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>> ANTHONY BOURDAIN: This episode of Mind of a Chef is all about Sean Brock's Appalachian roots.

Sean's mom shows us how to make chicken and dumplings.

>> I got some really good memories of learning to do chicken and dumplings because my mom started with the chicken, chopping its head off.

>> BROCK: We can get a live chicken in here.

>> Oh, that's okay!

>> BOURDAIN: And together they make an Appalachian dinner.

>> BROCK: I can't believe we're giving away all the secrets.

>> I know!

>> BOURDAIN: Chef Joseph Lenn makes fried okra and country ham.

>> The way I'm going to make it is the way my mamma made it, whose grandmother taught her.

>> BOURDAIN: And Sean talks seeds with master gardener John Kuykendall.

>> Uniformity is the plague of sameness.

>> BOURDAIN: Enter the mind of a chef.

♪ ♪ >> BROCK: I grew up in the coal fields of Virginia.

And it's an extremely rural way of life there.

Still is to this very day.

And if you're eating something, you either caught it, shot it, or grew it.

>> ♪ Feels so natural, to be moving ♪ ♪ Get away from the old thing, get into the new.

♪ >> BROCK: My mother tells everyone that she never had to buy a pacifier because I was always chewing on rhubarb.

So as a kid, all of my chores and activities were in my grandmother's garden, which was enormous.

My earliest memory of having a sort of moment in the garden was digging potatoes.

I remember as a kid digging through the dirt and finding potatoes.

It was literally like digging for gold.

I didn't realize that what I was doing was going to shape me into the person I am today.

>> ♪ Who's got a new ground, a new soul within me ♪ ♪ A lot of things I could share with you ♪ ♪ if you give me the chance ♪ ♪ Give me the chance.

♪ >> BROCK: So we're here with my mom in McCrady's kitchen, which is kind of cool.

We're going to cook a dish that is my favorite dish of all time.

If I had to pick one dish that made me the happiest, that I loved to eat the most, it's her chicken and dumplings.

You can see, it's an extremely complicated dish.

There are lots of components.

One, two, three, four.

Four components.

I've been trying to make it for the last 16 years the way she makes it and I can't do it.

I gave up.

I actually gave up.

I'm not even going to try anymore, because I just can't do it.

Who taught you how to make chicken and dumplings?

>> My mom.

Your gran.

I got some really good memories of learning to do chicken and dumplings because she started with the chicken, chopping its head off.

>> BROCK: We can get a live chicken in here.

>> Oh, that's okay.

I can probably describe it well enough.

>> BROCK: So what, we leave these on?

>> No!

>> BROCK: No?

>> No!

>> BROCK: Are you sure?

>> Yes!

>> BROCK: There's a lot of delicious flavor in there.

You want to do the honors?

>> Sure.

>> BROCK: I've always cooked with my mom.

And when I was a kid, you know, I was the student.

And I'm still the student, but I was just fascinated with watching her cook.

>> BROCK: Now how long will that take?

(chuckles) >> Till I feel it and it falls off the bone.

>> BROCK: You can't give me a time?

>> About an hour.

>> BROCK: Okay.

Then I went to culinary school, and I learned discipline and technique and foundation, and then she hated cooking with me.

>> BROCK: How do you know if it's done?

>> You can tell if it's starting to fall off the bone.

And this is way ready.

>> BROCK: She would say, "I'm never going to cook with you again.

"You're no fun.

"You're worried about how clean the countertop is.

"We're supposed to be having fun.

"You're, like, you're not even smiling.

You know, what the hell's wrong with you?"

>> When I was doing chicken and dumplings and Sean was growing up, he was always at my elbow or never far away.

He'd be standing with his nose to the edge of the... >> BROCK: I'm still the same way.

>> Yeah.

>> BROCK: The first time I heard her say that I thought, "Wow, I thought you'd be proud of me "cutting this carrot perfectly "and keeping my station perfectly clean and my towel folded nice and tight over here."

But cooking's not about that for her.

>> BROCK: What's your favorite part of the chicken?

>> The dark meat in the thigh.

And yours?

>> BROCK: Neck meat.

>> That's what I thought.

>> BROCK: Cause that's the darkest!

>> Ugh.

>> BROCK: Why is the neck meat gross?

Cause you've wrung chicken necks before?

>> Yeah!

I know how it feels turning in your hand.

>> BROCK: See look at that neck meat.

