(bright music) - [Narrator] From the soil of our family farms to your table, there's something special about Georgia, something you can taste in every bite.

(bright guitar music continues) Fresh flavors, local farms, unforgettable experiences, Georgia has it all.

Support local, taste the difference, and make memories along the way.

Look for the Georgia Grown logo wherever you shop, or visit georgiagrown.com.

(bright music) - [Narrator] Community, learning, working, playing, celebrating.

Doing life is always better together.

At GPB, we aim to provide you with the tools to be able to do life together well.

Our mission to educate, inform, and entertain inspires everything from our wide range of programming to our stimulating radio conversations, to our fun in-person events.

we've got something for everyone.

Visit gpb.org/community to learn more about our upcoming events.

- The fascinating and ever-changing world of agriculture.

(bright guitar music) Let's hit the road here in Georgia, and meet the farmers, producers, makers, and bakers who keep us all fed, and keep us coming back for more.

Straight ahead, at "The Fork in the Road."

(singer vocalizing) (upbeat music) ♪ I came from the mud ♪ ♪ There's dirt on my hands ♪ ♪ Strong like a tree ♪ ♪ There's roots where I stand ♪ - [Narrator] Georgia farmers, artisans, merchants, and producers, we depend on these men and women every day of our lives through the choices we make in the food we consume.

Their strategy and approach is always shifting, but the end game remains the same, results.

(upbeat music continues) (bright music) - The purer the source, the better the food, and Georgia's 100-mile coastline is just that, pure.

Miles and miles of protected maritime forests and natural beauty offer a sanctuary for nesting birds and aquatic life, and many argue that the seafood that comes from Georgia's coast has been and remains unrivaled when it comes to taste.

This episode follows James Beard Award-winning chef, Terry Koval of the Decatur, Georgia Restaurant, The Deer and The Dove, along with the bagel bar known as B-Side, and his latest project, a downtown Decatur wine and amaro bar known as Fawn.

- Welcome to Fawn.

- [David] Fresh and Local is key to Chef Terry's menus across the board, and today, we follow Chef to one of his favorite spots in the Peach State off to the coast.

(singer vocalizing) (upbeat music) Let's begin this episode in the heart of the Golden Isles in Brunswick, where Chef Terry sources his coveted wild Georgia Shrimp.

(bright guitar music) John Wallace has been in the seafood world of Georgia for decades, and here at Anchored, there's a variety of seafood, but shrimp is still king.

- These are some crabbers.

We pack all of our shrimp heads.

(bright guitar music continues) - [David] Depending on the time of year, both Georgia white and Georgia brown shrimp are being harvested, packaged, and shipped out right here in Brunswick.

The wild shrimp business was once an incredibly popular and profitable industry here in Georgia, but those involved have been whittled down to just a few, like John here, and his son, Aaron, who love this job and believe in the quality and freshness of what they're selling.

- My wife and I, we actually met at a crab plant.

I was crabbing when I got outta high school, and and she was the secretary there, and she's run my books ever since.

- [David] She's running the books?

She was the one with all the diamond rings?

(both laughing) What is special about shrimping to you?

- [John] It's been a tough life, but I tell everybody that in the shrimp industry, "You count your success by not going bankrupt," so I've never had anything repossessed, So, (laughs) I've figured I've been a success in the shrimp industry.

Me and my father built my boat, and I've been in it since '76, and I've seen the good and the bad.

Back in the early 2000s, I became president of Georgia Shrimp Association.

The imports were just dominating the market in the early 2000s, and we just saw that we had to do something to differentiate our product from theirs.

They're probably 95% of what the United States consumes, is farm-raised imports.

We do command a much higher price than what they can get imports for, and we appreciate the customer base that we have, and the customer base that is loyal to us.

You know, if you want imports and you want cheap, fine.

I would say probably 75% of the people still assume that all shrimp they eat is coming from the ocean, and like I said, 95% is coming from farms.

