Feature story for Bluffton Today
Run Date: Tuesday, November 25, 2008
SOME OF THE WORLD'S BEST CHEFS LOVE THOSE LOWCOUNTRY INGREDIENTS, INCLUDING WHITE SHRIMP.
The second annual "Music to Your Mouth" brought more than 400 visitors to the Lowcountry this weekend.
The event, hosted by celebrity chef Tyler Florence, has grown and expanded since last year's inaugural. Sarah Johns, a backup singer for country star George Strait, came from Nashville at the behest of her boyfriend's family.
"They came last year and said we just had to come with them this year," Johns said.
The music and food festival highlights the best of the South and the Lowcountry in particular. Chefs and vendors from the region were on hand under the chilly tent to display their wares and discuss their favorite topic: food.
The Jazz Corner's Executive Chef Mark Gaylord prepared his favorite local delicacy, white shrimp, with a painstaking accompaniment of venison pastrami.
"The pastrami takes a week to prepare, so it's not a last-minute dish," said Gaylord. "The flavor is worth the time, though."
Gaylord is proud to use local ingredients. He has specialty greens grown to his exacting standards in a greenhouse on Myrtle Island and frequents the farmers' markets in Bluffton and Ridgeland.
"Nothing beats the flavor of produce from the farmers' market," he said.
Carolina Plantation Rice owner Meredith Coxe agrees. She and her husband Campbell work one of the few remaining plantations in South Carolina in Darlington, just off the Pee Dee River.
"Our products not only taste better, they're better for the environment," she said.
Carolina Plantation Rice was the first business in South Carolina to be recognized as Green-e certified. Coxe is hoping to add plantation tours to their giant to-do list for next spring after planting.
"Folks can come out and tour the plantation and have lunch and a kayak tour," she said.
In addition to rice, the plantation produces corn meal and cowpeas (for hoppin' John), staples of local cuisine. "We're growing what people want to eat and we're very proud of the way we do it."
Even newcomers to our area are enchanted by the bounty they can tap into. The Inn at Palmetto Bluff's Executive Chef Christopher Blobaum has arrived fairly recently from the West Coast but is happy to serve Lowcountry offerings.
Blobaum sits on the board of the farmers' market and is working toward having a certified organic farm on the Palmetto Bluff property.
"The relationship to the farm is very important, and we want to encourage sustainable practices and land stewardship wherever possible," Blobaum said.
His favorite is also the local white shrimp, but he's a big fan of May River oysters as well. "They're very different than the oysters I'm used to eating, but they're perfect for a Lowcountry celebration like this."
FireFly Vodka owner, vintner and distiller Scott Newitt knows a thing or two about celebrating Lowcountry style. He's brought to market the quintessential Southern drink, FireFly Sweet Tea Vodka, made from ingredients produced locally.
"The vodka is made from muscadine wine grapes grown here in South Carolina, the tea is grown on the last tea plantation in South Carolina and the distillery is on Wadmalaw Island, just outside Charleston," said Newitt.
"There's nothing more Southern than sweet tea."
Or, as his ad campaign rightly puts it, "What does Long Island know about iced tea?"
Eat at Home and Eat Well