There’s much ado about heirloom crops, which promote genetic diversity. Acclaimed chef and author Hugh Acheson wants you to eat them- and rice grits, in particular- because they’re about more than just mere sustenance.

To be honest, before last June, the only thing I knew about Hugh Acheson, chef/partner of Athens, Georgia’s, Five and Ten, and The National, and Atlanta’s Empire State South, is that he has one hell of a unibrow (well-documented), and that his intensity as a part-time judge on “Top Chef” freaked me out. Yet, while attending the 31st annual FOOD & WINE Classic in Aspen this past summer, I was intrigued by a cooking demo Acheson was offering, called “Great Southern Grains.” The focus of the seminar was on the “rice economy and Southern resurgence of a cultural interest in heritage grains [his term for heirloom].” In a nutshell, we were learning about rice grits, and their role in what Acheson calls New Southern cuisine.

I’m a fool for grains; I’ve never met a variety I dislike, be it farro, millet, barley, or buckwheat groats. And now that I’ve seen Acheson as a presenter, I stand corrected, as the James Beard-award-winning Acheson, also a former Food & Wine “Best New Chef,” is my new hero. His vast knowledge about food, including the sociological and anthropological aspects, as well as his intelligence, foresight, and self-deprecating humor (you should hear him talk about his eyebrow), made me completely rethink my baseless former opinion. Do I sound like I have a crush? I do, in that it’s rare to find a chef who is so articulate and down-to-earth.

Image: Galdones Photography

Acheson, a Canadian, moved to the Deep South nearly two decades ago; his fascination with Southern culture has made him a bona-fide expert on the region’s food history. Before the Civil War, the rice economy of states like North Carolina and Georgia were based upon slave labor; it was these African slaves who fully developed the rice culture of the region (As Acheson rightly points out, “Southern food was not created by Southerners; it was created by slaves and slave traders.”). After the war, labor-intensive rice cultivation moved to states like Texas and Arkansas, where it was easier to flood and drain fields.

Rice grits are an heirloom rice with small, “broken” grains; Acheson prepares them in the manner of risotto, adding liquid in small quantities for the grains to absorb. The result is a delicate, creamy dish that takes well to all manner of cooked vegetables or meats, or can be used in desserts, or a breakfast food as you would regular grits or polenta. The rice grits espoused by the chef are a variety called Carolina Gold rice, which is regaining its popularity and being cultivated by regional family farms thanks to the persistence of chefs like Acheson, who don’t want to see a monoculture destroy the historical or agricultural legacy of the South. Acheson and fellow Southern chefs like Sean Brock of Charleston’s Husk have been instrumental in helping to revive and make relevant family farms, as the demand for specialty produce, meat, and poultry grows.

“Rice grits are one of the defining grains of the New South, to me; I have very strong opinions about Southern food for a Canadian,” jokes Acheson. “It’s not greasy buckets of fried chicken; that’s only been the fast food culture of the last 50 years. If we make fresh, wholesome food available to our kids, that culture of heritage foods, home cooking, will be there for the next generation. If we don’t, we’ll continue to poison the well as we have been for the last few generations.”

Image: Adrianne Behning Photography

As Acheson pointed out, the “New South” is one largely comprised of new ethnic groups, most notably Koreans and other Asian immigrants. For his demo, he prepared a dish that he feels is representative of this new food culture: Rice grits with kimchi and pork belly, and quick-pickled scallion and radish (see recipe below). The dish is garnished with local roasted peanuts, in a nod to both Southern and Asian influences. When it comes to sourcing ingredients, says Acheson, “I’m not a zealot, but I feel that “farm-to-table has become too much of a marketing term. I prefer to say I cook from my community. It’s just what we do.”

Try Acheson’s comforting fall recipe for rice (grit) pudding with butternut squash and sweet milk tea.

Save the date! The 2014 FOOD & WINE Classic in Aspen will be held June 20-22.

Top image: robholland

Related articles on EcoSalon:

Rice, Rice Baby: 7 Ways to Prepare the World’s Most Popular Grain

Turn Your Backyard into a Mini-Food Farm

The post Discovering Rice Grits & the New Southern Food Culture with Chef Hugh Acheson appeared first on EcoSalon.

The season is here for the most delicious fresh produce, perhaps even grown by you. But whether coming from your backyard or a local market, you can enhance that delicious fruit and vegetable experience by opting for heirloom varieties.

