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- Join us as we raise a glass and salute to Pensacola and Florida's territorial bicentennial.

We're all about the food and drink of 1821 and 2021 on this edition of inStudio.

(upbeat music) Florida's first Pensacola, it's where it all began.

Two centuries ago in Plaza Ferdinand, General Andrew Jackson came to Pensacola to raise the American flag to transfer control of this area from Spain to the United States.

But that's just the headline.

For quite some time now, members of the Territorial Bicentennial Commemoration Committee have been working to bring us more, more of the stories about the people, their lives, their families, their jobs, and on this show, their food and drink.

In the first half hour, we are joined by two accomplished archeologists who have intimate knowledge of the foodways of our area from 1821 to 2021.

In our second half hour, we'll talk with Chef Irv Miller, who will share with us how past foodways play an important part in his modern menu items.

And we'll also learn how to make a special commemorative beverage that's being served up in Downtown Pensacola.

That'll be with Maria Goldberg from Great Southern Restaurants.

First up though, Margo Stringfield.

Margo is an archeologist at UWF.

Now much of her research focuses on historic cemetery, preservation and conservation, as well as Florida's colonial British, Second Spanish and Early American Periods.

And that includes their foods and Cathy Parker an archeologist and foodways researcher with the University of West Florida.

These experienced archeologists will be talking with us about the dinner tables of 1821 and 2021, the diversity of our culinary heritage.

Welcome both of both of you to the program.

I'm so grateful that you're here.

- Thanks for having us, food, food, food.

- Absolutely, that's our topic today and Cathy, we're so glad that you are here.

How did you get interested in archeology?

And then more specifically, tell us about your background and what's your call?.

You said you're a faunal expert?

- Yes, I'm a faunal analyst.

That basically means that I identify animal bones from archeological context.

- And how does one realize that they're very interested in identifying those bones to begin with?

How did this come about?

- Well, my brother was the veterinary.

My husband is a radiologist.

- Brought the two together.

- And bones are beautiful.

- Oh, are they?

- They are.

- And tell me how they're beautiful.

- They're form versus function.

They're perfectly formed for the job they have to.

- Nice, never thou-.

And you never think about that if you're just living life.

Right?

- Right.

- And that led you to study more intimately?

- The moment I realized that UWF had an archeology program, I decided I'd volunteer at Arcadia and I didn't kill myself with the wheelbarrow or anyone else.

So I got into the program there.

- I would imagine that Cathy's been quite a boon to the program, right?

- Oh, she is.

She works with all of the faunal material that comes through from our archeological sites and it's quite important that we do know what people were eating.

Cathy is currently working with material from the Luna settlement site, as well as the Luna shipwreck sites.

And this of course is our first look to what Europeans were bringing in to Florida.

And so they they've started in the field as we speak.

Have they not Cathy?

- Yes they have.

- And how do they know, how do you know that it's not just a hapless squirrel or a hapless domestic?

I'd like to know.

- 'Cause there are wasted there.

- And how are those?

- Generally on a site, an archeological site, if you find the entire skeleton of a squirrel or a rabbit, you know it was not used as food.

You also looked for fine cut marks on bones, where the animal was dismembered for cooking.

And that's the primary way you tell that.

- That's a big indicator.

- That's the big indicator.

And you also will find bones of things that you would not eat on a bed like mice, rats.

I mean, you'd have to be really hungry to go after that.

Also the frogs and toads.

So those things are called commensal bones.

That means animals that live near humans, but humans don't eat them.

- Right, so- - Cats, dogs, things like that.

- So you're brought in then when you find a settlement or an area that needs to be studied and just like get really in depth on the study of this.

So when we talk about the foodways, what specifically does that mean?

Does it mean what it sounds like, that where we went from here to here?

Is that what a foodway is?

- Yes, it means anything that has to do with human diet from the time the animal is caught, hunted, purchased, butchered, cooked, and served.

- And that's the foodway.

- And that's the foodway.

And every culture has one.

- What makes ours unique?

- I would say ours here in Pensacola is unique because we've had so many ethnicities to contribute to the pool and work the flavors out and you can't get much better than that.

- Absolutely.

And it's continuing, and we're gonna find out more about that later in our show, as we see how some of those foodways contribute to what we're actually eating today.

