Southern Food Beyond the Classics | Anthony Bourdain's The Mind of a Chef | Full Episode

Viewers like you make this program possible. Support your local PBS station. In this episode, Chef Sean Brock explores the astonishing terroir of the South. What's cool about a dish like this is they just have such a cool story. Mississippi Chef John Currence makes tamales. Tamales were a great field food. Atlanta Chef Steven Satterfield makes a peanut and field pea salad. You don't always have to do the traditional. The Lee brothers explain deviled crabs. I feel like it's ready for its comeback moment. And from Nashville, Chef Eric Anderson shows Sean the oh-so-scaldingly painful ways of hot chicken. I'm in physical pain right now. I'm jarred. It's the coolest thing. Man, that's good. When you say Southern food, what's the first thing that comes to mind? Fried chicken. People just don't know any better. A lot of people think that there's Southern food and there's the South. It's one thing. It's one cuisine. But for us, we wanna show how fresh, vibrant, exciting it can be through studying, really, the diversity of cultures throughout the South. It's not just a plate of fried chicken. So I'm here with Steven Satterfield, someone who I just think the world of. Steven is kind of known for his work with Southern vegetables. Tell us what you're gonna make. Yeah, we're gonna do a little field pea and peanut salad with a little fresh cheese. These are the first of the seasoned green peanuts. They're boiled peanuts. Some people say bowled peanuts. Ooh, look at that one. That's a bonus when you get four. Yeah, it is. And this is like a Southern caviar on this. Yeah, it's our street food, you know? Yeah, exactly. You go to a baseball game here and this is what you sit and eat. What I'm gonna do is just take a little bit of each of these peas. We'll start with the boiled peanuts and some of these pretty white acres. I love the butter peas. You don't see these as often. And I'm also gonna take a little bit of this juice that's run off of the plate from the tomatoes and the peppers. This is a really good flavor right here. It's barrel-aged vinegar. And then I've got the green peanut oil. Can I taste that? Yes, absolutely. Tastes like the green bean flavor we were talking about. Whoa, that's insane. And then I'm gonna take some of these chilies. These are from one of your local farmers. What are they, poblano? Yep. I feel like we're taking some poetic license sometimes. We get to play with these amazing ingredients, but we don't always have to do the traditional. And then we're gonna take some of these tomatoes. We're gonna serve it on a little fresh cheese. This is just a lemon ricotta. So this cheese is made from some fantastic milk that we get from Celeste Albers. She's just so in love with those cows, and it's just such an honor and privilege to be able to make food from her passion. And then I have some toasted crushed peanuts that I tossed in chili oil. And then I have some basil from your garden. So this one's cool. This is my favorite one. I have this one actually tattooed right here. And this is an African, yeah. And I love to use the flowers, the little buds. People don't realize that you can eat the flowers, and they have so much flavor. It's very pretty. Nashville hot chicken is Nashville hot chicken. You can really only get it there. But Prince's being the first, they put it on the map. I'm not gonna lie to you, man. I'm a little nervous. The hot, extra hot? That's what's making you nervous? I have to, I think. I can stand hot food. I've always loved habaneros, and I've always loved spicy things, but I was terrified walking into Prince's. Completely terrified. I like how there's a body waxing place beside it. So if you didn't torture yourself enough eating the hot chicken, you can go get the Brazilian. Get your hair ripped off? Oh, here we go. Okay, may I take your order, please? Am I crazy if I get the extra hot? That's suicidal chicken. I gotta do it, but I'm nervous. Extra hot. Okay. I'm gonna do the same thing, but leg and thigh. Oh, wow. I would like a cup of pickles as well. Cup of pickles. Yeah, that's fine. And three gallons of milk. Okay. I'm nervous. Just thinking about it. My goodness. What's the worst that could happen? Just don't let it happen in here. Fair enough, fair enough. You would never, ever ask them how they make it or what the secret is. I mean, you can't even look into the kitchen. They have it guarded off. Those secrets are so closely guarded that not for