The term “Southern food” is a “magnetizing” one, notes Matt Lee. “People definitely take a position” on Southern fare, he says. “It makes people feel like insiders if they have a connection to the South and they love Southern food. And if they don’t, they’re either drawn to it or repulsed by it—but either way, they have an opinion.”
For Matt and his brother Ted, this means that—no matter how far they roam from Dixie—book signings and food events for their recently published tome, The Lee Bros. Southern Cookbook: Stories and Recipes for Southerners and Would-Be Southerners (W.W. Norton & Co., 2006) inevitably draw a crowd.
They comment on their popularity with palpable surprise, despite the fact they’ve not only managed a successful Southern-foods-supply business (more on that in a minute), but also a shared travel-writing career. Their food reviews—filed from up and down the Eastern seaboard and spots farther afield (recent articles have featured a four-day tour of L.A.‘s Chinese eateries, mussel soup in Quebec and a culinary tour of Addis Ababa)—appear in The New York Times and Travel + Leisure. And they owe it all to … boiled peanuts.
Taking the kitsch out of kitchen
No, really. Raised in Charleston, S.C., the brothers moved north for college and wound up sharing a cramped apartment in New York City. In 1994, homesick and tired of the winters, they ventured out in search of raw peanuts with which to make the slimy, salty delicacy they missed. From that adventure came a brainstorm: Boiled peanuts would be the next hip bar snack—a concept that New Yorkers failed to grasp. But when other Southerners marooned north of the Mason-Dixon line got word of the peanut supply, a business was born: The Lee Bros. Boiled Peanut Catalogue.
The supply company, which operates from Charleston, where the Lees now live when not on the road, offers staples that are hard to find in the rest of the country: pickled watermelon rind, fig preserves, RC Cola, and, of course, boiled peanuts.
“When filtered through the amplifying affects of TV and popular media, people can easily get the impression that Southern culture is all about the kitsch—that that’s where the fun lies,” Matt says. “The kitsch has been the most salable thing about Southern food and Southern culture of late. It’s the thing that pops on the Food Network. It’s colorful. It’s in our book, but I think in the correct proportion to what you might actually find in the South. One of the chief messages we’ve tried to hammer home is just the full diversity of Southern culture.”
Along those lines, the Lee brothers take liberties with traditional Southern delicacies such as pecan pie and ambrosia salad.
The latter—a staple at family dinners—has long included a bizarre-to-the-uninitiated combination of canned mandarin-orange sections, mayonnaise and mini marshmallows. “A salad created for someone who’d rather eat dessert first,” the Lees suggest on their Web site (www.mattleeandtedlee.com). Their updated version is a not-so-sweet salad in which fresh grapefruit replaces canned citrus and creamy avocado takes the place of cavity-inducing marshmallow.
“We were deliberately trying to maintain the texture,” Matt explains.
The nitty-gritty
But why mess with tradition? “Flavor is the chief reason,” Matt notes—the same reason given for swapping the corn syrup in pecan pie for old-school Southern staple sorghum. Ted adds: “I find that Southern cooking has a reputation for being hidebound and very much focused on leaving things the way they are, but looking at old cookbooks, I think that a spirit of innovation, resourcefulness and making do with what you’ve got has been around in Southern cuisine.”
The cookbook goes on to confirm, “These subtle (and not-so-subtle) tweaks of the classics—keeping the idea of the dish alive but introducing a new layer of meaning, and breaking a rule or two in the process—are our bread and butter. It’s what we’ve learned from hanging around talented home cooks and chefs, and it’s the result of a simple quest for novelty [made] once you’re comfortable with the basics of cooking.”
Ambrosia aside, don’t expect the Lees to veer too far from traditional dishes. They make a mean mint julep (not to mention corncob wine—the subject of what Matt laughing refers to as their “one and only article” for Gourmet Magazine). They offer up no fewer than 10 recipes for grits (plus a chocolate-grits ice cream, which will no doubt leave some staunch traditionalists shaking their heads), and enhance staples like Brunswick stew and crab cakes with wine-pairing suggestions.
What the brothers have found in more than a decade since their humble catalogue introduced them (and Southern-pantry essentials) to a welcoming public of ex-pat and wanna-be Southerners, is that food is a unifying factor. Whether tracing the roots of their beloved peanut back to Peru, discovering that Hawaiian pork shoulder wrapped in ti leaves works just as well when cooked in collard greens, or reinventing hummus with butter beans, the Lees keep finding what great chefs—and grandmothers—have long known: People gravitate to good food.
“Asheville’s a great food town in the same way that Charleston is a great food town, which is that you’re surrounded by people who are growing or harvesting great food,” says Ted. “So, instead of just having a cookbook about, say, great pasta meals in minutes, wherever we are—whether we’re in Minneapolis or San Francisco—we can tap into expatriate Southerners.
“We find there are a lot of Southerners who’ve moved on,” he adds, “and we tend to find them on tour.”
The Lee Brothers stop off in Asheville on Wednesday, April 11, for three events:
4 to 6 p.m.: A dips-tasting and book-signing at Earth Fare South (1856 Hendersonville Road, Asheville, 210-0100.
7:30 p.m.: A dips-tasting, reading, Q&A and signing at Malaprop’s Bookstore (55 Haywood St., Asheville, 254-6734).
5 to 9 p.m.: A Lee Bros. cookbook night with a special menu or a la carte dinner at the Early Girl Eatery (8 Wall St., Asheville, 259-9292.
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