So I would imagine for early settlers and we can go back to 1559, correct?

That there was, what kinds of foods did they have then?

And then hurricane came and let's talk about some of the progression of the people that were here and some of their types of food.

- Well, they came from Mexico.

Luna's fleet was from Mexico.

And of course the Spanish had been in Mexico for many, many decades.

And they had learned to enjoy Mexican foods, avocados, all sorts of things, especially the fresh food, the tropical fruits they got.

- And could they grow those here or were our soils too sandy?

- Oh, they were way too sandy.

- We've got that red clay too, right Margo?

- Well, we don't have good dirt right here in Downtown Pensacola, no.

- But we do still have orange trees that exist down there near the Barkley House.

Are those new trees or have they been here a while?

- The ones that are growing now are relatively new.

They're, the oldest one is probably 60 years old.

They, the Spanish brought oranges with them.

And so oranges grew in profusion in Pensacola from our early colonial period.

And so they've always been part of what we've seen as a part of the Spanish diet and everyone enjoys oranges.

They're just spicy.

Everyone was up on those and they did grow here, they grew well.

So the orange trees that we see Downtown in historic Pensacola village were re-introduced.

And so you can go down and see those Seville oranges, which are bitter as all get out, growing down there.

They come to fruition about in December of every year.

- And we make some marmalade with those.

- Yes, absolutely.

So they can, so the Spanish did contribute the orange.

And what other things did they contribute?

- Oh, they contributed in an overall picture, wheat flour.

They had all that with them.

They had the things from home that they wanted.

They were just hoping that it would survive here and everything that they brought with them had a few little problems, but nothing like sheep.

Spain, Spanish people, French people, Italian people loved lamb and sheep.

- And did those not do well here?

- And they did not do well at all.

It was far too humid, too hot, parasites got into their fur, in skin.

And it was probably one of the biggest disappointments.

- To them for that.

- To them.

- So then they were, they able to import that at that point?

- Some places later on tried.

I don't think anyone in Pensacola ever tried to import them.

- And so what did do well here?

- Pigs.

- Pigs.

- Pigs did really, really well.

You can let pigs loose and they will take care of themselves for months.

- They can forage.

- They can forage in the woods.

And especially if trees around.

- Well, and I also heard something about some black cattle.

- Yes, that was just referring to the color.

They were very, very dark and rather small, but they provided fresh meat and they were left from when Pensacola was on the island.

Strangely enough, well not really, because there were no pastures on the island, but that's when they started creating herds on the mainland and someone would go over from the island every day to tend them or hire the Indians to do it.

- Now I would imagine Indians had a lot of influence or Native Americans had a lot of influence over a lot of our early foods.

Is that a correct statement?

- Oh yes.

They contributed to corn, squashes, beans, told them where to find honey, all sorts of roots and tubers that they would never have thought about eating.

And not only did they provide it, but they taught them how to cook it correctly so that it would be edible for them as well.

- Now you find bones that tell you about some of the foods, but what about seeds and anything plants?

How do you identify any of that?

- That's very difficult.

Something like a pot of beans will only survive if they've been carbonized, that means burned totally black, but they have to keep their shape and then they can withstand being buried.

Otherwise your seed will sprout and just not exist, as far as the archeological record is concerned.

- Well, they just needed me to cook for them, sort of have some burned things to study later, right?

- I think, yeah, burned, and we also are able to recover botanicals from websites, from water at the bottom of water wells, because they were often after they ceased being useful as a water source, then people would use them as their trash pits.

And I must say, what we are looking at is people's trash.

And it does tell you a lot about people to see a new garbage, never lie.

- That's right, your garbage never lies.

But we've worked on several sites and I found this to be true on the shipwreck site.

We're able to recover a lot of material because this is an airtight environment.

So for instance, in one of the wells that we have worked on the date strive British period, there were watermelon seeds that survived, and we have references to people sending those watermelon seeds back to England because they were considered to be the best melons anyone had ever tasted.

And then we also see indeterminant beans, we see peanut hauls.

So there are items that survive- that can survive.

And of course, peach pits, we find on almost every colonial site in Pensacola.

On excavations, peaches grew here in profusion.

So we have the historical record that talks about the orchards and talks about what was growing.

And then we have what we see in the archeological record.

- And that's one thing the Indians loved.

- Were the peaches?

