PUT SOME SOUTH IN YOUR MOUTH

Uniquely Southern delights include black-eyed peas, Tuskegee soup, cornbread, fried hog jowls, and pimento cheese, not to mention beloved hooch such as moonshine and bourbon without compare

The Turkey and the Wolf chef takes you step by step through his New Orleans summer original Ultimate Tomato Sandwich.

My Favorite Southern Sammy

This isn’t the time of year to make BLT’s. Just so you’ll know, mine is made with wheat toast, thickish black krim tomato slices 1/4” thick and won’t be ready until probably July. But the time is right anytime for thinking about the sandwich that, in my book, reigns above all others.

My Favorite Fried Chicken

Fried okra, greens and chicken at the new Arlington Heights, Ill. location

At Gus’s Fried Chicken in Knoxville, Tenn., I was introduced to their “world famous” chicken. Before that, I’d never gotten a charge out of dining at a “chicken shack.” Never before, however, had I had garlicky fried pickles, such gooey mac ’n’ cheese, slimy-crisp fried okra, meaty stewed collard greens, or ever doubled up on sweet tea or finished lunch with a cut of chess pie at such a roadside treasure. In 1953, Gus's started in its original location in Mason, Tenn., using a family recipe that’s now used in 29 locations around the U.S. from south to north, from coast to coast.

Varieties of bird are served at countless chicken-slinging joints across the South where Jell-O shots rule and that feel like a big hug. The chicken is white meat, dark, combinations of legs, thighs, wings, or breasts, in snacks with white bread, or plates with sweet baked beans and slaw. Such shacks may well be the dream of a cook grown up somewhere in the South, one of 13 brothers and 8 sisters, who picked cotton as a kid before moving to some big city at 17 and working 20 years as a cook at some legendary local restaurant. Such a cook’s way with poultry never fails on a fried chicken bucket list, be it Nashville hot, spicy, on-the-bone, off-the-bone, strips, tenders, fingers, nuggets, Southern-style, Korean-style, on a plate, in a bucket, on a biscuit, between two buns, atop a waffle, with a side of gravy.

But don’t take my word for it. Find your own favorite somewhere in the U.S. with the Tasting Table which points you to its allstar list for starters. Of course there are chicken chains. The Daily Meal ranks them for you. It says their #1 pick is none other than Gus’s, takeout or dine in: “Their chicken is perfectly juicy, crispy, and spiced—it's the kind of fried chicken that leaves the bag soaked in oil, but is still somehow perfectly crispy when you get it home. Part of what makes Gus's restaurants so successful is their atmosphere. The photos alongside stellar reviews feature neon signs, checkered tablecloths, and the paper plates they serve the food on, which make Gus's feel like a trip back to the 1950s.”

One particularly famous iteration of deluxe chicken-shack chicken is Granny Fearing’s “Paper Bag Shook” Fried Chicken. It’s served at the snappy Fearing’s Restaurant at The Ritz-Carlton, Dallas. It starts in a brown bag with seasoned flour before being pan-fried on an iron skillet rather than dunked in a deep fryer. Perfectly seasoned and lightly crisp, it’s served with green beans, whipped potatoes, and tomato gravy. Fried chicken also goes fancy at Ad Hoc in Napa Valley, one of Thomas Keller’s group of some of the best restaurants in the U.S. from New York to California.

Thomas Keller’s Ad Hoc [Napa Valley, California] Buttermilk Fried Chicken is available on Fridays and Saturdays for lunch as an add on to its smoked Santa Maria tri tip, rancho gordo pinquito beans, broccolini, and pico de gallo. 

My Favorite Bourbon

The son and grandson of the original Pappy Van Winkle of Buffalo Trace Distillery in Frankfort, Ky., make today what’s widely regarded as not only the best spirits of the South but the best in the world. I know of only two liquor shops—one in Knoxville, Tenn., the other in Alamo, Calif.—that will, from time to time have a bottle or two for sale. I’ve heard of other stores donating their allotment of a couple bottles to charity and others holding a raffle to find a new home, not wanting to take orders and supremely disappointing many others. This “most coveted bourbon” is the subject of magazine profiles and prestigious TV shows, such as CBS Sunday Morning. All such attention Pappy bourbon garners crowns them the equivalent of an Italian exotic race Ferarri car or the luxury piece of jewelry from Tiffany & Co. Pappy is easily the gold standard of its own bourbon industry.

Impossibly Spectacularly Expensive Pappy Van Winkle set. Old Rip Van WInkle 10yr, Special Reserve 12yr, Family Reserve 15yr, Family Reserve Rye, Family Reserve 20yr, and Family Reserve 23yr

Another Winning Whiskey

Roaming Man Straight Rye Whiskey

Another award winning spirit is Roaming Man Straight Rye Whiskey from Sugarlands Distillery. Since 2018 when it was first introduced it has been winning gold medals in international spirits competitions. It’s sold out every year during its pre-release date, so jump on it if you want a shot at scoring some.

