Roll Over, Escoffier

Beyond Grits C" Gravy Roll Over, Escoffier BY JAMES G. FERGUSON, JR. Beyond Grits and Gravy, a new column on foodways in the South, is a forum for all kinds oftalk about southern food. This first piece, by Jim Ferguson, most recently coauthor of Dining at the Homestead, shows us what happens when French chefs encounter staples of the southern table. The results are not really surprising ifyou've ever tasted such southern classics as hot biscuits, country ham, and redeye gravy. Future articles will take a look at the history of southern food favorites as well as the direction of today's southern cuisine. Tellme whatyou eat, andI'lltellyou whatyou are. —Anthelme Brillat-Savarin, The Physiology ofTaste (182j) Not long ago Ireadthat toJudgefrom southern cookbookspublishedin recent times, one wouldassume beefStroganojfwas a traditionaldish. My heartsank. The dishes herein are a rebuttalofthat assumption andmy affirmation ofan active southern heritage. Iwant to know whatseason itis, what day it is, where Ilive andhow Igotthere; nature has a beautifulandperfectorderofwhich we are allonly a smallpart, andneverlords. —BillNeal, Bill Neal's Southern Cooking (198j) 114 Last summer I had die good fortune to audit a course on the sociology ofthe Soudi at the University ofNorth Car- DucloUX Was olina at Chapel Hill. Actually, it was a bit of an intellectu- . , ; , , .1 ( r , , . , in ecstasy as he al breather from five-year s work on an increasingly pon-~s derous tome concerning Burgundian culinary traditions devoured the next and tradents —the latter represented by tiiree megachefs r ,.¦ »v,tuJ, a */uc five biscuits. in the region. I he course turned out to be a sort of reve- J lation—a serendipitous epiphany, really. I discovered that ........................ despite Yankee roots, I am a southerner—which got me to musing about similarities between the part of the South I know and Burgundy. There are such obvious things as finding our familiar red clay at the monastery ofPierre que Vire just south ofVézelay. But there are fundamental social substrates as well. In this course, we heard of the importance to the southerner of sense ofplace (terroirin French), family ties, and religion, all of which help define the Burgundian character. I could hear Marc Meneau of L'Espérance say that the Nivernais, though politically a subdivision of Burgundy, did not belong because the cuisine was different. The famed Troisgros kitchen has three generations of family working side by side. And, were it not for the knowledge and diligent labor of Bernard of Clairvaux's Cistercian monks and nuns, pinot noir and chardonnay would not be as avidly consumed (and grown) in the South as it is today. Something written by Bill Neal, a North Carolinian whose sophisticated literary and culinary endeavors brought national attention to southern cuisine in the 1980s, seemed to speak to another bond: "But true southerners hold historical and cultural bonds to heart, above geography; they remain southern wherever they are—New York, Chicago, Paris, London—and their food is part oftheir cultural identity." The French "Tell me what you eat . . ." could as easily be our "Tell me what y'all eat. . . ." Upon further reflection I realized that more than a simple love of things culinary was at work here—it is an appreciation of the same kinds ofearthy, elemental foods that these two cultures share. Our love ofthe Burgundians ' cuisine mirrored their response to what we brought—there was common cause at the kitchen table. In the fall of 1994, we took North Carolina country ham, sausage, and barbecue along with grits and Virginia bacon on that trip to France. Ellie, my wife and collaborator on this project, took premeasured and sifted flour to bake biscuits. We were at Restaurant Greuze in Tournus — two Michelin stars for decades — home ofJean Ducloux, France's exalted champion of traditional cuisine. Ellie had twenty minutes in the convection oven to bake her biscuits in between Overleaf:Jim Ferguson cooking up southern sausage and baconforthe staffbreakfast inJean Ducloux's Restaurant Greuze, Tournus, France,fall 1994. Beyond Grits & Gravy 1 1 5 gougères and brioche bread for the luncheon service. I was fixing bacon, sausage, country ham, and redeye gravy. We were cooking breakfast for twenty, including Jean Ducloux. When...