Viewers like you make this program possible.

Support your local PBS station.

♪ ♪ >> ANTHONY BOURDAIN: More than just mint juleps, KFC and that infamous two-minute horse race, Kentucky is a place rife with tradition.

A border state between the South and the Midwest, chef Ed Lee's adopted home is known for innovative use of ingredients, as well as classic techniques and recipes.

Few other landlocked places in America could lay claim to such a diverse breadth of culinary customs.

Gamey mutton barbecue, funky cured country ham, sweet, viscous mineral-rich sorghum and even a local river fish caviar.

And of course, bourbon.

Enter The Mind of a Chef.

>> LEE: All curious chefs, they're just fascinated by their surroundings.

Oh, that is intense.

They don't teach you this in cooking school.

♪ ♪ (sniffing) >> LEE: I knew very little about Kentucky when I moved down there.

And I kind of did so purposefully.

I knew I was going to "the South," whatever that meant, you know, at the time.

You know, they call Kentucky the blue grass state, and I have never experienced it, but apparently there's some kind of grass if you look at it at a certain angle it kind of looks bluish.

But one of the things that it stands for to me is there's incredible agriculture there.

It's kind of everything that you initially think it's going to be.

The rolling hills, it's horse country, it's bourbon country.

You know, and it's a place that, you know, for one reason or another hasn't been as industrialized as other states have.

For one reason or another, it's not been exactly culturally on the map as other states have.

It hasn't been influenced by as many outsiders, and so you have this sort of a preserved culture and a preserved landscape.

I think the culture of Kentucky is one of community.

You will immediately find people who will sort of grab you and say, "Come on in.

The water's warm in here," you know, and you're like, "Well, why not?"

(barking) >> LEE: We're here in Princeton, Kentucky, with my dear friend Linton Hopkins.

Linton is the master of ham.

He's the ham master.

>> Which means you're the student of ham.

>> LEE: Yes.

Is this 12-month ham, 14-month?

>> I'm feeling it, I'm feeling like we're into the... We're above 12, definitely.

What's so great, of course, no preservatives and we're looking at ham, brown sugar and salt.

Yeah, that's what's so pure about it.

All right, there's the score.

And then I'm just going to peel.

With Kentucky, you know, mountain hams a lot of the difference is not only purity of ingredients, but this is just brown sugar and salt.

In Virginia you get into the chilies.

Tennessee really goes black pepper crazy, which is awesome for the ham.

>> LEE: Linton Hopkins is one of my heroes.

He's a chef in Atlanta.

He runs a society which really brings together people who really want to understand the country hams of the American South.

>> Isn't that beautiful?

After the peel is when we stop, and then we just start bringing this piece down and slowly exposing the meat.

>> LEE: You can keep slicing.

I'll keep eating.

>> It's true, you actually will never stop eating.

(chuckles) >> LEE: There's a couple iconic products or ingredients in Kentucky that I think defines the people, the spirit and also the cuisine.

And country ham's right up there at the top of the list.

And Colonel Newsom's I think is one of those treasures that's sort of holding a torch to this tradition.

It's funny that for this ham, the official name of the company is Colonel Newsom's Country Ham.

But I never say that.

I always say it's Nancy Newsom's ham, or it's Nancy's ham.

(cawing) >> It's awesome.

>> LEE: This is ridiculous.

>> I want to shut the door behind me.

Want to keep any insect that might be living right now.

>> Wow.

>> LEE: You go inside, and you literally feel like you have been stepping through a time portal.

>> God, I love that smell.

(sniffs) It's like heaven.

>> LEE: You're breathing in mold, but it's a very delicious mold.

You can almost like close your eyes and see all the spores and the fungi just like kind of falling on your clothes.

>> Each ham house has its own mold.

So the molds that come out of this smokehouse will not be like molds from another ham house.

>> LEE: Technically, it is exactly the same way as her grandfather is doing it, you know, two generations ago.

So in a sense, you are stepping back in time.