(upbeat music) - [David] Chef Terry got a chance to tour the Anchored shrimp facility with his son, Jackson, and learn how this process, how the processing all works, and of course, find out how this shrimp tastes that's coming fresh off the McIntosh County boat docks.

- [Terry] Man, look how pretty those are.

- [Aaron] What do you think about that?

- [Terry] These are incredible.

I mean, screaming freshness.

- Our main size, we mainly get in on the coast is a 26/30.

Shoot, that's been about 60% of our inventory is probably 26s, but the 16/20 is about the biggest size we get here in the state.

- And most people don't know, 'cause they'll always ask it.

The 21/25 means there's 21 to 25 to the pound.

Same thing 26/30, 26 to 30 to the pound, right?

Whatever the number is is that many shrimp per pound.

This is a mainstay size that we do have, and this is what the restaurants typically want, is a 21 or a 26.

- Yeah.

(upbeat music continues) - Your smaller sizes, we're gonna start here, 'cause the barrels are going to get real skinny here, and they'll widen out as it gets further on, so the fatter a shrimp is, it'll fall through.

(upbeat music continues) - Wow, it's so beautiful.

- You got the 26/30s, and these two are the 21s, and then we got our biggest of the big, is our sixteens.

That's kind of the big boys - Look how beautiful the shrimp are.

- There.

And this is what Chef Dave at Halyards, he gets a lot of this size.

- [Terry] What's this guy doing?

- He's peeling the vein.

This is one of our Gregor Jonsson peeling machines we have here, and yeah, she feeds them in single file, peeling 26/30 tails.

- [Terry] And then they're being dropped into here?

- [Aaron] Yeah, they drop into there.

Let me show you.

Sometimes they do don't completely take the shell off.

That's what Alfonso's doing right there.

He is making sure everything is- - [Terry] How many pounds per hour?

- [Aaron] Probably about 150.

150, 200, depending on the size.

- I can do about half of what she can do.

- I'm sure, right?

(everyone laughing) (bright guitar music) As he was saying, you know, there's very little of the vein in there.

Some folks, when when we do shrimp cocktail, or we do the boil at home, we'll throw 'em in with the shells.

- Okay.

- And then it's kinda like a peel-and-eat situation.

Some folks, like at the restaurant, they don't want to peel and eat, they want it nice and clean.

So we'll kind of clean 'em and peel 'em off like this, and keep the tail on so then they can see the beautiful tail.

I mean, look at the colors of that.

I mean, it's really pretty, right?

How many years have you been here, again?

- I've been here for what, 12?

- Yeah, 2012.

We bought it when it was Poteet Seafood Company.

- Got it.

- He worked with us in the Wild Georgia Shrimp program, and he said, "Look, if you want it, I'll work you out a deal on it."

(Aaron and Terry chuckling) So, and I was just about too old to say, "No, I'm too old for that."

(Aaron chuckling) I goes, "Gimme a year to see if he wants to do it."

- Yeah.

- "And if he wanted to do it, we'll work something out," and he decided (Terry laughing) he liked it, so.

- It's hard work, definitely, but I've always grown up with this industry.

You have to have something like this to keep it going year-round, keep steady supply of shrimp, make sure the restaurants have it year-round, because you don't have it year-round, it's kind of they go to another source.

- If you lose them, it's very hard to get them back.

- Yeah.

- Yeah, we said, "Okay, we gotta get something together to where you freeze enough shrimp."

May not be able to satisfy everybody, but satisfy your loyal customers.

Once they're gonna stick with you, you take care of those.

Make sure they make it through the winter.

We got a loyal customer base that works with us.

They work with us on price.

We do command a better price than the imports.

- [Terry] As you should.

- Yeah, we take care of the people that take care of us.

(both chuckling) (bright guitar music continues) - [Terry] All right, so these shrimp?

- [John] We will get 'em in here today.

We're going grade 'em, we'll freeze them tomorrow.

We may sell a few of them fresh, but 90% of our stuff gets frozen.

