To Sean Brock, These Centuries-Old Carolina Peanuts Are More Precious Than Truffles
查尔斯顿厨师肖恩·布洛克, a pioneer of低压cooking, has gained national recognition for his commitment to centering long-forgotten products, heirloom crops, techniques and traditions. His restaurantsMcCrady's Tavern和Husk, of which there are now four locations, have a fanatical focus on place. Each bite, while delicious, interrogates what it means to eat in the South.
"What Sean Brock is doing, and has been doing, is really cutting-edge and a direction forward that I think a lot of people are following; he's rediscovering traditional ingredients, species, specific types of food—varieties of rice, for instance, that haven’t existed," Anthony Bourdain tells亚搏电竞食品和葡萄酒亚搏电竞at the 10th Annual Cayman Cookout. "He’s a seed collector, a botonist. I think what Sean is doing is really interesting."
布罗克最新的激情项目？当然，当然，最近开放的稻草萨凡纳，奔跑他的帝国，在节日上烹饪，并用灰烬做思想吹东西？庆祝Carolina African Runner花生，一个遗传般的庄稼，这些庄稼在几个世纪里面并不是几年前，据信灭绝。（According to NPR，只有40种种子幸存下来的萧条。慢慢地小心翼翼地，由于汉默森大学沿海研究和教育中心的园艺师Brian病房的努力，花生再次培养了花生。）
“我一直试图在盘子上拿到这些花生十年，”布洛克告诉了亚搏电竞食品和葡萄酒亚搏电竞在1600岁的南部成长的坚果upon the arrival of enslaved West Africans. "What happens when you don’t plant something for 100 years is its DNA is stuck in that time period, like a time warp, so when you plant it in the soil in today’s climate, its DNA needs to change each year to cope with the changed conditions." Brock and his team finally had a successful crop of them this year, and the years of work were well worth it.
The tiny peanuts, which are higher in sugar and fat than what you're likely to find at the supermarket, serve as "a reminder of a time when our food used to taste better and be better for us and more delicious, and why we should continue to be advocates of food preservation," Brock says. "Not only do people not think of the different varieties of peanuts, but they don’t think of where it came from, and the struggles that came along with the having the opportunity to enjoy that peanut."
Brock says he really began digging deeper into the Charleston pantry back in 2006. Over time, he formed a list of the forgotten crops he found in old agricultural journals and cookbooks and heard about through word-of-mouth. The Carolina Runner peanuts have been on that list for a very long time, hence his excitement to cross it off.
“你开始思考价值，我们不仅仅是通过他们的价格重视事情，而是这些对我来说的价值......这些都是我的黑色松露，”他说。"You have to peel the skin off of each one. One falls on the floor, we don’t throw it away. We go wash it and put it back in the pile. We are so thankful and grateful to be able to eat them and cook with them. I keep them in a bowl in my house and eat them all day."
At the 10th Annual Cayman Cookout on January 12, Brock served a lunch where the peanuts took the spotlight. He used them to prepare a tangy vinaigrette, made with the peanut oil, peanut purée and vinegar, which he served atop a fresh salad of local produce and smoked country ham from Tennessee.
When he's not tracking down peanuts, Brock is opening restaurants. His most recent opening is Husk Savannah, the fourth outpost of Husk, which opened in January.
"What I’ve enjoyed the most about opening in Savannah is the humbling that comes along with thinking you have an idea of what a cuisine is about – Lowcountry food – and then you go to a completely different place that seems very ver similar, and itis洛杉矶的食物，但它完全亚搏电竞不同，“他说。”这就是让稻壳如此令人兴奋 - 这是不断的探索。“