any amount of money or any amount of fame will they allow a camera into those kitchens. Oh. Whoa. Thank you. All right. And I'm here to be a witness. Oh, you're gonna watch this whole time? Of course. Oh, my goodness. Oh, boy. Start out slow. Don't even touch your skin. It looks so delicious. Say your prayers. That's hot. It tastes so good, though. How many extra hots do you sell in a day? It's not that many. I'm actually doing all right so far. This has ruined fried chicken for me, though. Like, I can't eat regular fried chicken anymore. It's too boring. No, I can't either. This is not a boring chicken. Boring chicken. It's a passionate food. I'm the opposite of boring. But don't force yourself now. This is painful. I think I'm hallucinating. I love it. I love it, though. I love it. Now, that chicken is gonna get a little hotter. Hotter. I'm in physical pain right now. I'm jarred. I don't know what to do now. I don't know what to do. The lady of the evening, she would always bring her suitors by here before the final act. Really? She always, always got it hot, hot, hot. Yeah, I know that. And one night, she just couldn't wait. She went out right there in front of that window, down on the hood of the car. Come on. No way. Really? Hey, that's not gonna happen when we leave here. It's a little late. Yeah, no, yeah. Get going in. Yeah. This is incredible. You know, it's not just like eating something. It's like an experience, you know? It's like you bring someone here for like a memory. It's not just like, hey, I'm hungry. Let's go eat some hot chicken. It's like, this is like going to a movie or something. You know, it's like a full experience. It's entertainment. You remember it, especially the next morning. I told someone today that I was coming here to get the extra hot. They said, go ahead and put the toilet paper in the freezer right now. You're not eating hot chicken because you're starving to death. You're eating it to push the bounds of reality. Sometimes you need to stick your hand in the fire to remind yourself that it's hot, you know? So we're here with Eric Anderson, my buddy from the Catbird seat here in Nashville, Tennessee. Yesterday, for some crazy reason, we decided to take the hot chicken challenge, basically. I've now successfully woken up twice with anxiety because of the hot chicken. Yesterday, because I knew I was going to eat it. Nervous? Today, because I knew I was going to get rid of it. This is kind of a riff on hot chicken when it's a crispy chicken skin. So the setup of the original hot chicken from Prince's is two pieces of squishy Wonder Bread, which a lot of people think that that actually helps cool the burn down. What they don't realize is it's catching all the chilies and grease and death that lies within the hot chicken. Then, obviously, the hot chicken, and then a big stack of dill pickles. In place of the chicken, we're using chicken skins. These are pretty nice. We just want to scrape a little bit of the fat off of them. So at your place, every single guest eats this. Originally, we wanted to have people taste something that was familiar. Yeah, that way you know where you are. You're in Nashville, Tennessee. Yeah, exactly. So we're just going to season that a little bit, press them. Like that. Perfect. And then bake them in the oven to get them nice and crispy. So now, all of a sudden, in the last maybe three, four years, there's all these hot chicken places everywhere, all over the place, and everybody's serving hot chicken. But at the end of the day, it's still kind of the same formula. So basically, your dish is that same sort of formula. Yeah, it's all the flavors you get just kind of condensed into one bite, you know? So we're going to start with the crisp chicken skin, a little bit of sorghum on it, just to add some sweetness, kind of offset the heat. This is a mixture of a little bit of cayenne and some Korean chili flakes. Each Nashville hot chicken place has its own spice blend. And none of them are going to tell you what it is. No, you'll never know. And then this is Wonder Bread that we just pureed. It's one of my favorite things in the world. You know, you grow up eating sandwiches, but it's this flavor and this texture that you can only get from that plastic bag from the grocery store. You can't, you know, like, and that's what this... You can't have a piloni sandwich on anything else. No, I mean, look at that. That's it. So we just put a few dots kind of randomly on there like that. And then dried dillweed with a