>> It's just a part of me.

It's a part of my history, it's a part of my soul, it's a part of my family that is ongoing.

>> Look at the lacquer.

>> LEE: It is the smell of fecundity.

It's the smell of a beautiful death.

♪ ♪ (squeals) >> LEE: We're going to make a beautiful asparagus ham salad?

>> Yeah, we're just right here in spring.

>> LEE: How do you want to plate this?

>> We're going to build ribbons, and basically like an artful pile.

If you want to cut some asparagus.

>> LEE: Thanks for bringing this intensely... >> Some equipment should be a little dangerous.

I've got the charred onions.

>> LEE: And these are Vidalia onions?

>> Yeah, we're right in the beginning of the season.

Country ham and meat, you know, we're told coming up through culinary school it's all about center of plate.

And I like the idea of country ham as light.

Because vegetables-- and you've found this out too-- change everything about cooking.

All right, now let's grab a little of the goat cheese.

Grate some of the pecan, we'll make a powder.

>> LEE: I love the grating of the pecans.

>> My sense of memory of eating pecans is this big piece and you're chasing it with a fork all around.

So it's the idea of now the flavor's going to get all the way around.

Let's just dress a little vinaigrette.

Reduced sorghum and citrus and a little parsley.

>> LEE: It's a beautiful dish.

>> Shaved country ham and asparagus salad with goat cheese, citrus and charred Vidalia.

>> LEE: Beautiful.

>> Awesome.

♪ ♪ >> LEE: What is spoon bread?

Is it a custard, is it a bread, is it...?

>> It's cornbread soufflé, but it's a really old Kentucky tradition.

>> LEE: Ouita's one of my best friends.

She really sort of took me in and for me, represented someone who just really embodied the spirit of a Kentucky chef.

And this is your cornmeal?

>> We always use white cornmeal for company.

>> LEE: Why?

>> The yellow cornmeal is not polite, it's not for polite company.

>> LEE: Oh, really?

>> It has a little salt in it and baking powder.

>> LEE: You want the baking powder?

>> Yup.

>> LEE: Now I'm going to give you the butter and I'm going to do the egg yolks.

>> Okay, I don't know if I ever actually measure the butter.

You need it a little bit buttery.

>> LEE: How am I supposed to steal your recipe if you don't measure?

>> Oh, you can't steal this recipe.

I'll give it to you.

And then we're going to whip those egg whites.

>> LEE: By "we" is it "we-ta" "we"?

(chuckles) >> I'll help.

>> LEE: You want me to whip-- no, I'll whip them.

>> Yes, thank you.

Chivalry is not dead in Kentucky, Edward.

>> LEE: It's been a while since I've done this.

It's regrettable, but there are certain things that you just can't do by hand anymore.

Because you have to make room for the new things to come in.

>> Yeah, well, you can't do it by hand commercially.

>> LEE: Yeah.

>> Restaurants don't define the food community in the United States.

>> LEE: That's a very important point.

>> Young people are working in restaurants, and if the only experience they have with food is restaurant culture, we're screwed.

>> LEE: Right, commercialization.

>> We are totally done for.

>> LEE: Well, it's funny how, you know, I always think about this.

Before there were such things as public eating taverns, there would be these sleeping lodges.

And they would cook for you.

>> Oh, nice.

>> LEE: And one of the things they would cook for you would be a restaurant.

And it was basically a restorative soup or bouillon.

>> Ooh.

>> LEE: So what you'd do is you'd go to restaurants to just recharge your battery so then you can go another 24-48 hours through this miserable life, you know.

And so that's what a restaurant does for me.

>> You really do have a sense of, yeah, joie de vivre when you're in the dining room.

>> LEE: Is that what you call it?

It's usually a glass of bourbon.

>> Yeah, that's it.

>> LEE: Do you like spoonbill caviar?

>> I love spoonbill caviar.

>> LEE: It has that essence of what caviar is texturally and flavor-wise.