- The peaches.

- Everybody loves peaches.

- And they would save their pits and plant them as close to their villages as they could.

- And they did well.

That's really, really good to know.

And so, but tell us, if somebody that's watching, that says, why are we looking at people's food from, that have, you know, lived here 200 years ago.

Why do we care about that?

- Well, I think because it tells us a great deal about ourselves.

- And how's that?

- Well, all cultures have a particular food culture that's part of their foodways.

And if you have to move from one country to another or one place to another, it's very stressful, and you're not sure you're going to find the foods you really want.

And maybe eight times out of 10, you don't.

- So it can be awful.

- And it can be very stressful, but you have to either learn to adapt or starve.

And most people won't choose to starve.

- Absolutely not.

Well, and we talk about, that's a comfort to people to be able to go from one area to another and have something to eat.

I tell you a thing that's a comfort to a lot of people is sitting right in front of you.

And that would be a bacon, lettuce, and tomato sandwich.

My daughter prefers the vegan version of that, but let's talk about deacon- you brought a sandwich to deconstruct and why are we going to do that tonight?

- We're going to deconstruct this sandwich, so you're going to know how much of your food is from the Old World and what's from the New.

- Okay.

- This is flour, wheat flour, bread.

- Okay.

- These fat and sassy little tomatoes are from the New World.

- Let's get this where we can let the camera see it.

The tomatoes are from the new world?

- Yes.

- Okay.

They're beautiful.

- And underneath that is bacon and underneath that is lettuce, - And all that grew here?

- and that's from the Old World.

- Okay.

- Lettuce seeds were brought to the New World from the Old.

- Did the Old World bring Fritos?

(laughing) - No, not really, but I think a certain chip company did that, but Fritos are nothing more than a very salty corn tortilla.

So people who had been at West or eaten in Mexican restaurants thought this is good stuff.

And that's how they adapted.

No, that I need to say, that's another way they adapted corn to feed their own comfort needs.

- Corn, talk about corn.

- We are people of the corn, corn is in almost everything we eat.

It's often in almost everything we wear, put on our cosmetics.

Corn is everywhere in our culture.

And of course this was a New World cultigen.

And so once people discovered corn, once Europeans discovered corn, it shot off like a bullet because of course it's a hardy cultigen.

And it was, they were not able to raise wheat with great success here to be able to make white bread.

So corn often substituted for white wheat bread.

And, you know, with the tomatoes, initially people thought they were botanicals.

They thought they were ornamental plants like a rose or such only perhaps ugly, but it took them a while to figure out that tomato was actually edible, and the bacon, oh, God is gracious.

People took to bacon with a vengeance once the pigs became, began to come.

And in fact, in 1821 in the newspaper immediately after the Americans arrived, they started bringing in bacon.

There is an ad from one of the merchants that is bringing in 5,000 pounds of bacon.

- wow.

- 5,000 pounds of bacon.

And so this was a very popular item for in particular, the Americans coming in to Pensacola and into Florida.

But we see the beginnings of merging culinary cultures.

So for native people, we do see corn.

We have a reliance on what was growing here that Europeans did adapt and work into their diets, just as native people worked European foods into theirs.

And this is one of the most dynamic ways we see cultures interact, is through the foodways.

And we stay at not only early on when you're seeing people bringing in things that never grew here or never strived here, or being taken back to the Old World that they had never seen over there.

And it's a beautiful incorporation of foodways that spans the world.

And we talk about the orange.

The orange did not originate in Spain.

The Spanish brought the orange.

So we might be the Sunshine State and orange juice may be high up in our image of representation, but that was introduced by the Spanish who had had it introduced to them by traders that were trading in the Far East and brought the orange to Spain.

So our world is connected by food and in many ways.

- And thank goodness.

And we have some photos that you provided to us.

So we're gonna scroll through, what are we looking at in this image.

- All right.

This image is the Spanish military food ration.

They provided it in enough quantity to last a sailor or a soldier one week.

- Wow.

- They got a pound of bread or a pound of flour.

And whether they got bread or flour depended on, if the base, the military base had a baker or not.

Not everyone knew how to bake or whatever, be allowed to bake because you've heard of the Gill system in Europe, you have to belong to this brotherhood of men who bake.

- Oh.

