Heritage is all about local, time-honored recipes, perfected using traditional local ingredients with gourmet touches, in this case, specifically Lowcountry dishes from South Carolina’s coastal region. The book repeatedly stresses that the success of the dishes hinge on using very specific ingredients- flours, peas, cornmeals, grits, seeds, and particularly rice from the region. There’s an especially fascinating history behind rice in South Carolina, how it was the first major cash crop, but as times changed and slavery was abolished, specific types virtually died out. If you’re interested in the history, the author of the book, Sean Brock, is heavily featured in the second season of the PBS series The Mind of a Chef narrated by Anthony Bourdain, which is available on Netflix streaming.
Only recently can you again source these regional ingredients, so I ordered a load of stuff from his vendor, Anson Mills, and set out to duplicate some Lowcountry cookin’. Of course I plated on the classic McCarty’s pottery we have made from Mississippi clay and served with iced tea in Mason jars (I’m a weak Southerner, I only lightly sweetened it).
Lowcountry Hoppin’ John
This recipe was is so important to Lowcountry cuisine, he chose to include the full recipe in the introduction. At it’s most basic, it’s something like black eyed peas and rice (look at the gross wikipedia picture if you want). But this version uses Sea Island Red Peas and Carolina Gold Rice, plus specific rice cooking techniques and a gravy made from the pea’s liquor and homemade chicken stock. It really was pretty amazing and I will be making it again. And again. 
Cracklin’ Cornbread
Yes, just skillet cornbread, but cooked with bacon bits and bacon fat, buttermilk, and most importantly, it uses Antebellum Coarse Yellow Cornmeal. It’s hard to ever go wrong with homemade cornbread, but this was very good.
Skillet Roasted Chicken with Pan Sauce
A simple recipe he suggests from the start of the book; that’s an entire half chicken on that plate, smothered in pan sauce with lots of parsley, lemon, more homemade chicken stock, and a few cloves of roasted garlic. Delicious.
Pole Beans with Tomatoes and Benne Seeds
Beans braised in vegetable broth and topped with heirloom tomatoes which were roasted in the oven for 8 hours. He calls for heirloom beans (Turkey Craw, greasy, types I hadn’t even heard of), but the best I could get was organic haricots verts, which I love, so I used those. It’s garnished with another Lowcountry classic, benne seeds (pronounced like Benny), which as I understand it are basically sesame seeds grown in the South, and that’s about what they taste like.
Grits Cooked Like a Southerner
I’ve loved grits since I was a kid, but I’ve never had them quite like this. The method for the Antebellum Coarse White Grits I ordered required an overnight soak, then a cooking technique about as elaborate as proper sushi rice. It took an hour and a half with a frequently stirred pot. It’s not the box you get at the grocery store. I followed Sean’s lead and just served them plain, with salt, a squeeze of lemon, a dash of hot sauce, and a pat of butter. Compared to what I’m used to, I noticed a huge difference in texture, and the flavor was certainly more corn than cardboard, but if this is how they used to do grits, I can see why we use quick boxed options now (but I will never buy the packets of microwave stuff, yuck).
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