Food & Drink
Southern Exposure
might as well throw a full-blown
coming-out cotillion for them. The
regional culinary traditions of the South
are becoming mainstream everywhere,
from Bangor to Baltimore.
Doing the Wave
Barbecue? That’s so 2001. Ted Lee, who
cowrote with his brother, Matt Lee, the
cookbook Simple Fresh Southern (
Clark-son Potter, 2009), keeps a timeline of
Southern dishes becoming trendy up
north, from grits in 2006 to ham in 2007
to fried chicken in 2008.
“We’re definitely in a major South-
ern wave of awareness,” says Matt Lee.
“Chefs are becoming much more edu-
cated about Southern foods, and they’re
excited about by it the same way they
might be excited by Italian ingredients
If you’d been paying attention as
closely as the Lee brothers, you would
have noticed, too. Platters of country
ham from Tennessee, sliced like pro-
sciutto and served with red-eye gravy,
fly o; the menu at Momofuku Ssäm
Bar in Manhattan. Modern but homey
restaurants such as The Redhead in the
East Village and Tipsy Parson in Chelsea
are serving Southern staples, including
pimento cheese, catfish, and shrimp and
grits. Hungry Mother, the Southern res-
taurant in Cambridge, Mass., for which
chef-owner Barry Maiden was named
Faded vintage tablecloths and mis-
matched sterling silver dress the tables
in the cozy dining room at Nebo Lodge,
an inn and restaurant on North Haven
Island, o; the coast of Maine. A family
fresh o; the yacht, wearing blue blazers
with brass buttons, orders thin-crust
pizzas. Meanwhile, gru;-looking young
men in flannel shirts, their faces hard-
ened by the sea air, drink from lowballs
at the bar.
We are perusing the menu at a table
for two near the fireplace, gleefully
anticipating a meal that will give us as
keen a sense of place as our surroundings do. The chef, Amanda Hallowell, is
known for using local ingredients, and
her kitchen o;ers Maine on a plate, from
the baby lamb raised on the island to the
briny oysters harvested o; of it.
But one appetizer looks out of place:
fried green tomatoes.
Here we are, 12 miles o; the coast, on
an island where rocky inlets reveal views
of schooners and lighthouses around
every corner, and Hallowell is serving a
dish more at home in my grandmother’s
Southern kitchen?
Well, yes. And who can blame her?
She’s keeping in step with modern chefs
up and down the Northeast Corridor:
She’s looking south.
Southern influences have been showing up north of the Mason-Dixon line
for at least a decade now, but today you
The North puts a
little of the South
in its mouth
BY LIZ JOHNSON
PHOTOGRAPHY BY PETER DENNEN