>> Yum.

Bleh!

>> BROCK: Cooking with her now is we cook the dishes that I grew up cooking because I need to master them.

Every chance we get, we cook just good old-fashioned recipes.

And make a mess.

So now the part that has intimidated me my whole life and scared me to death and still haunts me.

Sometimes I can't sleep at night because I can't do this.

But thank God you can.

Maybe you'll do it slow enough this time that I... >> Don't blink.

Don't blink.

Okay, these basic ingredients.

Flour.

>> BROCK: Self-rising flour.

>> Yes.

>> BROCK: Which you failed to tell me until today.

>> Sorry.

Okay, and you just...

I sorta eyeball it.

>> BROCK: So you're looking at the amount of liquid you have, which changes every time you cook the chicken.

>> Exactly.

>> BROCK: And that determines how much flour you add.

>> How many dumplings are going to fit in that pot.

Okay, buttermilk.

>> BROCK: One of the things that drives me nuts about my mom but I also love about my mom is that she never measures anything and refuses to measure anything.

I've actually asked politely many many times, and it just doesn't work that way.

>> So we're going to go with this today.

>> BROCK: See, that to me looks super wet.

Which is why I don't know how to make chicken and dumplings.

>> You see how this is boiling nicely?

You look for the biggest boil point in your kiln.

>> BROCK: The biggest bubble?

>> Yep.

>> BROCK: So you're like finding the boiling points, and that's where you're dropping the dumplings.

>> Yes.

>> BROCK: Okay, so we add the chicken?

>> Yes.

>> BROCK: So that's the tricky part.

>> That's the tricky part.

>> BROCK: I'll just gently kind of move them.

>> And you just sort of want to sink them in under there.

>> BROCK: How do you know that these dumplings are done?

>> Well you look to see how they've formed.

>> BROCK: Uh-huh, you can feel it.

>> Separate dumplings.

Stiffness, but you still want a little bounce to them.

>> BROCK: A little spring?

>> Yep.

>> BROCK: Let that warm.

>> Looks like it's ready!

>> Let me smell.

Mm... We're sniffers, aren't we?

>> BROCK: Now it's time to serve it.

What do we gotta keep in mind?

>> You gotta get down to the chicken.

>> BROCK: Uh-huh.

>> And pick out a dumpling... >> BROCK: Oh, Lord.

Mmm!

>> Some people like more gravy.

>> BROCK: What about you?

>> I'm a gravy and dumpling.

Leave the chicken.

>> BROCK: You don't even care about the chicken!

I'm with you.

>> That's good.

>> BROCK: Oh, wow.

I think in order to move forward, which I think hopefully is everyone's goal as a chef or as a farmer, we gotta understand the past.

I think Blackberry Farm is a great example of embracing where you're from.

I mean, this place has done so much for Appalachian cooking and for Southern food in general.

You know, you think about going to a market in 1915, just seeing the varieties out on the table, and then going to the grocery store today and seeing one variety.

What's wrong with people?

>> KUYKENDALL: It'd be like, for an artist, squeezing out three little colors on the palate and that's all you had to work with.

>> BROCK: Yeah, it's true.

>> KUYKENDALL: I don't know how they made it out here.

>> BROCK: They didn't.

>> KUYKENDALL: Styrofoam tomatoes.

>> BROCK: Yeah, they didn't.

>> KUYKENDALL: And green beans that have no taste to them.

>> BROCK: Well, that's what happened.

And that's when people's opinion of Southern food changed.

John is the Obi-Wan Kenobi of seed saving.

He's there to make sure that people like me catch the bug and continue to pass it on.

Because there are very, very, very few people that I know who are insane enough to do this sort of thing and to dedicate their lives to it.

>> KUYKENDALL: Mine really began, I mean, in earnest, from this seed book.

That was 1959.

>> BROCK: These illustrations are beautiful.

>> KUYKENDALL: It's incredible, isn't it?

And the first thing I thought of was, where in the world can you get these things?

>> BROCK: I know what I'm doing with my right arm now.

I'll keep it just like that too.

Same colors.

>> KUYKENDALL: But two things: a love of farming and growing things and looking at unique varieties.

>> BROCK: Diversity.

>> KUYKENDALL: It is.

Uniformity is the plague of sameness.

>> BROCK: I love that.

>> KUYKENDALL: That probably holds true in cooking too.

>> BROCK: It sure does.