These were done with a nitrogen tunnel, basically, like they do with strawberries, blueberries.

- Got it, yeah.

- That kind of equipment.

(bright guitar music continues) - Shrimp is gonna go through here, through the liquid nitrogen, so we're gonna freeze them instantly, and then it comes down through here, and it's gonna go underneath the cold water to prevent it from getting freezer burn.

Freezer burn is when it literally burns the flesh of the meat, so this prevents it from happening.

(intense music) - After they get through the sorting, we'll dump 'em in these ice baths, and we'll typically block freeze 'em.

This is our block freezing.

A lot of the restaurants prefer the block frozen, because you don't have a lot of the breakage as the IQF would.

From 10 all the way up to about 5.10 there, and then we'll add a cup of water to it.

(intense music continues) This freezes it in a brick of ice.

So when it's in water, you really don't have to worry about the freezer burning and everything, 'cause when the air's not hitting it, this stuff can last, like, two years.

- [Terry] No solution?

- No solution, no, - That's it?

- None at all.

- Yeah, that's great.

- This is just straight up purified water right there.

- I mean, that's a huge difference, you know?

And typically, when you're getting shrimp from China or wherever, it has that solution in it.

- Yeah.

- A lot of 'em will put, even some of the Gulf companies I've seen, they'll put sodium tripoly in the water.

- Yeah, yeah, yeah.

- And that retains the water.

- So that's really important.

I struggle with that sometimes when I'm buying scallops.

I don't want to buy those scallops with the solution.

- And that's why they're almost, like, half the price, 'cause that water is kind of doing a lot of the weight there.

Kind of wrap it up.

- All done by hand?

(box thudding) - [Aaron] All done by hand.

(bright guitar music) - [David] Getting some ideas, there?

- Man, I just want eat them raw.

(laughs) I mean, the quality, look at how white, I mean, fresh.

- [John] You don't see there's hardly any... You don't see hardly any sand vein in them this time of year.

- Yeah, see that?

Beautiful, absolutely beautiful.

(bright guitar music continues) - May I?

- [David] Trust in a product, isn't it?

- [Terry] Absolutely, I mean, look how fresh.

- The flavor is basically the same as when they're cooked, it's a little more... - Really, you know, buttery.

- Yeah.

- I'd say buttery, like really buttery, and very, very fresh.

(bright guitar music continues) Straight chew it, yeah.

Isn't that sweet, sweet and buttery?

Yeah, it's delicious, right?

- [John] If you can grab that tail and pinch it like that, and leave that tail piece, (clicks tongue) that's a sign of freshness.

- [Terry] Yeah.

(laughs) It's got buttery and rich, (John chuckling) and just, like, clean and fresh.

- That's the new way I'm doing it.

- Yeah.

(John chuckling) - [David] Oh my goodness.

- First time I ever had raw shrimp was a Thai restaurant, and I had no idea that you could eat raw shrimp, you know?

And a lot of folks don't know that they can raw shrimp, you know?

They think that, (moans) but yeah, absolutely, you can eat raw shrimp.

(Terry laughing) - That's why I had y'all do it first.

- Yeah.

(both laughing) - Yeah, if we fell out, you knew about that, yeah.

(both laughing) - [Terry] One of the highlights, for sure, was eating the raw shrimp with your dad.

- Yeah?

- You know, and my son, you can't beat it, you know?

And you can just eat a raw shrimp, you know, like- - I know I might sound biased, but we do have some of the best-tasting shrimp, like, South Carolina, like here, Georgia, Fernandina, you can even ask the Gulf guys, they prefer our shrimp.

We have a more subtle, some would say, sweeter shrimp.

- [Terry] It's important, you know, for me as a chef, you know, one of the things that I really pride myself on is, you know, where am I putting my dollars?

Where am I putting my money?

If I can help support you, bringing in your shrimps, that brings it to my back door.

- Yeah.

- That we can give to our customers, and then also represent it on our menus and talk about it, you're educating the consumer.

Hopefully that could help bring more attention to it, more education to it.

