The culinary cornerstone of any self-respecting Southern food festival has got to be barbecue. But vegetable side dishes including green beans with caramelized Vidalia onions, lightly fried okra, succotash, collard greens, and creamed corn shared center stage at the BBQ cook-off held at Sea Island as part of the St. Simons Food & Spirits Festival.
Pitmasters cooked up some out-of-the-box barbecue with a smoked steamship round of beef from Sea Island’s chefs and an Italian-inspired smoked porchetta slider from Atlanta’s Fox Brothers. Add fine bourbons and craft beers with bites of freshly baked biscuits and homemade desserts, and you’ve got the makings of a real crowd pleaser. The festival delivered all that and more with six days of cooking classes, whiskey and wine tastings, Southern dinners held around the Georgia beach community and a festival day at Gascoigne Bluff featuring farmers, chefs, cookbook authors and mixologists.
Southern eats
Held to celebrate Southern cuisine and benefit Hospice of the Golden Isles, the October festival is in its second year. Southern products included Georgia olive oil, Four Roses Bourbon and many a moonshine maker (it’s legal now).
Chef Linton Hopkins of Atlanta’s Restaurant Eugene and Holeman & Finch Public House demonstrated the art of slicing country ham into wafer-thin melt-in-your-mouth morsels, “This ham is from Virginia and was raised on peanuts and shows we can produce foods in the South that stand up to fancy imports such as the expensive Spanish Iberico hams.”
Hopkins also joined a shrimp tasting with chef Jason Brumfiel of St. Simons’ King and Prince Resort. “A Study in Shrimp” led participants through a wine-tasting-style comparison of locally caught white, pink, brown and red shrimp. “You’ll notice that there’s a difference in brininess and some are sweeter,” Brumfiel said.
The chefs shared shrimp cooking tips such as their preference for kosher salt in the boiling water. “There’s actually less sodium per tablespoon of kosher salt, but it adds great salinity,” Hopkins said.
Slim Southern bird
While fried chicken may be iconic to Southern cooking, a game bird reigned supreme at this festival. Quail from Manchester Farms was served over wilted greens with bacon and Vidalia onion gravy at Halyards restaurant. At Gascoigne Bluff, chef John Belechak of Palmer’s Village Cafe served up samples of tender quail breast over grits.
Quail breast flies high when you check out its nutrition profile. If you eat a whole quail, often the way the tiny bird is served, count an impressive 21 grams of protein and only 200 calories. Locally, look for Manchester Farms quail on the menu at both Atlanta locations of Seasons 52 served with mushroom risotto with spinach, bacon and balsamic sauce.
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