semester, the numbers had dwindled down to about 25.

The bundles had too many leafy things, Sprout Co-Chair Gabriele Juskeviciute said. Plus, you had to commit to six weeks of produce.

How much kale can one person eat?

“Eventually some customers weren’t satisfied with the types of the produce,” Juskeviciute said. “It was kind of hit or miss because it was whatever was in season that week.”

Sprout received an email from Richard Holcomb, owner of Coon Rock Farm, where Sprout got its produce.

He noticed the numbers were going down, and suggested a partnership with Bella Bean Organics, an online “farmers’ market” that delivers meat, produce and other local food stuffs.

Holcomb and Jamie DeMent launched Bella Bean Organics back in 2009, partnering with local businesses and farms, like Chapel Hill Creamery, Melina’s Fresh Pasta and Counter Culture.

“We thought it was time for a change,” Juskeviciute said.

Bella Bean orders have a minimum order of $20, but those ordering through Sprout have no minimum order, no delivery charge and no sales tax.

Bella Bean is also donating 20 percent of proceeds to Sprout, which uses all its profits to fund Nourish’s international community-development projects. 

“We’re all about feeding people, so helping provide access to better food in places in the world where it’s hard to find is right up our alley,” DeMent said in an email.

Students can order on Sprout’s website, either a la carte or a “suggested box.”

The suggested box is $20 and has five items every week, and it's not just greens, Sprout Co-Chair Nisha Saxena said.

photo by Jessica Cabrera 

Before, Sprout’s goods were delivered to the Campus Y. Now, they’re dropped off weekly at the Union, a switch that helps Sprout appeal to more students, Saxena said.

In its third week, the partnership looks like a success, Saxena said. About 35 people have ordered, and there have been repeat customers.

“We do feel a bit better about this,” Saxena said. “Students and faculty really need this resource on campus and I’m really happy we’re able to bring it to them.”

More variety, like bread or fruit, encourages students without kitchens to order, Saxena said.

While Sprout doesn’t mark up costs, prices can be high compared to Harris Teeter or Trader Joe’s.

For instance, a dozen Coon Rock Farm eggs cost $6 through the ordering system. Organic eggs at Trader Joe’s start at $3.79, and Harris Teeter sells them for $3.99.

Weaver Street in Carrboro sells a dozen eggs from Lattas Egg Ranch in Hillsborough for $2.79.

But Bella Bean’s prices change, like all other produce, based on season, Saxena said.  

Another UNC-CH group, The Sonder Market, is developing an on-campus food cart stocked with locally sourced goods.

Saxena said Sprout doesn’t see the market as a competitor, and have already discussed a future partnership.

“We both have a similar goal,” she said.

[carolinaeats]

The New Southern Beer Economy

by Cassandra Ling, photography by Abby Reimer

A wooden lit-up star overlooks the jumbled murmurs of a humming crowd. Orange family-style tables shelter the coat of beer foam spread sporadically on the concrete floor.

A rowdy group starts serenading with the happy birthday song in an off-pitch, beer-buzzed tone.

Sean Wilson, owner of Durham’s Fullsteam Brewery, carefully watches the gears of this complex machine in action, soaking up the babbles of the conversations and celebrations. Nobody knows who he is, but he doesn’t mind.

Wilson is tall, with his jeans as black as his hair. To beat the summer heat, a short-sleeve light denim shirt shields his broad shoulders, and rests neatly tucked beneath his black leather belt. He glances over to the community room where he notices a 65-year-old couple playing Trivial Pursuit, beers in hand, at the next table over.

Wilson takes a new approach to crafting beer by using an eclectic mix of ingredients like sweet potatoes, apples, basil and ginger.

But the story of Fullsteam’s success isn’t just about the beer. Instead, its success fits into a larger tale of a thriving craft-beer community that had to fight to even exist.

Unlikely Brewers

Wilson often reminisces about how he got to this point of sitting, watching, and appreciating this community that he built around him, a surprising outcome for this transplant to North Carolina.

Fullsteam Brewery, with a backwards F, resides in the “DIY District” in Durham, N.C. next to an abandoned car dealership morphed into a bar, an upscale barbeque joint and alternating temporary food trucks. Even though this place is big enough to fit a forklift and has room to add a kitchen, it lacks the space for a bottling plant and expansion.

15 and a half miles away, another entrepreneurial brewer sips his beer delicately. Erik Myers, founder of Mystery Brewing in Hillsborough, N.C., is not a threat or competitor to Wilson, but a friend.

