Arrive Magazine - January/February 2011

Lover’s Companion to the South ( Algonquin Books, 2007), says that the recent Northern discovery of Southern food is part of an evolutionary process that speaks to American insecurity.

“We’re a young country still in the
throes of defining itself, and we think
the food is better and matters more
elsewhere,” he says. “And then we start
to realize that that’s not the case.”
“Back to Matt’s analogy of the Italian
thing,” says Ted Lee. “Once people get
over the misperception that Southern
food is all barbecue and fried chicken,
traveling around the South is akin to
traveling around Italy. You taste the dif-
ferences in the cuisine as you travel.”
Restaurants celebrating regional cui-
sines, such as Charleston in Baltimore,
Egg in Brooklyn, Johnny’s Half Shell in
Washington, D.C., and Bar Americain
in Manhattan and at Mohegan Sun in
Uncasville, Conn., are certainly helping.

It’s that focus on one region, says Bar Americain chef-owner Bobby Flay, that helps define our food culture more clearly.

Chefs “confused the public for a
while by calling lots of restaurants
‘new American,’ ” Flay says. “And that
doesn’t mean anything except ‘I’m
going to do what I feel like.’ That’s OK,
but I like my restaurants to have a sin-
gular focus so I can go back to the core
and reinvent them from there.”
As it turns out, the fried green toma-
toes on Hallowell’s menu at Nebo Lodge
are terrific. The tomatoes are lightly
crusted in panko bread crumbs and
served with a chive dressing. Hallowell
was inspired by visiting her sister-in-law
in New Orleans, where they would eat
fried green tomatoes for breakfast, but
she also thinks that people in Maine are
“comfort food people at heart.”
“And that’s what I think about
Southern food,” she says. “It’s comfort
food with a little more gusto.”
“Food is entertainment,” says Wal-
lach. “But it’s also a way to get people to
know other cultures. It’s great that we
are seeing the Southern resurgence. It’s
fun and it’s approachable and it’s fairly
inexpensive—and you get sick of eating
the same food all the time.”
Except maybe fried chicken.

Southern influences
have been showing
up north of the
Mason-Dixon line
for at least a decade
now, but today
you might as well
throw a full-blown
coming-out
cotillion for them.

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