- And if you don't belong, you can't get anyone to build you an oven, or, but you don't know the ingredients that you need.

- And this picture here is?

- And that's a New World tomatoes, a New World green pepper, and a New World red pepper and the onions are Spanish onions, but they brought the seeds of those with them because Spaniards can not do without garlic and onions.

- No, no, we need our garlic and onions.

- Garlic and onions.

- This is a representation from, of what a table might've looked like down at the Tivoli House, if you were going there for dinner and it's based on artifacts, the table setting, you'll see shards of pottery on the table.

And then you'll see both reproductions and original pieces that represent what would have been on the table.

Utilitarian wares.

This material was excavated from a well, water-well, that was across the, just across from the Tivoli and the Tivoli owned the property at the time all of these material dates to right around 1819, 1921.

And so we're seeing utilitarian wear we're seeing condiments because they did want to hide the taste of somethings.

And a lot of wine, a lot of wine bottle, but what they were eating down there were oysters.

We're seeing oysters from a bay, we're seeing beef, we're seeing chicken, we're seeing deer that they would have brought in other wild foul, we're seeing fish, we're seeing beef.

And then of course the peach pits, you can see the two little peach pits on the plate.

And those peach pits did come from the well excavation at the Tivoli House.

And so, what we see in looking at foodways is another way to understand people.

It's a way for us to understand what was happening in the community, what was available in the community.

And some of these food items were locally available and some were not, some were shipped in.

And what came in to us either came in, if from the upper reaches of the Escambia River, they would have brought vegetables down.

They were rising there, but they also brought things in.

And in the newspaper of the time, we see wonderful descriptions of the food coming into Pensacola in 1821, we see everything from lard to the 5,000 pounds of bacon which just seems amazing.

And then we see other items.

We see peas, we see dried foods coming in, we even see cod fish.

Now, cod fish, you would not think would be something that would be of interest to us here on the Gulf Coast because we don't really have cod in our waters, but that was likely coming in because it was a food that was provided along the Eastern Seaboard to enslaved people.

This was a part of a slave diet would have been the cod.

And in fact, in Jamaica, if you go down in the Caribbean Basin today, cod is on every menu and in many varieties that you see there served with it.

- And peas.

- And peas served with it.

- Cod and peas.

And so the material that was coming in to us, some of it was raised inland.

Some of it was secured from marine resources we have here.

And other was shipped in from say, Philadelphia to Pensacola with a load of consigned food, furniture, shoes, hair combs, you name it.

It was all shipping into Pensacola, but in particular, the food, even cranberries.

We're seeing cranberries come in for these North Easterners to enjoy in Northwest Florida.

- Well, we're about out of time, but Cathy, do you feel like the people were living here at that time period were satisfied with their meals?

It looked like that ration was pretty balanced.

- Yes, it was balanced in everything except vitamins and minerals.

- Well, I kinda need those, right?

- Yeah, you do.

- Well, thank you for studying this and thank you for sharing your wealth of knowledge with us.

And we're gonna continue talking about food.

- We are because people need to think what they're eating and where it came from and have a real appreciation for where we are in today's culinary World.

- Absolutely, we'll talk more about that coming up.

Thank you, Ms. Cathy, I appreciate that.

When we come back, we'll explore how West Florida's past foodways work into many of our Downtown Pensacola menu items today, and we'll serve up a potent salute to Florida's First Place City, Pensacola.

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(upbeat music) - Welcome back to inStudio.

As we continue our discussion about Pensacola's role in the making of Florida.

Specifically on this episode of inStudio, we're talking food and drink.

Margo Stringfield stays with us, and joining in on the conversation, Jackson's founding executive Chef Irv Miller.

He's been dubbed a pioneer of Florida Coastal Cooking, and he'll be talking about how the food of 1821 influences many of the menu items of today, and Maria Goldberg, the Director of Marketing, Public Relations and Events for Great Southern Restaurants.

The group that includes many prominent restaurants in Northwest Florida, including Jackson's, the Fish House, Five Sisters Blues Cafe and more.

Maria will be making and serving up a special commemorative cocktail known as the 23-Star Salute.

Welcome.

Oh wow.

What a blended culinary heritage that we have here in Northwest Florida, isn't that true?

- It is true.

We archeologists have studied foodways for a long time.

And at the Archeology Institute, we look at ways to bring our research to the public.