- Yeah, education's the key.

Like, you'll ask any of the tourists that come in the town, and Savannah or Jekyll here.

Anywhere they eat, they just assume all of the seafood's local.

Maybe nine out of 10 restaurants still serve imports.

We're still getting the same prices for shrimp as we were in the '60s.

Like, I can pull out old invoices from sea gardens and stuff, we're still doing dock landings the same as we were in the '60s.

- [Terry] Wow, that's crazy.

It's unfortunate, because we need to know, one, where our food comes from, two, what's in our food.

- Yes.

- You know, and how it's being processed, you know?

I just really respect everything that I saw today, and I'm super thankful that y'all invited us down to come hang out, and- - Oh, we love having you here.

(Aaron laughing) - We loved having- - Showing how we do things.

(Terry chuckling) (bright music) - [David] So loaded up with shrimp, it was time to explore a barrier island of Georgia that not everyone gets to see up close.

Access is limited.

Ossabaw Island holds a special place in Chef Terry's heart.

He's been coming here and cooking for groups on this island for years, and it was important for him to experience the wild of Ossabaw, and the history of Ossabaw with his son, Jackson, for the first time.

(bright music continues) - I'd like to welcome Chef Terry and Jackson here to Ossabaw Island, and we are here on the main road, which is one of the longest continuously used roads in North America.

It shows up on a 1760 map.

It started as a, quote, "Indian path" that the Indigenous people would've taken to get to one point of the island to the other, and then it's now turned into the main drag here on Ossabaw.

(bright music continues) - [David] Elizabeth DuBose has led the Ossabaw Island Foundation since 1998, helping preserve the history of this unique island, from Native American artifacts to the restoration of the colonial era through present-day structures and items of historical significance.

Both Elizabeth and Island Facilities Manager, Mark Frissell, were kind enough to join us on the exploration of the island.

(bright music continues) - One of the things that we like to show some of our new visitors, like you, Jackson, to Ossabaw is this tree right here, and you might notice it's got an unusual stance.

Mrs. West came here when she was roughly about your age, about 11 years old, and she lived here till she was 103, basically.

When she came when she was 11, she didn't like this idea of a barrier island.

She really wanted to be in Savannah where her friends were.

So the story goes, she came to Ossabaw, she spit on the island, she swore she never would love it, and she came walking down this road, and came upon this tree, and she kind of gave it a look, and she feels like it's got two arms reaching out and a head tilted back.

And so the story goes that she made peace with the island, and was welcomed by this tree.

I asked Mrs. West about this welcoming tree, and she told me that, "Where did I get that story from?"

And that's a story that had been passed along.

She says, "It's the ghost tree."

She said when she was your age, she and her brother would dare each other to come down the main road at night, (Terry laughing) and see who would get close enough to the ghost tree.

So I'll leave it up to you to decide whether it's a welcoming tree or a ghost tree.

- What do you see, Jack?

(adventurous music) - Welcoming.

- There you go.

- I feel welcome.

- Good, I'm glad you feel welcomed on Ossabaw.

(Terry laughing) (bright guitar music) So can you believe the change that's happened since you were here last spring?

This is- - All that was water when we were here last time.

- So the couple storms we've recently had has this brought the sand in and filled it in.

It's always dynamic here.

It's always different every time you visit.

(bright guitar music continues) - [Terry] No one's ever on this beach.

You can walk for miles and find little treasures, and sand dollars, and horseshoes.

- Kind of feels like your personal beach, doesn't it?

- For sure.

(bright guitar music continues) - We're at the North End Smokehouse.

This is built in the 1920s.

It's a tabby-constructed building.

It's been altered over the years for different reasons.

Tabby, the origin is from a Spanish word that means a rammed earth.

In order to build tabby, you only need oyster shell, water, and sand.

The binder is lime, which they get from burning some of the oyster shell.

It gives off heat that it took on in the fire, actually becomes a quicklime, and you mix it all together, and then they put it in a form, and this is an example of one of the forms.