Myers is a large jolly type with a slight beard and somewhat bald, much different from the Wilson’s hip image. His initial interest in the craft beer industry stemmed from his fascination of science and the process of brewing beer, and his home-brewing experiments eventually made him a business owner, brewer and author.

Like Wilson, Myers is a North Carolina transplant who stayed because of the friendships and quality of life.

Strange Ingredients, Southern Beer

The breweries make beers highlighting the unfamiliar and surprising. In his Pickwick beer, Mystery Brewery’s Myers uses a variety of British hops with hints of caramel and toffee.

Wilson uses more farm, earthy ingredients in his brewing style. Yet the craft breweries share a focus on seasonal brewing.

Wilson from Fullsteam knows that most people who taste his southern craft beer might not ever set foot in the place, so he aims to make a product that embodies the sense of community in the bar.

While working at Magnolia Grill in Durham before his entrepreneurial days, Wilson learned more about southern-style food. He used this to try what no one else had, “southern seasonality for beer.”

Starting up, Wilson said he received “hate mail” about this new style of beer, and knew he was on the right track. Hate mail is a good thing? Not necessarily, but it meant that people were talking.

“We are on to something here,” he said.

His beers capture North Carolina: sweet potatoes in the Carver beer, and the forgotten paw-paw fruit, a native North-American fruit that tastes like banana caramel and rots too fast to do most people much good, in the Paw-Paw beer.

 “We want people to be curious about distinctly southern beer,” Wilson said. “But more curious about what grows here and makes our land unique.”

A Craft Beer Revolution

Wilson and Myers don’t just share a love for brewing, but the memory and hard work of a political campaign that changed the brewing industry in North Carolina.

“Pop the Cap” campaign, spearheaded by Wilson and aided by 34 others, ignited the craft beer industry and spread wildly through the state of North Carolina, which now holds more craft breweries than any other state in the American South. Microbreweries and craft beer have changed the southern economy.

North Carolina does not have a big-scale brewing history, since the climate makes it difficult to grow barley and hops. The heat and humidity in the South made storage a nightmare, and farming tactics inconvenient. Most North Carolina beer in the 19th century was “table beer,” designed to be refreshing at meals and low in alcohol content.

For nearly 70 years, North Carolina had enforced a 6 percent alcohol cap on beer brewed and sold in the state. This made it hard for breweries to create gourmet style beers, IPAs and other types that differentiate from the light, almost tasteless lagers mostly stocking the shelves at the time.

While Wilson was attending graduate school at Duke University, with no particular interest in beer, he attended a small party on campus with a fellow classmate. He walked into the dorm, and several different brown bottles with champagne corks dressed the table proudly. A homemade label on one read “Batch #1.” He asked his friend why these flavorful, robust beers were discretely packaged. He soon found out that all of the beers he tried that night were illegal to brew and sell in North Carolina.

“It got under my skin,” Wilson said. “I should look into this, I should figure something out.”

And he did.

In 2003, 35 beer-lovers collected to take a stance on this ABV content cap of 6 percent. After hiring lobbyist Theresa Kostrzewa, this two-year grassroots movement made it all the way to the Senate floor. On Aug. 13, 2005, Governor Mike Easley signed House Bill 392 into law, which lifted the 6 percent ABV cap to 15 percent. This movement was met with resistance, but they “called, wrote and conquered” and “popped the cap,” Wilson said.

“It wasn’t about brewing high alcohol beer just to brew it,” Wilson said. “It was just being able to get rid of those shackles and have the freedom to do what we want on the beer side.”

Now that the shackles were off, the brewing community foamed over North Carolina, changing the agriculture and tourism of the state.

Margo Metzger never thought her photojournalism degree from The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill would lead her into the craft beverage industry.

She is now the first executive director for the North Carolina Craft Brewers Guild and is responsible for marketing, media events, tourism, and beer competitions throughout North Carolina. She fell in love with the concept of handcrafted beverages, and even more so with the craft-beer community.

“There are no TVs in breweries,” she said. “It’s a quality-of-life factor in a place where no one would expect to find one.”

Myers shares an appreciation for this North Carolina quality of life. It’s a good place to be because many are now looking to North Carolina as a popular beer state, which is transforming the economy, he said.

“It’s the California of the East Coast,” Myers said.

Growth and Community

Beer has become the economic driver of North Carolina tourism, agriculture, and community. The people in the business have a passion and love for beer, and also share that same love for each other.