And one of the most rewarding ways that we're able to bring that research forward is to partner with the chefs in Pensacola.

And we do that pretty extensively to work with what people were eating in the past and how those foods can be blended into modern culinary experience for both our residents and visitors to our city.

And so that, just knowing what was coming here, we know it from the archeological record, we know it from the historical record, we know what they were bringing in and we know what they left behind.

And so being able to bring this alive for people is a way in which we feel that we're bringing the essence of our community forward to residents and visitors alike.

So we're very pleased to partner with the chefs and Irv and Maria have been instrumental in working with us.

And so we're very pleased with how the collaboration has moved along.

- Irv has that always been something you've been interested in and bringing the past forward, or is that something that's come about more recently or tell us a little bit more about your career?

- So honestly, I mean, I've been a chef along the Gulf Coast for almost four decades.

I hate to say that, but I'm proud to be here.

Moved here to Pensacola back 22 years ago.

So yeah, the ever since we started toying around with food at Jackson's in the early days, and up until these days to present, we are constantly involving ingredients of the past and weaving them into our menus creatively, yeah.

- And Maria is just speaking of, we've been talking about this commemorative celebration, this bicentennial, it'd be hard not to recognize that Andrew Jackson had a lot to do with it.

And you've got a restaurant in the group called Jackson's.

Is that tell us about the- - Well, and I'll tell you, is that yeah, Jackson's was built and designed basically to commemorate this event.

Not necessarily about Andrew Jackson, but about what happened right in front of our restaurant on July 17th in 1821.

And so if one has been to Jackson's before, or if you haven't just visualize, the dining room was created so that if you walk in, many of you recall that we have a French door lined windows that wrap around the park, we have chandelier's that are handcrafted by new Orleans artists that look like trees.

And then back behind the bar, we have a mural by Jay that is actually a converse of the park.

So it was created so that you felt like you were a witness to that event.

You're in the park as you're in the restaurant.

- So interesting.

And the casual observer might not recognize that they might though recognize the signature.

- Right.

Is that the signature is our logo, as a matter of fact, yes it is.

- We've been looking at some beautiful pictures of the outside and you literally look across street to the spot where this all took place.

I would imagine that can be rather inspiring.

- It is especially Andrew Jackson's bust is right there.

And so that the mural that she's talking about is actually, if you were to look left to right, it's that complete span.

- That's so exciting.

- And it's one of those things with us.

And that we're very fortunate here in Pensacola because of our history and to be able to tie our culinary history with our archeological history and for it to work together, people are so excited when they come to Jackson's and they hear the story about, oh, we didn't know this about the restaurant.

We had no idea that this was, it is based in history.

And so Chef has taken a number of cues from that as he creates his menus and new menu items and things of that nature.

- Have you learned a lot as you've gone along?

- Constantly learning and intimidated by the people around me who are so studious and are so historians and archeologist, I mean, it's very intimidating, but yes, I think I can hold my own for the most part when it comes to the food.

Yeah, since day one, again, we've been taking things that have happened in the past with ingredients and we just revisit them and turn them into our own creations.

Anything from venison and pork, which there's going to be a recipe with venison and pork, arancini which is a rice ball with cheese, Manchego cheese, which was brought by the early days and the settlers and the venison and the pork of course were giant for the Gulf Coast and the Panhandle and Northwest Florida.

And we fry that just a little light breading and fry that.

So that's one of the cool things that we're doing.

But if you look at our menu right now, you can see the influences of oysters and bacon, which is our top seller item.

Just fried oyster and some local bacon, which is cured here near here, and just simple ingredients revisited and brought to the table and appreciated these days.

So, yeah, that's just for beginnings.

- More and more people are really appreciating the local aspect of things and I understand that we can thank the British for some of the gardens around here.

Is that correct?

- That's what I hear that.

- That is correct.

The people were looking for fertile ground, wherever they could find it.

And so there were gardens up along Garden Street.

And if you had happened to be lucky enough to have a piece of property where native Indians had settled prior to European arrival, you would have very rich organic soil because of what they left behind.

And so people were attempting to grow, but they didn't have as much success until you got inland a bit to grow what we would typically think of as many of the vegetables that we eat today.

And a lot of the vegetables they were growing were rooted in that Old World, New World exchange.