>> BROCK: So we're going to cook a very typical sort of Appalachian, hillbilly meal.

A meal that I grew up eating a lot as a kid.

Cornbread biscuits, lots of preserves and pickles and fresh vegetables and soured vegetables.

My mom's here to show some of the things that I haven't quite mastered.

That she's the master at.

And this one's centered around polk salad or pokeweed.

So this is a wild herb that grows all over the mountains, and the side of roads.

It's such a unique thing, I've never had anything like it, but it's an herb.

>> Exactly.

And the berries are poisonous so don't... don't walk by and take a pinch of this and eat it raw.

>> BROCK: And don't eat it raw.

>> Exactly.

>> BROCK: You do a technique that I've only really seen you cook.

>> It's this labor-intensive process.

>> BROCK: So, buttermilk, flour, eggs.

>> Eggs, and cornmeal.

>> BROCK: I remember as a kid, I'd be so embarrassed, because we'd be coming home from the little league game, and we'd be driving down the four-lane highway, and she would see a patch of this growing and we'd all have to get out and pick it from the side of the road.

And all my other friends would be driving by, watching us picking food off the side of the road!

>> KUYKENDALL: I think if I could only show you one thing in this entire garden, it would be the one that caught my interest the most back in 1959 when I found that catalogue, and that was the Tennessee sweet potato pumpkin.

It's a beautiful looking pumpkin.

>> BROCK: It grows like, tall, right?

>> KUYKENDALL: Yeah, about that tall.

And they're extremely sweet.

They have a wonderful flavor for pies and things.

>> BROCK: Being in that garden and seeing those old varieties, he uses a lot of the same techniques that my grandmother used with trellising beans.

And just seeing that just instantly transported me back to my childhood.

A lot of people think Southern food is all about big bowls of fried chicken or all these things, but the reality is, I mean, we mostly eat vegetables.

>> Vegetables.

>> BROCK: Or dried things, preserved things.

So you've got all these things that you put up.

These are what we call mixed pickle.

And so what do we have in here?

Cabbage, peppers, carrots... >> Corn, green beans.

>> BROCK: Corn, and green beans?

>> Mm-hmm.

>> BROCK: Go ahead, fry it up.

So you're going to fry that up.

We opened a jar the other day of mixed pickles.

Soured pickles.

I just picked it off the shelf, opened it up, dumped it out, and it was the one with the stalk in it.

>> KUYKENDALL: Oh gosh, I bet that was wonderful.

>> BROCK: She was so excited.

>> Now, don't break that cabbage stalk.

I tried to save it.

>> BROCK: We just found the cabbage stem in there.

>> Cabbage stalk.

>> BROCK: Stalk, sorry.

>> From good homegrown cabbage.

If you'll notice cabbage today, there is no stalk.

>> BROCK: So most people would throw that away, but we love that texture.

The stalk was always her favorite part.

>> KUYKENDALL: Oh gosh, that is, that's great.

You know, that would be an interesting jar, wouldn't it?

Pickled stalks.

>> BROCK: Just the whole thing.

>> KUYKENDALL: Yeah, the whole thing.

Maybe we'll have to do that with these cabbages.

>> BROCK: That's how we're going to get rich.

>> KUYKENDALL: Pickled stalks.

>> BROCK: This, which I didn't love as a kid, but I love now, is soured corn.

>> KUYKENDALL: This old variety is called Hickory King and that advertisement for it says, "Destined to become a favorite in the South."

So it has been.

And for certain things like pickling, There's not many others around that I know of that you could do that with.

>> BROCK: We'd just take it right off the cob, put it into a crock, salt it, throw it down the basement, let it sour away.

>> KUYKENDALL: And have that in January?

What a treat.

>> BROCK: Yeah, you just... hot skillet, Throw that corn in there, fry it up.

Fry it up.

>> KUYKENDALL: Heaven, I can taste it right now.

>> BROCK: I can too, I want to eat that right now.

So the next thing is leather britches.

This is a preservation technique for people that probably couldn't afford Mason jars.

The technique is very cool.

You take a needle and thread, just like you would see people do with popcorn for the Christmas tree.

And then you hang them above your wood stove or on your front porch and let them dry.

And once they're cooked they boil down in just broth with a little bit of lard.

And you cook that down, and cook that down, and cook that down and cook that down.

And the broth tastes like pot roast.