“It typifies craft beer,” Wilson says. “It is misunderstood, a little counterculture, but fast moving.”

Fast moving is an understatement. Wilson goes through about 500 barrels in two days, and serves 400 accounts in the Carolinas. With hopes to expand, opening a bottling plant is an option, though there is a tug to keep the current location, which has turned into a community center.

Even with all the growth, Wilson still says his favorite part is hearing Fullsteam fill with the happy birthday song.

The kids are playing Ping-Pong, and the old couple sits setting up Trivial Pursuit. George, a local beer aficionado with his long brown hair and Beastie Boys shirt, carries in a box from the food truck to enjoy with his Hog Wash brown porter. The dogs eagerly eye the bartender for the biscuits they know are behind the bar somewhere. Nobody is glancing at a cell phone, or glued to a TV.

“Watching community happen here is the most rewarding,” Wilson said quietly.

[carolinaeats]

Brillat-Savarin is an Asshole, but You Should Read Him Anyway

by Bo McMillan

As I passed through the “fucks,” “anuses” and other rote commentary nigh essential to anything by Anthony Bourdain, a comment not penned by the author himself but another reader caught my attention:

“If you love Anthony, know that he took everything he does in terms of writing from Brillat-Savarin.” (This is heartily paraphrased.) Outrage ensued. I would track down this Brillat-Savarin and defend my hero to death.

His book The Physiology of Taste is, was and will always be the forerunner and standard for any writing devoted to food. It is a defense of the amateur food-lover, a justification for the universal discussion of food.

Brillat-Savarin’s masterpiece has everything we’ve come to associate with lauding food, though it was published nearly 200 years ago in 1825. Brillat-Savarin, like the food bloggers of today, was not a professional chef, writer or restaurateur, but merely a gourmand.

This is a constituent of “gourmandism”, a lifestyle described in the book as “impassioned, considered, and habitual preference for whatever pleases the taste” that is “an implicit obedience of the rules of the Creator, who, having ordered us to eat in order to live, invites us to do so with appetite, encourages us with flavor, and rewards us with pleasure.”

Brillat-Savarin believed gourmandism alone justified his writing, and it is what should drive you (or anyone, really) to write about the universal pleasure of eating, no matter your age or demographic.

“The pleasures of the table are for every man, of every land, and no matter of what place in history or society,” Brillat-Savarin says.

The Physiology of Taste begins by scientifically and philosophically exploring the worlds of food, gastronomy, eating and diet . And, despite an occasional lofty tone favoring aristocracy and French Royalism, these explanations are relatively modest and come off as labors of love.

His elucidations deconstruct why we love these pleasures and how they came to exist, and although haughtiness is present (he repetitively emphasizes that food is most important to the highest classes), beneath it lies a liberal assertion that all men do and should enjoy the lavishing nature of good cuisine.

“Gastronomical knowledge is necessary to every man, because it tends to add to the sum of his predestined pleasure,” he asserts. 

Brillat-Savarin speaks of cooking and eating with teary-eyed fanaticism scarcely differing from the Instagramming bloggers we enjoy (and occasionally loathe) now:

Beyond the flowery language lie anecdotes and the now-requisite sexual food metaphors that make his book a paradigm of food writing, and, more importantly, a testament to how and why you should write today.

Brillat-Savarin tells stories of basking in the glory of a hunt’s spoils after they are roasted and spread on the table, of holy men turned almost to sinners by a particularly sumptuous and aphrodisiacal roasted eel, and other notable feasts shared among friends and fellows.

As far removed as the stories might seem, the every-day colloquialism Brillant-Savarin uses draws the book into the 21st century. It feels as if you or I could exchange similar stories with the Professor.

When it comes to Brillat-Savarin’s Physiology of Taste, my stance is clear. If you love food or write about food, this book captures what you love, why you love it and how you love it.

If you are a chef or a scientist, the history, science and philosophy of cooking and eating are outlined brilliantly (though some of the science may be hilariously dated) for your reading pleasure.

If you are none of those, nor a lover of reading, there are some fantastic recipes for tuna omelets, fondue, rum punches, hot chocolate and coffee there for you, too.

The book, as great food writing should, has some sort of value for everyone.

“The Universe is nothing without the things that live in it, and everything that lives, eats,” Brillat-Savarin says.

The Prick proves that you, like everyone else, can and should share in discussing the universal pleasure of food.