One of my favorites is okra.

And we see okra integrated into gumbo and many recipes.

And today, of course, you know, roasted okra is a real hot ticket item on a lot of plates.

And that of course originated out of Africa.

That was brought by people from West Africa that came as enslaved people to the New World.

- And that that's one of my favorite ingredients as well is okra.

And everybody has the notion that it is kinda, has a weird texture to it.

So one of the things that I've done is I slice them super thin, just seized them a little bit and flash fry them.

They come out crispy like chips, yeah.

Awesome little new way to cook it.

- I would imagine that you're constantly coming up with new ways to cook some of the older foods.

- That is true.

For the most part, a lot of things are carried over, relishes for peaches, those kinds of things, on fish on seafood.

You know we have a plethora of seafood here on the Gulf Coast, especially right here in the coastal area.

And I'm sure Margo would agree that's what a lot of folks lived on back in the early days.

And again, this is carried into the 19th century as well.

When the red snapper, red snapper was the cap-, we were the red snapper capital in the world for, since 1880 to 1940 until they depleted that, but we've got all that under control now.

So sustainability is everything with oysters as well.

This is actually a farm raised oysters.

One of the first farm raised oysters that I had experienced in it, was an Apalachicola.

So that's what that is.

- And farm raised is sustainable.

- Farm raise is we've been farm raising oysters since 2009 successfully and steadily, not just here, but throughout the entire Gulf Coast over to Cedar Key.

And we think that that is going to help keep the wild oyster alive and while we re-nourish and rebuild beds, because it's depleting.

Apalachicola is in trouble, they shut down the bay for five years, there'll be back, but in the meantime, aquaculture is still happening.

So that's what we need.

- Thank you for your work in that area, 'cause it really takes everybody working together to make that happen, have the chefs understand what's going on.

Now, the three of you have had some experiences that I have not had.

I would love to experience some time, but let's talk about the James Beard House experience and how that all works into what we're talking about today.

- Well, that was one of the more exciting things that we've done as a community collaborative with chefs from our community, bringing the foodways of the Gulf Coast, bringing our historic foodways to New York City.

And we have been, how many times you all have been at Johnson's.

- As group, we were called the Pensacola Celebrity Chefs.

We represented and worked with visit Pensacola.

We were there four consecutive years, 2011 to 2014.

- And who is in the picture that you were looking at?

- We're looking at Gus Silivos, Frank Taylor, Jim Shirley, Dan Dunn, and myself.

- How fun!

- It was fun.

- It was fun.

Cathy Parker worked with giving the shifts foods that were here, the history of the foods, if they were Old World, New World, so that they could create menus that fused all of these foods to present a plate that really represented our Old World, New World cuisine in Pensacola, real emphasis on our marine resources.

And the UWF historic trust was involved in this, along with the Archeology Institute visit Pensacola of course, was instrumental in us going to the James Beard House.

And we took, shipped, well, we didn't take them... we shipped them boxes and boxes of Seville orange bowels from our historic village.

And so every table, every mantle in the historic James Beard house in New York City was draped in the Seville oranges from our historic community.

And it was a wonderful evening that introduced people from all around the United States that came to that dinner to Pensacola and to what the food was like here and what a welcoming place to come to visit.

- Governor Scott even came to here.

- The, he did.

And it was a great event because it allowed folks from outside of Pensacola, as well as a lot of new sources that were there that picked up on the event.

And that has really helped us, I think over the years that we've been there is that it has helped to create a sense of historical culinary tourism.

And that's something that visit Pensacola is picking up on culinary tourism, hence the whole Celebrity Chef Group to help spread the word about our history and culinary culture.

But tell me a little bit about James Beard and why it's so cool.

- Well, James Beard passed away in 1984, I do believe or close to 85, somewhere in there.

And Peter Kump opened up the James Beard, his house as a foundation.

So there suppose the reason for the foundation is to nurture American cuisine, the diverse ethnic backgrounds and everything that goes into American culture and cuisine.

- When you were at the Beard House, you had all these amazing shifts with you.

And I'm thinking for many people, it was probably their first time to hear anything about Pensacola and what an honor for you to represent this area in that way.

- Okay, so I had already been there two times before and in the early days of Jackson's and before Jackson's in 1990s, but to get the group to go together and is a hoot because everybody is, the personalities are so different, but together as a team, we all had our individual ways to present our food.

