A seasonal dish from Café
Flora with local produce
COCHON PHOTOS BY CHRIS GRANGER; STEVEN SATTERFIELD PHOTO BY HEIDI GELDHAUSER/OUR LABOR OF LOVE
At Broadfield, A Sea Island Sporting Club and Lodge, Caleb Smith grows and pickles okra.
Caleb Smith makes his grandmother’s squash
casserole, his favorite summer dish.
preparing food in a way that highlights the
natural flavors of the ingredients are all at the
core of slow food. And as more foodies and
chefs have adopted the farm-to-table ethos,
more farmers around Georgia have stepped
up to provide fresh, seasonal ingredients.
“With our environment in south Georgia,
I can only grow plants that are heat-tolerant,
or tropical plants that are dormant when its
cold,” James says of Broadfield’s gardens.
“Bananas taste good, but have traveled at least
1,000 miles to reach us. You are what you eat,
so I eat with the seasons.”
At Broadfield, early spring planting begins
with potatoes and onions, which do well in
the sandy soils of coastal Georgia. By summertime, James progresses with a variety of
traditional Southern food crops such as corn,
squash, okra, eggplant, beans, cucumbers,
melons, peppers and tomatoes. He also grows
small plots of herbs, strawberries, blueberries,
asparagus, flowers and peas.
Asked about favorite dishes during the summer, James immediately sings the praises of
pickled okra: “I like it because the okra pod
is tender and salty. Chef Caleb cans the okra
and makes hot sauce with the peppers that he
serves year-round with his meals.”
Smith, who favors a simple, old-fashioned
approach to food preparation, waxes nostalgic
about squash: “One of my all-time favorites is
my grandmother Gillis’ squash casserole, a classic that really takes me back home. I try to cook
all of my vegetables in the traditional Southern
manner, just like my grandmother used to.”
The Future of Food
Although it’s easy to imagine that foods that
benefit diners’ health and farming economies
will become a permanent fixture on American
menus, anyone who follows the culinary
world knows that it’s prone to fads; it wasn’t
all that long ago that fine dining was being
supplanted by the experimental approach
of molecular gastronomy. So the question
becomes: Is the slow food mentality merely
the latest in a long line of fashionable culinary crazes, or does it truly represent a shift
in the way we think about what we eat?
“I think the trend of eating local will continue to grow in popularity and scope,” James
says. “I envision communities across America
that source their foods from farms 30 to 50
miles away.”
Smith acknowledges that farm-to-table is
indeed trendy at the moment but conveys his
hopes that it’s a trend that will continue to
grow in the future for the sake of the farmers.
“The small American farmer today is
a dying breed,” he laments. “Sustainable
agriculture is what built a large portion of
our nation in its beginnings. I believe it is
very important to support our local farmers
to ensure that the fruits of their labor are
passed on to the next generation. I believe
that the more consumers educate themselves
about food, the more they will support locally
sourced growers. Since eating is a necessity
to life, we should enjoy it; it should taste
good and fresh, and we should know where
it’s coming from.” m
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