Farm-to-table is a huge term these days, but it's rare that we get to see the process start to finish. I did a few weeks ago, and it was fun.
Associate Travel Editor Jennifer Cole and I were in Charleston, which we both love. It's my hometown, and a place that Jennifer has adopted as her own. She's passionate about food (especially pork), and spends lots of time talking with the chefs in town to keep abreast of what's going on. She told me Sean Brock of McCrady's has a farm on Wadmalaw Island, about 20 minutes from downtown. "I told him I'd stop by for a visit," she said. "Want to come?" I did. Not only am I a fan of the farm-to-table idea, but I'd met Sean at the Southern Foodways Symposium in October, and found him interesting and charming . And he makes a mean pickled egg. (More on those in another post.)
When we arrived at the 2-1/2-acre plot, Sean was busily weeding. I was amazed to learn that he tends it basically single-handedly, growing vegetables he'll serve in the restaurant. He also is growing some endangered crops, saving the seeds to grow in years to come. "After a few years, we'll have enough to plant a real crop," he says. But it 's been a cool spring, so baby turnips and spring onions were most of the crop that day.
Sean doesn't just raise his own vegetables--he smokes his own ham and bacon as well. (When
does the man sleep?) We moved down the road to his smokehouse where he built a fire of oak and pecans.
Jennifer was in hog heaven (literally), as we helped hang the bounty he'd brought that day. Then we went to visit the 6 pigs he's raising with a friend. He feeds them scraps from the restaurant as well as sour milk from Coburg dairy. They get to roam over several acres, and will be humanely slaughtered at a plant in Kingstree,
SC.
Later that night we enjoyed a plate of marvelous house-made sausages,salamis, and pate. These little pigs had come home.