One of the great things is watching someone taste leather britches for the first time.

Because the name kind of sounds silly.

But when they eat it, they're like, "There's no way there's not meat in that pot."

I'm like, "No, that's beans, water and salt," you know?

And they're just... those moments I love, to share those traditions and those techniques and those particular varieties of plants with people and just watch the amazement just go over their face.

That's what makes it all worthwhile for me.

>> KUYKENDALL: Almost like Christmas morning.

>> BROCK: And then the last thing: greasy beans.

>> Yep.

>> BROCK: A greasy bean is a bean that's really native to the Appalachian mountains.

>> KUYKENDALL: This particular bean is called Lazy Wife Greasy Bean.

That's kind of a strange title.

>> BROCK: I need those seeds.

>> KUYKENDALL: But the greasy part of the name comes from the fact that the pods are slick, they're greasy, they shine in the sun.

It's amazing.

I mean, just like they've been doused with olive oil.

>> BROCK: Yeah, dipped in bacon fat.

>> KUYKENDALL: Yeah, they're beautiful beans.

You've seen the little, like your grandmother's.

That little short... >> BROCK: Yep.

>> KUYKENDALL: I think it's about that size.

>> BROCK: I love watching this.

Like, as a little kid that used to fascinate me, that they would just coil around.

You know, you would come back the next day and they'd be up here.

All you do is you put them in a mason jar with some salt water and pressure cook it.

Pressure can it.

The pressure cooking cooks the bean, brines it, flavors it, preserves it.

So all you have to do is open up this, dump it in, and then you literally cook all the water out of it.

Mmm!

That's just a particular flavor that you can only get... >> From a greasy bean.

>> BROCK: From the greasy bean.

>> BROCK: What does it mean to be a seedsman?

>> KUYKENDALL: I'll tell you exactly what it means.

I would think about your grandmother and all of the seeds that she saved.

We're not only preserving genetic diversity in these old varieties, but we're preserving living history.

Like the music of the mountains.

>> BROCK: Exactly.

Now, for me as a chef this is an incredible inspiration.

But it also changes the respect.

If I know the family history and I know the work that went into finding that seed, when I cook that I cook it with ten times more care than I've ever cooked anything.

We all know that Southern food has a bad rap.

It's this, it's that, it's fried, it's all pork.

Or, "I don't like grits."

You don't like grits because you've eaten it out of that paper bag with that picture of the dude on the front.

You come here, you eat real grits.

You eat real cornbread.

You taste real buttermilk.

You eat real country ham.

You drink fine bourbon.

People leave here with a different opinion of Southern food.

So, like, this would be a pretty typical meal of her cooking and my grandmother cooking.

You know, if you look at this, you've got fresh, clean vegetal, you've got this herbal, crispy fritter.

You've got this sweet and sour from the corn.

You got this total sour from all these garden vegetables.

You've got this crazy savory leather britches.

Your braised soup beans.

And then this is I think kind of in between all those, so... >> Dig in.

>> BROCK: We're here in the garden at Blackberry Farm, with John Kuykendall, the master gardener here, Joseph Lenn, the chef.

And we're going to make some good old-fashioned hoe cakes the real way.

>> LENN: John's kind of heating this up and we've put a little bit of the bacon fat on there, the same stuff we put in the actual hoe cake mix.

>> BROCK: Hoe cake mix is just like a cornbread batter?

>> LENN: Exactly.

>> BROCK: So this is like the original sort of farmer's lunch.

You know, you're in the field, you're working.

Take the tool that you're using in the field, put it on the fire.

>> LENN: That is too cool.

>> KUYKENDALL: You've got a good sizzle, but not too hot.

>> BROCK: Yeah, and you can adjust your heat by how close or how far away you keep it.

That's like the perfect griddle, though.

Look at that thing!

>> KUYKENDALL: Yeah, it's a good surface.

>> LENN: You can kind of see those brown edges happening.

I'll just kind of see if we can get under there.

>> BROCK: Oh, man!

>> LENN: When my mom made cornbread like this, or hoe cakes for that matter, she always called it fried cornbread because the amount of like, I guess bacon fat that she used on them.

But man, it gets that crust on it and that's one thing that she really really loved about it.

>> BROCK: Ha ha!

>> KUYKENDALL: Looky there.

>> BROCK: Perfect.

>> KUYKENDALL: I think they look great.

>> LENN: Hoe cake?

