Where food and history meet
Hey Y'all! Here's my Undiscovered Charleston April menu. Are you coming to visit Charleston, SC, want to take a food tour and are passionate about food and history? Then read on! What a fantastic April we've had on our Undiscovered Charleston food and history tour! We had great guests joining us from Toronto, the San …
Long before I started the best food tour in Charleston I shared some insights in Mt, Pleasant magazine. In particular, amongst our lost flavors, I particularly relish sharing the story of the Lazarus-like resurrection of the Bradford Watermelon:(excerpt as originally published in Mt. Pleasant magazine, 7/2015) Nat Bradford’s in the process of moving his family back …
“Nihil sub sol novum.” (There’s nothing new under the sun.)The first phrase in Latin I learned to utter as a young student.Difficult times to be sure. For us all, both here in Charleston and off, there is a sense that we’ve seen this all before. Understandably, anger has roiled up into an outright hurricane of …
Continue reading "Southern Food: Reconciling Past & Present"
Dear Undiscovered Charleston Family, As a career chef of over 25 years, hospitality has always been deep in my DNA. My Undiscovered Charleston is a tiny business built around my sincere belief that as a chef my #1 responsibility has always been taking care of my team and my guests. More than ever, this is …
This is not a post about Charleston, food tours or historic walking tours. But after 25 years in restaurant kitchens, I’m still in love. I love kitchens, and the gifted artisans, technicians, miscreants and psychopaths that inhabit them. No one ever summed up this life and these people so smartly or succinctly as Anthony Bourdain. …
Where do Charleston Chefs eat? Bertha's is a favorite of Undiscovered Charleston founder Chef Forrest Parker's. It's been recognized by the James Beard Awards and their okra soup has been named by Garden and Gun magazine as "One of the 100 Southern foods you must eat before you die." Guests on our Undiscovered Charleston: Food …
Continue reading "Free! A Chef’s Guide to Undiscovered Charleston"
Here’s a post from our good friends at Slow Food USA. Chef Forrest Parker is often asked what exactly sets the restaurant scene in Charleston apart from anywhere else. It really is about this process of Revival; the repatriation of grains, vegetables, fruits & legumes specific to the history of South Carolina. This process in …
Santa Elena Style, 1566, from An Imaginary Spain. (as previously printed in the Charleston City Paper.) Our Undiscovered Charleston tour guests as well as readers of Charleston's City Paper have asked for my gazpacho recipe. CCP was kind enough to publish it. The knifework can take some time but the presentation is awesome, especially if …
As previously published by Charleston City Paper, 8/28/2019: Undiscovered Charleston's Santa Elena Gazpacho 1566 The secret history of gazpacho and its ties to the Lowcountry A Palmetto Duende By Forrest Parker Gazpacho comes from South Carolina. You heard me right. At least, that's what I've been thinking this might point toward. In 2015, my pitch …
This Summer, I find myself returning to Italy, to the hidden gem called Le Marche. Situated between the Apennines and the Adriatic, this often overlooked state is a gastronomic utopia. The merroir of the sparkling azure Adriatic to the East is tasted in the local mantis shrimp and a profusion of crustaceans. The rolling plains …