Blog
Blog
By Bernie Herman
At the end of the day, most folks want two things – a great meal and a good story to share. A South You Never Ate intends to provide just that by uniting the vision and passion of 12 chefs with Eastern Shore of Virginia growers, aquaculturalists and culinary historians in a collaborative celebration of the foodways of the Eastern Shore of Virginia. The Eastern Shore and the lower Chesapeake Bay stand as one of the great Southern coastal cuisines along with Charleston’s Low Country and New Orleans’s bayou country.
Oyster pie, clam fritters, sweet potato biscuits, field peas and doughboys, bitter greens, Hog Island mutton, drum ribs, spot fried hard, slow cooked fish chowders, fig tamales, cornfield pumpkin hand pies, and many more dishes reflect a cuisine more than 500 years in the making.
Our team of chefs includes Jeremiah Langhorne, whose Washington, D.C., restaurant, The Dabney, received a Michelin Star in its inaugural year; Kip Poole, former Executive Chef at Commune Restaurant who has started his own nonprofit, The Crop Foundation; and Walter Bundy, founder and chef at Shagbark, a Four Diamond restaurant in Richmond. Local chef, Sean Hart of Exmore Diner will also be in the mix.
Raiding the Eastern Shore of Virginia larder, using ingredients that make up those recipes and others that include Hayman sweet potatoes, preserved figs, Seaside oysters and clams and seasonings such as smoked fig leaves, dried wild oyster mushrooms and fennel seed, each chef will create two or three original small plate dishes during Chatham Vineyards’ second iteration of “A South You Never Ate” on the evening of Oct. 28.
Each ticket includes a progressive dinner of at least 20 small plates, oysters on the half shell, an open bar with Eastern Shore beer and Chatham wine and a signature surprise cocktail. Guests will be able to circulate around the Chatham Vineyard “crush pad kitchen” and follow the preparation of the dishes as they come to fruition.
Purchase tickets here.
Limited to 200 guests, the dinner begins at 5 p.m., with a brief reading from Bernie Herman’s forthcoming book, “Collateral Entrees: Culinary Encounters and Stories from the Eastern Shore of Virginia.”
Proceeds from the event support educational programs in the culinary arts offered in the Eastern Shore of Virginia schools, through the Crop Foundation and the Barrier Islands Center. The dinner is an endeavor of the Eastern Shore of Virginia Foodways, a group of sustainable and culturally meaningful economic development on the Eastern Shore. The group’s mission is “One Job for one person so one family doesn’t have to leave.” Our path forward is through the realization of the Eastern Shore of Virginia and the lower Chesapeake as great southern coastal cuisine.
See the full list of participating chefs below
Harper Bradshaw, Harpers Table
Amy Brandt, Amy B Catering
Tim Buell, The Dabney
Walter Bundy, Shagbark
Evan Colibri, Virginia. Pie. Shop
Sean Hart, Exmore Diner and Salt and Sand Family Restaurant
Brian Irminger, Cellar Root Lumbar and Specialty
Jeremiah Langhorne, The Dabney and Petite Cerise
Madeleine Lewson, Petite Cerise DC
Brandon MacConnell, Bar West
Kip Poole The Crop Foundation
Ross Riddle, Hashi Food Truck