It is just cheap enough where I can say, "Listen, let's see what we can come up with."

And one of the things I came up with was smoking it.

Which, you know, you wouldn't normally think to do it.

>> I've never seen it before, ever.

>> LEE: Well, you're about to see it now.

Will you just pull this and just put one finger?

>> That's your cross ventilation?

>> LEE: Yes, and I'm going to release it on this side and just let it go.

>> It's a tiny little smokehouse.

>> LEE: It is, it's like a mini smokehouse.

And at this point you're just kind of steeping it.

So you can leave it for two minutes, five minutes.

But I usually don't go more than ten minutes.

I don't want too much of that smoke flavor.

And take it out.

>> It's amazing how it really stays in there.

>> LEE: Yeah.

>> One more little taste.

Ooh.

That's good.

>> LEE: But it's not cooked.

>> Oh yi, yi, yi, yi.

>> LEE: Oh, that's awesome.

>> It's a pretty one.

>> LEE: Yeah, it is pretty.

>> Okay, so we're going to just smear it with the crème fraîche.

>> LEE: Okay.

>> And we'll put a little bit kind of luscious smoked caviar.

>> LEE: Here, I'll give it to you.

>> Oh, you're letting me do the honors?

>> LEE: Yeah, it's your dish, it's your dish.

>> Oh, I cannot wait to taste this stuff.

(chuckles) >> LEE: Save some for us.

(laughs) >> Kentucky spoon bread with crème fraîche and Edward's special smoked spoonbill caviar.

>> LEE: It's beautiful.

>> LEE: Sorghum is something that I've grown to love.

It's actually something that I first tasted here in Kentucky.

It was a great failed experiment, that's sorghum.

It was supposed to be the next great, cheap sugar substitute.

And they realized it didn't crystallize.

And so it just kind of got pushed off to the side.

But there were some people that liked it enough so they kept growing it.

You don't even need it.

We have honey and we have molasses.

But there are people who just said, "'Damn, I like that stuff.

I'm going to keep growing it."

So generations later you have this thing where people like me are discovering it for the first time.

In my opinion, it was never given the respect it deserved.

When I first arrived here I was actually driving by a road stand that had tomatoes and stuff.

It had this little jar of sorghum.

I'd never tasted anything like it before.

It was nutty, a little smoky, much more intense than honey, a little bit more pungent, but definitely not as dark and rich as molasses.

I bought the whole thing and I brought it into my kitchen, put it on the kitchen island and I said, "We are throwing out "every jar of honey in this restaurant, and from now on we're only using sorghum."

This is sorghum that's been aged in a bourbon barrel for one year.

It's picked up a little bit of that bourbon note.

I really just wanted a dish that was clean and it was just sorghum.

There wasn't a lot of recipes out there.

Sorghum hadn't had its renaissance yet.

Because I didn't find a lot of recipes about sorghum, it was like it's kind of an open game.

I can do whatever I want because you guys didn't do anything with it.

To me that's probably the most fun part of my life is when I have something new and I'm trying to figure out what to make out of it.

I don't know what's going to happen to it.

Beautiful.

The ice cream's pretty much done.

This is basically just cooked grits.

But the texture of the ice cream becomes gritty.

Make sure it spreads everywhere.

I'm going to put the top on and let it go for another about ten minutes.

It's always still a little bit loose because of all the friction.

So I'm just going to stiffen it up in the freezer for about an hour or so.

It's good, it's good.

Blackberries, raspberries, blueberries, a little bit of thyme as well.

Get in there.

Yeah, it looks good.

It's like coconut cake, just crumbled and dried out a little bit.

Coffee.

And last but not least, a little croissant and that is it.

Sorghum and grits ice cream.

(bleating) >> LEE: You think about Kentucky, there's really not a barbecue identity.

Except for in Owensboro.

Owensboro, Kentucky, is the capital of mutton barbecue.

Where mutton barbecue has been a tradition for generations.

>> Oh, my goodness.

>> LEE: So what are we looking at here?