>> BROCK: What's so cool about this is you smell the fire and you smell the embers.

That's the greatest smell in the world.

That hot cornmeal with that buttermilk?

>> KUYKENDALL: That'll take you back in history.

>> BROCK: Yeah, it takes you right back to my grandma's kitchen.

>> KUYKENDALL: This is living history.

>> BROCK: We're with the chef Joseph Lenn, one of my very, very close friends.

And he's going to make a dish today from his childhood.

>> KUYKENDALL: I wanted to kind of do a fun dish that reminded me of a couple stories.

One being one of the first vegetable memories I ever had in the garden, which was... my grandfather grew okra in the summertime.

And the way I'm going to make it is the way my mom made it, who... her mother taught her.

And then we're going to do just country ham with redeye gravy.

So you don't want this pan screaming hot, because you want to render out some of this fat to make the actual sauce, which is the redeye gravy.

>> BROCK: So what's cool about this is we're cooking this on an old-fashioned... >> LENN: On a wood stove, yeah.

This is kind of the type of stove that my grandparents would have had, and I'm sure yours... >> BROCK: Yeah, same with mine.

This is where my grandma would hang the leather britches to dry.

And they're hanging all over the place here.

So this is, like, taking me back to my grandma's back porch.

>> LENN: We're going to take this out of the pan here, transfer it to a plate.

We're going to add the coffee.

>> BROCK: Redeye gravy has a lot of stories that are thrown around about its origins.

One of them is Andrew Jackson being upset at one of his guys who'd been drinking a little bit too much the night before and had super crazy red eyes.

And he needed...

I guess the whole crew was hung over.

And he told the cook, he said, "I need you to make a gravy as red as their eyes."

Tell me about this okra that your mamma taught you.

>> LENN: So, my mom just cracked an egg over it.

Just over this.

And she just stirred it in.

>> BROCK: I've never seen it done this way before.

>> LENN: Next goes in the cornmeal.

>> BROCK: Cornmeal probably is the most important thing in the pantry in the Appalachian mountains.

>> LENN: For sure, I mean, it's what people grew to survive.

>> BROCK: So growing up as a kid, for me, every single day we had cornmeal in some form or fashion.

I can't imagine life without cornmeal.

>> LENN: I can't either.

So this is about where you want it.

Right there.

>> BROCK: I think that looks so awesome, man.

I'm sitting here, at this stove.

I can't imagine having to cook this way every day.

This thing is like the gates of hell.

>> LENN: This is kind of like, I guess, a delicacy for the summertime, to actually heat up the stove and fry some okra.

What you're looking for here, you can kind of see this golden.

But you can also see how it's kind of green too around the edges.

>> BROCK: Okra's still kind of, like, raw.

>> LENN: Yeah, exactly.

>> BROCK: I love that.

That is going to be on the Husk menu tomorrow.

>> LENN: Mamma Lenn's fried okra.

>> BROCK: Exactly.

>> LENN: The redeye gravy's looking perfect there.

>> BROCK: Yeah, it's beautiful.

>> LENN: So we'll put that on the country ham.

Man, this stuff's going to be good.

>> BROCK: That smell brings back so many memories for me.

Oh, man, look at that.

>> LENN: Mmm!

>> BROCK: That smell.

>> LENN: You can see, it's like perfect redeye, right?

On the spoon.

>> BROCK: Yep, that's a redeye.

Yep, that fat being the whites of the eye.

>> LENN: Put some of that okra just right in there on the ham to soak some of the redeye gravy up.

And that's it, man.

>> BROCK: Thank you for sharing that with me.

>> LENN: Absolutely.

>> BROCK: So awesome.

This stove makes me want to drink a lot of beer.

>> LENN: Cold beer.

>> BROCK: There was a moment in my career where I really didn't have a whole lot of interest in reviving the cuisine that I grew up with.

The older you get, the more you cook, the more you realize what's important.

And what's important is what you're born with and what's inside of you.

The journey of life is amazing and it's easier if you know what the endpoint is.

And my endpoint is sitting on a front porch on a rocking chair in overalls, fat as hell with a huge beard drinking moonshine and telling stories in the Appalachian mountains.

That's what I want.

Cooking these dishes, and passing them down.

As a kid, you want to run as far away from it as you can.

But the older you get, the more you realize that enjoying life is sitting on the porch.

Captioned by Media Access Group at WGBH access.wgbh.org