And none of us really wanted to cook old food per se, but we wanted to recreate the dishes in our manner, which is what chefs do.

- And I think Maria had asked that question actually, but even in your restaurants, I think I've seen somewhere that you've made some cool creative dishes.

Did somebody do something with hardtack at one point?

And would that have been an old food that we had?

- That was Jim Shirley, as a matter of fact, that was over at the Fish House and he made a guest spot show based on that.

And in fact, yeah, that was featured on a television program and it's one of those historical things as well.

But again, it's the whole idea of these guys, especially going back to our history and using those and making it their own to Margo's point, it's the Old World and New World cuisine.

And it's just amazing that we're able to do that.

And I will say, because I know that these guys won't brag on themselves is that to participate at the James Beard house, it is an invitation only kind of event.

It's a very prestigious thing.

And for our culinary researchers and chefs to be invited to do this, it was a really, really, really big honor for all of us.

- I can only imagine.

- It was.

It was a special place to be, and to be able to show what we have to offer.

And I will say to all of the seafood, everything was flown to New York.

It was fresh.

Fresh from the Gulf, fresh from the ground in Pensacola and zoom, zoom straight to New York and prepared and on the table.

- And people were blown away.

It was a really, really great couple of events that we had.

We thoroughly enjoyed it.

- So talking more about the foodways, and you're learning more as you go, are there some really stark differences from the food of yesterday to the foods up today?

Or just kinda maybe take us through a timeline if you could.

- That's the interesting thing about foodways is foodways is for us, it's a moment in time, it has to do with where you are, the climate, what's going on, religion, ethnic background, so yeah, it's still here today, but it's just done differently.

So I actually wrote a book called "Panhandle to Pan", and that was my slice of the panhandle in that er-, in that time, which was 2014 to 2015.

So, and Margo was kind enough to let us use her archeological Food for Thought Timeline, which was very helpful with everything that we've done.

So we tried to work off facts.

I tried to work off the facts.

I'm not a historian, but we're having fun with it as well.

So, yeah.

- Yeah, I think that's so, and I think too, people can experience every culture in Pensacola, every culinary culture.

We have restaurants that will serve you Filipino cuisine, Mexican, you can look at what we have to offer and the way foods from so many different angles and so many different restaurants in town.

And I think as we come out of the age of pandemic, how wonderful it will be for everyone to get back and really satisfy their, what they've been craving, what they've been craving and to be able to do so in a safe environment.

And it's a real win-win for our community to see everything opening back up, and people able to go out and enjoy or carry home a good deal.

- I think so.

And you work in this all the time, Maria.

How important is it for us to break bread together?

- It is so incredibly important.

It is spiritual.

It is, I believe, and I think a lot of us here have that's what makes us, it's part of the humanities.

It's what makes us human is that we are spending time together.

We're having conversation.

We are, it's so important.

And as humans, that's what makes us different.

And we crave it.

And we were just talking about before we came on about how at our restaurants, we've been very fortunate now that things are getting a little bit better, is that folks have been coming out because they crave that interaction and not just interaction, but with food and with drink because it just, we do.

- And you're all working together again with different restaurants, all over town.

And we're gonna be sharing a special drink coming up pretty soon.

I wanted to ask, or though I've had the opportunity to come to a couple of nice meals that you've done for the Spanish people that have come to the Pensacola area to visit.

Yes you have, so in that instance, do you try to show them something that was here before, or do you try to have a nod to their culture, or how does that work?

- We give them a nod to their culture and then we just kinda run with it.

And that goes with, we also did a luncheon for the King and Queen of Spain at NAS.

That was in the early days of the group of us.

And yeah, it was just, we took the items that we believed were in the culture and researched them and we just express them our way.

- And you got some good feedback.

- Yeah.

- 'Cause I saw some YouTube videos on it.

- Oh, good.

Well, we need to encourage everybody to click on those and just visiting Spain and different cultures and seeing the way things are presented there, it can be very different.

So I would imagine the fusion for people that have been, raised in the United States to be able to slowly fuse that in is probably.

- Yeah, it's an interesting dynamic amongst the chefs, because like, everybody has a different relationship.