Each one of these forms is referred to as a lift.

So you would fill this, and this form would go all the way around the building.

Then when the tabby sets, pull these wedges out of these pins, knock the pin out all the way around, slip the form up, put the pin back in, put the wedge back in to hold it tight against what you did before, and do it again, and that's where you get the cadence of these pores.

These have been filled in, but there's one here, here, there's a hole here, here, here.

That's from those pins.

(bright music) - [Terry] Hey, Mark, so tell us a little bit about these?

- Okay, so these are broken pottery, basically, from the Native American, discarded into a midden site, which is just basically a trash heap.

Mostly, what you find in these midden sites is oyster shells.

Native Americans ate a lot of oysters.

The shells are discarded in mounds all over the place, right?

And you'll find pottery sherds and shells in these mounds.

We also find tools.

Since we didn't have rock, we don't have rock here, in order to make a tool, they usually would make it out of a shell.

They would use, like, this is a center portion of one to use as an awl.

They would knock two holes in the shell, put a stick through it, and lash the stick to it, and use that to hoe or to dig.

- Right.

- So you find these tools, pottery sherds in these midden sites.

You can see the designs on these.

There are a handful of these on the island.

This is one of the larger ones.

This location on the island, the middle of the island, it's believed that about 3,000 Native Americans lived here at one time.

- So if you think about it, these oyster shells are thousands of years old.

- Thousands.

- [Mark] Mm-hmm.

(bright music) - [David] Now, when you are one of the few humans on a relatively large barrier island, it becomes obvious that nature and the fauna here run the roost.

(bright music continues) The small herd of wild donkeys here on Ossabaw are about as friendly as a pack of golden doodles, and after making friends with Jackson, they followed us around for much of our exploration.

- There's not a nail in this building, it's all timber framed.

- [Terry] Oh wow.

- [David] Now, as we ventured upon one story-filled destination after another, we eventually stopped our truck and traveled by foot, and came upon this thin stretch of road to catch about 50 or maybe 75 alligators soak in the rays of the South Georgia sun.

And it was during this journey that Chef Terry got to harvest a few potential menu items that grow wild here on Ossabaw.

(bright guitar music) - So this is known as the Indian toothache tree.

It's actually prickly ash, and it has sort of a strange sort of spearminty smell, but if you put it in your mouth and chew on it, and then put it on your tongue or on your gum, just put the whole leaf in.

Chew it, it's weird-tasting, and then just chew it up a little bit and put it on your tongue or your gum somewhere, and just leave it there.

It'll deaden that area.

That's why they call it the toothache tree.

(bright guitar music continues) - [Terry] Tell us about this yaupon here.

- Yaupon holly, the females have the red berries on 'em like a holly that you would expect.

This plant is the only plant native to North America that has caffeine.

It has caffeine and theobromine, which is the stimulant found in dark chocolate.

Just roast the leaves and make a tea.

- A couple times we had it with Old John Wayne.

He made a cocktail with it, right?

- Right, right.

- Yeah.

- He made an oleo, yaupon tea oleo, and put it in a drink.

It was- - That was pretty incredible.

- It was pretty cool.

(chuckles) - A lot of stimulants going on - A lot of- - In that drink.

- I've made tea out of it, I've roasted it and made tea, and that's all I've ever tried to do with it, because that's the extent of my... - Try it out, and use it in stocks or whatever, using, you know, somewhat in cooking, and cocktails, and other fun things, but yeah, it's pretty cool - Interesting.

- That this is out here on the island.

- [Mark] Ossabaw actually means land of the yaupon holly in the Muskogean Indian language, so it's everywhere on the island.

As we go today, we'll see it all over.

- [David] Tell me what we got here?

- [Terry] A little sea beans action right here.

You got 'em all growing all over here.

(bright guitar music continues) We'll do green ones.

- Nice.

- Uh-huh.

- [David] You gonna eat one?

- Yeah, yeah.

Mm, Jack, you gotta try one of these.

