seeing a direct descendant of a slave that was here after, um, the slaves were freed. anthony: ashley greene grew up on mosquito beach on james island in charleston. her mother owns the property, which has been in her family for generations. fact of the matter is in the old uth back when the dishes, flavors and ingredients of southern cooking, which is to say american cooking as opposed to european, chances are that food was grown, gathered, produced and prepared by african slaves. chef b.j. dennis has made it a personal mission to celebrate and protect the culinary traditions his ancestors passed down to him. b.j.: so this is, um, some local blue crab, fresh in season. this is a play on some garlic crabs, but this is shrimp butter instead of garlic butter, and then you have that play of, you know, the french influence into the cuisine right here. anthony: the flavors and textures and food ways of west
standard of food here is so high that when i go around any place i just go, eh. anthony: country ham, bread and butter pickles and, of course, sean being sean, there will be bourbon. sean: i just like to start a meal with pickles and ham. i ll try not to geek out too much, but this is a very special breed of pig that came over here in the 1500s called ossabaw. the spaniards brought it. it has a very particular flavor. this one s aged three years. anthony: it s ridiculously good. that s the best american ham i ve ever had far and away. that is unbelievable. sean: these two things together, these are my two favorite things in the whole entire world. stitzel weller whiskey and old country ham.
anthony: chef mike lata s restaurant fig was one of the first and most important on the charleston scene. determined to source the kind of local products that you used to find everywhere in the low country. as much as i d like to illustrate that solid grounding and traditional ingredients and preparations with my order, i could not resist the soft shell crabs, which are just in season. with a pasta and shaved bottarga, which frankly, i d slit my best friend s throat for. glenn: wow, that looks great. anthony: yeah. glenn: that s beautiful. anthony: it s sweet. when you had your first forkful of proper rice is there an instinct to go out and sort of bludgeon the rest of the world into understanding what you have just come to understand. glenn: i did not run up and down the streets of charleston. it was tough to dislodge people here so i just went straight to san francisco and i gave away tons of product. and guess what? they went crazy. anthony: slow baked black
it was amazing and he got a bad rap. anthony: you re talking about like ronald mcdonald. he had a good idea. no, you re wrong. i m sorry. here s where we part ways, my friend. here s my sauce. after a few bites of waffle, a burger, a hunk of generic t-bone and some hash browns, one feels drawn right to the center of what makes our country great. an america yeah moment that drives me to clamber up on the counter anstt reciting walt whitman, the star-spangled banner, oh say can you see, and you know wha i doubt i d be the first. oh my god. sean: give me a break. anthony: the umami happening here. sean: yes, yeah give me a break. anthony: you know what umami means in japanese, actually? the literally translation of umami? sean: orgasm? anthony: no, umami means in japanese, if you, literally it
anthony: you could be forgiven for underestimating sean brock first time you meet him. i know i did. i saw a scruffy looking dude in a trucker cap, who always seemed to have a bottle of really good bourbon on hand. sean: that s a weller, 1991, 18 years old. this is the end of great whiskey. it didn t come in this bottle. this is my travel bottle because it s plastic, you see, so it don t break when you get rowdy. anthony: it took me a little time to discover the ferocious intellect, the inquiring nature purposeful talent of the man. without a doubt, one of america s most important chefs. a guy who s redefining what not just southern cooking is, was, and can be, but american cooking as a whole. sean: one, two, three!