The Jackson-based celebrity chef will focus on foods preserved through smoking, curing and canning
Growing up in central Mississippi, chef Nick Wallace admired the work his uncles put into raising crops as much as the lengths his grandmother went to preserving the fruits, vegetables and meats that fed them year round.
“This right here starts with me being a little kid with my grandmother on a farm in Edwards,” says Wallace, who has appeared on Food Network shows like “Cutthroat Kitchen” and “Top Chef,” and won season 34 of “Chopped” in 2017. “When you sit down and eat food, it tastes better when you can talk about that journey, and you can talk about why and how did this get right here on my plate. It’s just such a beautiful thing.”
Preservation was a continual theme on the family farm. In the smokehouse, Wallace’s grandmother cured pork, beef and chicken, including specialties like sausages, chicken feet and pig ears that his uncles could eat as snacks when working the farm plot or in the woods — “a charcuterie, in a sense,” he says.
“That’s the power of preservation, though. You’re always going to have to create several different things. You can sit at home and have one of these lovely meals that has bread crackers, maybe some shaved meats, some cheeses, some jam, some hot sauce. I honestly can’t picture a better meal than having a preservation table.”
The preservation theme will carry over to Wallace’s talk and demonstration at Catfish Row Museum on Sat., July 27 at 2 p.m., when he will create experiences based on fresh foods he has preserved through the same methods his grandmother used.
“We’re going to focus on Southern smoke,” he says, “so it’ll be a lot of things that use preservation. There’s going to be a Southern barbecue feel to the whole menu.”
Wallace’s menu will feature a smoked beef brisket with IPA beer and pork belly burnt ends, with sides of vegetables procured from local gardens and farmers’ markets, including an heirloom cauliflower salad. He’s keen to show how foods that typically get thrown out, even onion skins, can be made into sauces and sides.
“My grandma, she never liked to throw away anything,” he says. “When you walk in her kitchen, you will see hot sauce, you will see pepper sauce. She will make so many different things out of the peppers, ‘cause there’s so many of them — she’ll have some pepper sauce that’s just green pepper sauce, and she’ll have some hot sauce that’s red, some that’s a darker purple color ‘cause she used to do those purple peppers.”
But preservation isn’t just about keeping what you grow and finding uses for it — it’s also about maintaining a connection to old ways. Although it’s often easier to simply drive up to a restaurant or get a meal app like DoorDash to bring meals to you, staying healthy and connected takes a little more personal initiative. But it’s worth it, he says.
“You can look up on your Maps app on your phone, hit ‘Restaurants’ and look at how many restaurants are close to you or in your vicinity, and tell me how many of those are fast food,” he says. “Everything is just so quick now. People don’t have time to develop things. But a lot of those old traditions can really keep us grounded, and I believe it can keep us a lot healthier, too.”
The second season of Catfish Row Museum’s Summer Chef Series will also feature Geno Lee from Jackson’s Farish Street staple the Red Apple Inn on August 10.
Read this story in The Vicksburg Post.