little bit of citric acid and some salt. And that's the dish, really. It's like the Jetsons version of hot chicken. Awesome. I'm here with one of my best buddies in the whole entire universe, John Currans of Oxford, Mississippi. Originally City Grocery, now Big Bad Breakfast and about 72,000 other restaurants. We're gonna do basically tamales 101. For everybody who's seen corn husks in the grocery store forever and doesn't know why they're there, they're literally for this. You start with just some masa that you cut in butter and lard, basically like you were making a biscuit dough. So tell me about masa. Masa's the Latin equivalent of flour. It's dried corn that's ground to a flour consistency. And just sort of spread it out to maybe about a half an inch thick. And then this is smoked mushrooms, some caramelized shallot. Set that right in the center. And then you roll your dough over to catch the other side. That's gonna be so good. And this is how simple, really, it is. Take the bottom end, fold it over on the seam. We'll smear the tamale dough just over the end of it. And what's cool about a dish like this is they just have such a cool story. And the way that they're linked in with Southern food and agriculture is just fascinating to me. Yeah. You know, the story goes that after slavery was abolished, there was a need for labor when it came to harvesting cotton in the Delta. And so Latin migrant workers came through. Corn was also prolific. And so tamales were a great field food. They preserve well, so they're not gonna spoil if you sit them out under a tree from seven in the morning until a lunch break. And what's cool is it's like every sort of town in the South has that sort of dish. Like in Charleston, it's Hoppin' John. And that was like the dish that was eaten by the field workers, always. And then all of a sudden, someone in the big house tastes it, and it's like, f**k that, it's good. Yeah. And then it finds its way into the cuisine, and then we take credit for it. How's that? Look at you, you're practically a Mississippian now. Well, let's put them in the steamer. So here's the question. We're at Husk, how the hell do you not make tamales? Hey, man, it's a Mississippi thing. I like it, though. But there will now be tamales in the menu at Husk. So these have been going for about 45 minutes. They smell so amazing. Take one of these out. So you just crack them open. And then this is just some whipped cream. And we just fold a little buttermilk in. Some cilantro flour. Awesome. One of the things I love about traveling through the South and living in the South is these little hidden gems everywhere that you just would never think that there would be something incredibly delicious in there. We'd heard about this place called Fishnets, so we had to go check that out. Hey, hon, can I help you? How many fried crabs do we want? Three. Three? Would you like garlic butter on them? Yes. It's good, it's really good. All right, anything else? Do you have a job application? He said he'd be interested in taking a job on the line. Would you be interested? Well, yeah, I can get you an application if you want it. You'd probably show us all up. I'm sure you would. I'd be. All right, let me get this going for you, hon. Thank you. These guys are actually still alive. See the little eggs moving? They're still alive. And is that egg? This is a secret, but I can't tell you about that. They do this thing there that I'd never, ever seen before. They take a live crab, kicking around, and they batter it while it's alive, and then throw it into the fryer. I mean, literally alive. And then they toss it in this fantastic, like, super redneck garlic butter. Time to eat, fellas. Here we go. All right. So what's so cool about this, like, fried crab tradition is it sort of doesn't add up. Like, you're battering this hard shell. What works out about it in the end is just that as you pick apart the crab, the fried bits just inevitably go in your mouth. Look at that. So you crack the crab, reach in, and grab this perfectly cooked piece of crab meat, which now your fingers have all the crusty, delicious batter on the outside, and that butter, and you eat it. Man, that's good. Kind of makes the leg edible. You can just crunch on it. The legs are fantastic, actually. I like to use the claw itself to pick out the meat. Sort of perverse, but. It's crazy. This is my first fried crab experience. What do you think? I love it. I'm super happy about this. The only thing I don't like about them is I can't