Modern fruits and vegetables have come a long way from what our ancestors ate. We bred out bitter and sour flavors, enhanced color, shape, texture. These traits aren’t necessarily bad things, mind you, but if you crave a more balanced and full flavor, heirloom varieties express more of the essence of a plant’s true nature. Give some of these a try this season:

Tomatoes: The tomato is perhaps the poster fruit for heirlooms. You can thank the flavorless, mealy tomatoes that dominate the market for sending our pallets towards juicy, sweet and tangy heirlooms. They’re everywhere now, even your local supermarket. Look for these heirloom varieties: Brandywines,  Cherokee Purple, Green Zebra, Black Prince, Marvel Stripe and Flamme Orange.

Beans: Summer is full of bean varieties that bring so much nutrition and flavor to your plate. There are an incredible variety of heirloom beans as well. In fact, the Blue Coco variety is one of the oldest known heirloom beans available. It’s a pole bean, also known as Purple Pod and Blue Podded Pole.  Keep an eye out for others, including the Brown Lazy Wife pole bean, the butter bean variety Beurre de Rocquencourt Bean, the Hickman Snap Bean, and look also for fresh varieties of hardier beans like the Light Brown Zebra Bean, a variety of the pinto and Black Turtle beans.

Peppers: Sweet or spicy, peppers are crunchy, full of flavor and vitamins, and make any dish better. Check now for some of these sweet heirlooms: the Sweet California Wonder, Jimmy Nardello’s, Napoleon Sweets; and these spicy varieties: Anaheim chiles, Caribbean red, Cubanelle, Fresno Chiles, and the Purple Tiger.

Melons: Nothing says summer like juicy melon all over your face. No more should you eat watermelon that tastes as dry as cardboard! Give some of these delightful heirlooms a try: Canary yellow, Crenshaw, Iroquois,  Sakatas sweet and the Petit Gris De Rennes.

Cucumbers: Like their sweet melon cousins, cucumbers come in a tasty variety that make summer truly special. Try as many as you can as often as you can! The Lemon Cucumber may be my all time favorite heirloom summer treat. Others include: Arkansas Little Leaf, Crystal Apple, Lebanese Mirella, Tendergreens and Suyo Longs.

Don’t see any of these varieties at your farmers market or grocery store? There are thousands of heirloom varieties, so just ask your farmer or produce manager what heirlooms they’re stocking.

Keep in touch with Jill on Twitter @jillettinger

Image: zacklur

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“Are you worried about the economy? If so, pay close attention, because in an economic meltdown, non-hybrid seeds could become more valuable than even silver and gold.”

That almost makes sense…until you discover these words came out of the mouth of a pitchman selling $150 packages of seeds in between Glenn Beck’s inveterate weeping about socialism-fascism-Nazism-[insert ism of choice]ism and Hawaiian birth certificates, and things take a turn for creepy.

Fear is a powerful motivator, and when millions of people across the country are waiting for Armageddon, advertising a “Survival Seed Bank” on the Glenn Beck show could be a slick business move.

The Survival Seed Bank website pushes the fear even further: “You don’t have to be an Old Testament prophet to see what’s going on all around us. As the meltdown progresses, one of the first things to be affected will be our nation’s food supply. Expect soaring prices along with moderate to severe shortages by spring. If you don’t have the ability to grow your own food next year, your life may be in danger.”

And yet – when you peel away the layers of paranoia and b.s., what this comes down to is motivating people to take control of their own food supply. In that sense, “˜crisis gardens’ aren’t all that different from the green movement that encourages one to grow whatever food one can at home. While the bogeyman for Glenn Beck viewers is a liberalism-delivered (I think that’s the right ism) apocalypse, for us it’s mammoth corporations destroying the environment while shoveling toxic Franken-food into our mouths.

The key here is for people not to hoard seeds until that fabled day when the sky falls, but to actually plant them. We can all benefit from the pleasure of eating more fresh-from-the-garden foods that don’t have to travel further than a few yards to our plates. Plant heirloom seeds, gather the seeds produced by those crops every season, and you’ll have more than enough to tuck some away for a rainy day.

You’ll be better off selecting your own heirloom seeds from a source like the Seed Savers Exchange than funding a Glenn Beck advertiser, but even the Survivalist Seed Bank sells heirloom varieties.

Image: OakleyOriginals

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