>> Right here we've got mutton ribs and we've got our mutton loin.

>> LEE: That's a pretty big rib.

This is where old sheep go to die.

>> That's right.

♪ ♪ >> I don't know of any other place in the country you can get mutton.

>> LEE: You know, I've never seen barbecued mutton except for here.

Apparently, or so the story goes, there was a huge wool industry in Kentucky.

And I guess part of it is, you know, after they're done with the sheering of the wool... >> They got to find something to do.

>> LEE: And they were all old, so they would just make barbecue.

>> So they just smoked them for hours, smothered them in vinegar and Worcestershire and hey, you got an industry.

That's good.

>> LEE: Just mop my finger a little bit.

Make like this is a piece of mutton rib.

>> There you go.

Now this is a vinegar-based cooking dip.

>> LEE: That is good.

>> Oh, okay.

>> LEE: That's what I'm talking about.

>> Ooh, that is really good.

>> LEE: Spicy, vinegary.

Growing up, we worked in fancy restaurants in New York, and growing up mutton was like laughable, right?

>> Yeah, not edible.

>> LEE: No, no.

But and also like you would never cook your beans.

You know, it's like you blanch your haricots verts.

>> Everything has to be crisp, medium-rare to rare.

>> LEE: I could see one of my old French chef mentors like watching me now and just crying his eyes out.

This is like the height of insulting the old, you know, French system of what food ought to mean.

>> That's so true.

Like I'm from Kentucky, and I moved to New York and went to school.

And then came home, you know, more than 20 years ago.

And had to give up on all that.

>> LEE: Hopefully you can get to a middle place where... >> Right, where you can see the history of your own culture and protect it, and then move things forward.

>> LEE: So the barbecue sauce I make actually has an origin here.

This is my 22-ingredient barbecue sauce.

(mooing) I asked every single person here that had a barbecue recipe.

Everyone would have a different thing, but they'd tell me one thing, and I'd be like "Oh, that's interesting."

That's why it has 22 ingredients because it has everything.

It's a lot.

I took something really simple and over-complicated it.

If you ever have a good barbecue sauce, but you can't identify layers of flavor, all you taste is one thing.

And I think the way to achieve that is by sweating out the vegetables properly.

So this is ready to go.

There's really no reason for this, but we're in Kentucky so I'm throwing in bourbon.

And I kind of let it evaporate a little bit.

And then coffee.

The cola.

The key to this sauce for me is patience.

It's funny because the older you get the more patient you get with things.

Which is ironic because the older you get, the closer you are to death.

So really, you should be more urgent about things.

Chinese fermented black bean paste.

And then you have to add a little bit of ketchup.

I cook with less ingredients now actually than I did when I was younger.

And if I were making the same sauce from scratch today it'd probably have half the ingredients in it.

But would it be any better or worse?

I don't think so.

It's just a different thing.

All of these spices need a little bit of time.

They have a powderiness to them.

And so you really got to cook it out or else your barbecue sauce will taste dusty almost.

We're going to puree this.

Any time you blend something, you pump a lot of air into it.

And so I don't want aerated sauce.

What I do is I just kind of cook it just for a little bit, and then in the meantime... That's it.

This is a goat leg.

As you can see, after ten hours, I mean the bark is just like beautiful.

This is like... this makes me happy.

The idea of a mop sauce can be that you actually use a mop to baste it.

But it's also a verb, it's how you put the sauce on.

Just mopping the meat with the sauce.

It's a gentle, delicate thing.

Smoked goat with-- my version anyway-- of mop sauce.

Part of the reason I got to Kentucky was because I was wandering.

And so I never want to stop wandering.

But I think the soil in Louisville is pretty rich.

If you decide to set roots there, there's a lot of places to go.

And it gives you a lot back.

Your heart is always going to be some place where you felt like you became whole.

And I feel like I became whole in Kentucky.

And so, you know, I hope to always have one foot on some dirt in Kentucky.

(sniffing)