(bright guitar music continues) - [Elizabeth] What do you like to use them for?

- They're really salty.

- Really salty?

They're good on crudo, like raw fish, you know?

Little salads, just a little pop of salt, a little.

Oh, they're fantastic.

(bright guitar music continues) - Red bay.

Bay leaf, just like you find in the grocery store.

- Crush that up and smell it.

- [Mark] Bigger.

(both chuckling) (bright guitar music continues) - Smells really good.

- Yeah?

- Yeah.

- Yeah.

- I don't know that I've (sniffs) smelled a lot of bay fresh.

- Yeah.

- You know, that's not dried?

- So we're gonna throw some of these in the boil tonight, for sure.

We're gonna take some back, maybe?

Yeah?

- Yeah, take some back.

- A few leaves, look at that.

We'll just dry it out and throw 'em in the boil, get that nice red bay flavor.

(bright music) Chicken in the woods mushroom right here.

Oh yeah, look at that.

- [David] Edible?

You gotta know what you're talking about with mushrooms, right?

- [Terry] Yeah.

(bright music continues) - [David] After our full-day island exploration, including a chance to walk barefoot on the sandy shores with not a human being in sight for miles, it was back to the foundation office where Chef Kerry and Jackson had gathered his cornucopia of fresh Georgia seafood and a few other ingredients to treat us to a true low country feast.

- Right, so we got our boil ready to go.

We're gonna throw this corn in first.

(bright music continues) All right, grab those stone crabs.

So we got these Georgia stone crabs from Anchored when we're over, watching them do the shrimp processing.

They have these in the shop, so we decided to grab them.

We knew we were gonna do a boil, so you can go ahead and put those in.

(bright music continues) So then we got our smoked sausage from Market in Darien.

Yeah, go.

(sausage plopping) There you go.

Get it in there.

Let that simmer for about a minute, and then we're gonna put in the sweet Georgia shrimp that we got over an Anchored, incredible.

Super thankful for them for getting us these shrimps.

Put it all in there.

(water bubbling) Turn that up to a boil.

(lid clinking) It's a little hot.

(bright music continues) Ooh-wee, look at that.

Beautimous.

Look at that sweet Georgia shrimp.

All right, Jack, you ready?

You how to do these?

- [Jackson] Yeah.

(spoon thumping) - Yep.

(bright music continues) (shell snapping) All right.

Look at that beautiful meat.

Look at that.

Some of this pink shrimp from Anchored.

Oh, look at that beautiful pink shrimp.

What do you think, Jack, good?

- Mm-hmm.

- Mm, fresh Georgia shrimp, fresh Georgia crab, we got some Georgia sausage here.

Look at this, we even got that bay leaf that we got on the island during our trip today, on the way to the beach.

See that?

So it's that other distinctive flavor that's in here.

This is hog heaven, right?

(bright music) (Terry laughing) - [David] From the shrimp docks of McIntosh County where the Wallaces gather their coveted wild Georgia shrimp to the island of Ossabaw, where Chef explored and experienced this special destination with his son, ending with a low country boil featuring the best shrimp in the world, a special experience at a cherished coastal Georgia destination.

I'm David Zelski, see you at the next "Fork in the Road."

(bright music continues) "A Fork in the Road" was brought to you by.

(bright music) - [Narrator] Community, learning, working, playing, celebrating, doing life is always better together.

At GPB, we aim to provide you with the tools to be able to do life together well.

Our mission to educate, inform, and entertain inspires everything from our wide range of programming to our stimulating radio conversations, to our fun, in-person events.

We've got something for everyone.

Visit gpb.org/community to learn more about our upcoming events.

(bright music) - [Narrator] From the soil of our family farms to your table, there's something special about Georgia, something you can taste in every bite.

(bright music continues) Fresh flavors, local farms, unforgettable experiences, Georgia has it all.

Support local, taste the difference, and make memories along the way.

Look for the Georgia Grown logo wherever you shop, or visit georgiagrown.com.