I've been here for 40 years and Dan Dunn, I think grew up here and Gus he's Greek, and we went to school together and he's had a restaurant for years and years and years here.

And yeah.

So it's just the dynamics of all these different individuals creating new views, - Different cultures, different backgrounds, all coming together.

- It's a brotherhood and you've made a career of being a chef in so many different places.

What stands out about Pensacola to you?

- I spent most of my time, 16 years in Destin before I came over here and I really didn't wanna leave Destin, but when I discovered Pensacola and the lack of great restaurants in Pensacola, I felt it was just the right place to be.

So that's what drew me here.

And then I discovered everything else after I got here, honestly.

- Yeah, well, and it's just kind of exploded since then.

I can remember a day in Pensacola where you couldn't find anything open to eat on Sundays and you know, back in the driftwood days.

We've come a long way.

- We have.

And what I would hope people would do would be to start thinking about what's on their plate.

Go out and enjoy your dinner and think about what's on your plate and where it might have come from.

At home, make something from your family, make a treasured family recipe and do a little research, Google it up.

It doesn't take anything to see where it might've come from and share with your family a meal that represents everything that the world has to offer to us today on our plate, on our table.

- Thank goodness that we have the, yeah, absolutely.

And since we are going to drink to that, Maria is going to make a special drink.

It's called the 23-Star Salute.

And we're gonna take a look at Maria, putting that together for us and enjoy.

- So I'm here today to share a drink that we are using to celebrate our history here in Pensacola.

And it's called the 23-Star Salute.

It's a drink that's been around for a while.

There was a community group about 10 years ago that got together and wanted it to come up with something that was indicative of our history.

And one of those things is rye whiskey, because that actually happened to be Andrew Jackson's, one of his drinks.

And so we've come up with a drink that is going to be served at a number of local restaurants during the celebration and throughout the year.

And so I'm gonna walk you through on how to make that drink.

So, first of all, what we're going to do is we are going to start with the glass and we're going to start with an orange and we're going to put it in the glass, there.

We're gonna take a little bit of simple syrup, a half an ounce, squeeze that on there.

And then we are going to get our orange bitters, and we are going to do a couple little dollops on there, just like, so.

And then next is going to be the brandy, just a half ounce of that, get that in there.

And then we're gonna have a little citrus that we are going to add to the mix as well.

And then I forgot to bring my muddle today, but that's all right, we're gonna make it.

And we're just gonna softly, softly muddle the juices in there.

And then next, we are going to go for the whiskey.

(whisky guggling) And that's gonna be a one and a half ounce pour, and then I think we're missing the triple sec here, yeah.

We need a half an ounce of the triple sec.

So those are the components for the drink.

We're gonna put it in our shaker tin, grab a little bit of ice and then just pour right on top.

And so right there, my friends is the 23-Star Salute.

So we do hope that you enjoy the recipe at home.

A friend at Pensacola, Chris Thile with the Punch Brothers, he wrote a great song and had actually performed it here in Pensacola a few years ago.

And it's called "Rye Whiskey".

I encourage you to check it out, sip the drink and enjoy.

♪ Rye whisky makes the band sound better ♪ ♪ Makes your baby cuter ♪ ♪ Makes itself taste sweeter ♪ ♪ Oh, boy ♪ ♪ Rye whiskey makes your heart beat louder ♪ ♪ Makes your voice seem softer ♪ ♪ Makes the back room hotter, oh, but rhe thoughts ♪ - And here we have the 23-Star Salute.

And I think this would be a good time since we have this special commemorative drink for maybe Margo to say a few words.

- I would like to toast the people of Pensacola and Escambia County.

We have a wonderful rich and diverse heritage and history and here's to 200 years as Americans.

We're looking forward to the future.

We are Floridians.

- (all) Cheers Salute.

- Thank you.

- Well, thanks too Chef Irv Miller, Maria Goldberg and Margo Stringfield.

This has been so much fun.

And also special thanks to our earlier guest, Cathy Parker, an archeologist from UWF.

We've had an engaging look at the dinner tables of 1821 and 2021.

This program on the diversity of our culinary heritage will be available soon online at wsre.org, as well as on YouTube.

Please feel free to share it with your friends and family.

I'm Sherri Hemminghaus Weeks, thank you so much for watching.

We'll see you again soon right here on WSRE, PBS for the Gulf Coast.

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