Delve into the culinary history of ingredients like Motherland okra and Dyehouse cherries
CM: It’s great to find you two together again. Please introduce yourselves.
KM: I’m Kevin Mitchell, chef instructor and program ambassador at the Culinary Institute of Charleston, culinary historian, a 2020/2021 South Carolina Chef Ambassador, and coauthor of two books of culinary history.
DS: I’m David Shields, chair of the Carolina Gold Rice Foundation, USC Carolina distinguished professor emeritus, Slow Food’s “Snailblazer for Biodiversity,” and author or coauthor of six books of culinary history.
CM: How did you meet?
KM: We first met when the Culinary Institute of Charleston provided dishes for a Carolina Gold Rice Foundation fest. In April 2015, we produced the Nat Fuller Dinner, an event marking the end of Civil War commemorations. I cooked as the famous 19th-century African American caterer Nat Fuller, and David chaired the event. When USC Press approached David about writing a book on South Carolina foods, he brought me on as coauthor. That proved so successful, we wrote a follow-up volume on Georgia.
CM: When did you pitch SCETV on The Savers of Flavor?
DS: We didn’t. Ginger Cassell of SCETV, a producer who had worked on Alton Brown’s Good Eats, suggested we collaborate on a proposal, having read my Substack about heirloom food discoveries. After the pilot was shot (the Dyehouse cherry of Kentucky, the South’s one true pie cherry), its quality convinced the SCETV Endowment to fund the initial season of four, half-hour episodes.
CM: What’s the premise?
DS: With every growing season, the South is in danger of losing ingredients that have shaped our region’s flavor, history, and culture. But treasures still exist, scattered across the landscape. We scour the countryside tracking down these splendid, imperiled foods and tell their stories, how they survived, and why they should be celebrated. Even on familiar ingredients like okra, the shows explore surprising new dimensions. We reveal that there is a species of okra grown in Africa and parts of the South that’s raised for its leaves rather than its pods. Also, that okra seeds are the most nutritious part of the plant, and okra seed oil pressed in Georgia is becoming a thing among Southern chefs. At the end of every show, Kevin prepares the ingredients into a sumptuous dish enjoyed by the show’s guests.
CM: Where did you film?
DS: Filming has taken place in South Carolina, Georgia, Kentucky, North Carolina, and Virginia. Future shows feature items in Florida, Louisiana, Virginia, and Tennessee.
CM: Do you have a favorite episode?
KM: I loved them all; however, the Motherland okra episode was special. My grandmother cooked a lot of okra when I was growing up. It brings me back to her kitchen when I was six, learning how to cook at her ankles.
CM: What’s up with the vintage cars?
KM: They are like the mission of the series: old things are worth restoring. Ginger contacted clubs in the areas where we were shooting and found cars and trucks to complement our ingredients, like a green 1942 Dodge truck for the Early Frame pea show and a red 1957 Chevy for the Dyehouse cherry show.