get enough of them. And that's what's so fun is, like, I've driven by that place 100 times. Now it's in my rotation to bring people who've never been to the South. I guess we're gonna make deviled crabs, which is cool because I've been thinking a lot about this dish lately. You'd never see it on menus anymore in restaurants. And I don't think you're even allowed to serve it in the shell in a restaurant. I remember as a kid just being fascinated by the fact that it was stuffed back into the shell. Kind of evil looking. First, we're gonna get some wet ingredients going. We're gonna start with some butter, some melted butter. Go with some sherry. Sherry and crab, I feel like, are really Charleston, kind of pairing, like very old school. Some lemon juice. And we're gonna beat an egg into that. And then what Matt is gonna do is assemble the drier ingredients. I've got the crab, and usually what we do is just make double sure there's no shell, because that's embarrassing in Charleston. There is more devil in our recipe, which is jalapeno, which is maybe not so traditional for Charleston, but we love it. Scallion, same thing. Little bit of heat. Breadcrumbs. Panko. There's a nice innovation. Oh, the grated egg. The grated egg. It's really a nice, nice touch. You know, it's pure protein. Kind of looks like crab. And it looks, yeah, you're right. And then we marry it with the wet ingredients. And that's, I think, just about the right texture. And then it's just a packing job. Did you eat devil crab, though, growing up in the mountain south? I mean. Only the really bad frozen ones. That tastes like the freezer. You're gonna just sprinkle cayenne pepper. That looks so awesome, man. I can't wait to make these a husk. Oh, and there's usually a finishing touch of breadcrumbs, and let's not forget a few pats of butter. I don't think I've had devil crab probably 10 years. And it's that kind of thing that's kind of like out of fashion. Sort of like, you know, fish and parchment or sun-dried tomatoes. But I feel like it's ready for its like comeback moment. I actually, I carry a notebook and I've always got ideas. And for some reason the other day, devil crab just popped into my head because I've never really seen anybody do it anywhere. So I thought, how can we make like the beautiful sort of refined thing? And now all I gotta do is just follow your recipe. Awesome. So are we gonna eat this or no? Nice. Yeah, delicious. Nice spice. This doesn't taste like the ones that I ate when I was a kid. No freezer burn? No, I love it. Good. I'm here with Lisa Donovan, the pastry chef of Husk Restaurant. We're gonna make one of my favorite things to eat, buttermilk pie. Buttermilk pie. All you're trying to do is get it nice and tight in there. And you just trim your overhang. Nobody loves to trim the overhang, but you just gotta do it sometimes. The next step is to crimp it. We have this tradition of chest pies and transparent pies and shoofly pies and buttermilk pies that you make when there's not an abundance of fruit. Or you're out of preserves. I love them all. Every pie crust needs to go in the refrigerator. So while you're making your filling, you wanna get your pie crust cold. So we'll do our eggs. All the sugar. My favorite thing about sugar pies is it's just a one bowl deal. Yeah, it's easy to make, but if you don't have good buttermilk or you don't have good eggs. That's right. If you don't have a good pie crust, you're wasting your time. So that was flour and a little bit of salt. Oh, butter. And that's it. It's that simple. Bake at 375. How do you know when it's done? Your middle will be set, but still a bit jiggly. And I have lots of references to what kind of jiggle. Right, I was about to ask. What kind of jiggle are we talking about? Are we talking about the jiggle that I saw at Donk's the other day? Yes. So it's all cooled off. Now we can eat some pie. Awesome. I love the top, how it gets crunchy. It's the best part. Oh, look at that. Perfectly set up. Look at that jiggle. Oh. Sir Makes-A-Lot would love this pie. Favorite sugar pie. Awesome. Ever. I'm very, very lucky. I'm surrounded by incredible friends that are incredible chefs throughout the South. All these people tucked away in all these little cities that are cooking Southern food, but doing it their way based on what they've experienced in life. That's what makes eating in the South, cooking in the South, so exciting right now. Each time you sit down at their restaurants and eat a plate of food, you experience their story.