A Favorite Moonshine

And then there’s moonshine, the quintessential southern beverage. One of the distilling hotbeds is in the mountains of East Tennessee, Dolly Parton country, and home of Popcorn Sutton, the moonshine legend. Around Knoxville alone, there are 10 distilleries and numerous breweries to explore.

Making shine in the old days of shining up the hollows of the Smoky Mountains

Ole Smoky Tennessee Moonshine has been making shine in the Smoky Mountains ever since its great, great maw maws and paw paws stepped foot in them there hills over a hundred years ago—but it wasn’t until Tennessee state law changed that Ole Smoky was able to legally open up our first federally licensed distillery in Gatlinburg.

Ole Smoky Moonshine comes peanut flavored, butter pecan, butterscotch, margarita, original, blue flame, blackberry, apple pie, peppermint, and pumpkin pie

Today’s king and queen of shine are Joe & Jessi Baker of Ole Smoky, both lawyers turned world renowned moonshiners

Jessi Baker is a lawyer-turned-moonshiner, the woman behind Ole Smoky. “I grew up watching them realize the American Dream,” she says. “I grew up in Gatlinburg, a special small town where genuine hospitality and tourism are fostered by a community of smart local entrepreneurs — two of whom happen to be my grandparents. My grandmother was at the candy shop every day. She was so well-respected, everyone called her Chief. What a role model . . . just the epitome of grace and class and work ethic. I dreamed, as a child, of taking over the candy kitchen one day. After leaving Gatlinburg for college, Joe (my high school sweetheart and now husband) and I both returned to Tennessee for law school. I’ll never forget the morning Joe came into the room where I was nursing our youngest baby and told me that we were going to make moonshine. I thought he had lost his mind. But like any good, stubborn hillbilly, he persisted as I warmed to the idea, and nine months later Ole Smoky opened for business.”

In 2009, the law changed, and it was suddenly legal to make, distill, and sell bootleggers’ hooch. She and Joe, along with friends and family, got to work, and opened their doors in 2010. The Gatlinburg Ole Smoky location is the most visited distillery in the world. Last year, across all locations which include Pigeon Forge and Nashville, they welcomed a record 4.1 million visitors. To put that into perspective, that is more than twice as many guests as all of Scotland’s distilleries combined.

Besides raising three children who are now teenagers and running the shine business, Jessi authored a cookbook, Shining.

Foodie Notes From Around The South

Several mountain retreats recommended by Wine Spectator all across the U.S., where winemaking is king, including two in the south: Blackberry Farm in Walland, Tenn. and Madison’s Restaurant & Wine Garden Old Edwards Inn and Spa, Highlands, N.C. . . . Benton’s Bacon has long been an east Tennessee phenomenon. In 1973, Allan Benton opened Benton’s Smoky Mountain Country Hams. What’s rooted his business for more than forty years, the one thing he never changed: his grandparents’ curing recipe. In 2006, Benton’s was written up in Gourmet magazine and, in 2009, was crowned the world’s best bacon by Esquire magazine.

In his early days, says Allan Benton: “We always killed hogs. We rode up to my grandparent’s place in Virginia every Thanksgiving. We butchered the pigs and spent Thursday, Friday, and Saturday working up all that meat for both sides of the family: canning the sausage in fruit jars, putting the hams and bacon in cure, and it was country living at its best.”

“I was born so far back in the hills of Virginia that you had to look straight up to see the sun,” he says describing his childhood in one publication. “We were desperately poor even by Appalachian standards, but I didn’t know that. Neither side of my family owned an automobile. Neither owned a tractor. They took a gooseneck hoe, and they farmed the land like that. They actually raised almost everything they ate.” By 2003, according to CityView magazine, Benton’s products became popular with notable chefs. Come 2007, he received Lifetime Achievement award from the Foodway Alliance. In 2012 in a taste contest with prosciutto di Parma, his Appalachian hillbilly ham won out as reported in the HuffPost. And then in 2021 came smoked corn whiskey from a matchup between High Wire Distilling Co. in Charleston, S.C., and Benton’s . . . Muddy Pond Sorghum should be added to your pantry! It’s a sweet syrupy byproduct of sugarcane akin to molasses that was once cut by hand with a machete, turned into a juice and heated by a wood-fired, steam locomotive boiler before it’s ready to pour on some hot biscuits. Muddy Pond will be at the Florida State Fair in Tampa for a sugar cane syrup demo February 9-20 . . . And don’t overlook a delicious, complex southern soy sauce, from Bluegrass country Bourbon Barrel Foods . . . lastly, here’s a recipe for Southern Peanut Soup, sometimes called Tuskegee Soup after its “namesake,” George Washington Carver, who was famous for his experiments with peanuts.

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