Taste the State

"South Carolina's singularly rich food tradition includes distinctive ingredients, such as the Bradford Watermelon, Sea Island White Flint Corn, Palmetto Asparagus, and Carolina Gold Rice, and signature dishes such as shrimp and grits, chicken bog, okra soup, Frogmore stew, and crab rice. Taste the State tells the stories of the most important of these ingredients and dishes in 82 engaging profiles. These portraits provide origin stories, the most classic recipes, tales of kitchen creativity and agricultural innovation, and Chef-Scholar Kevin Mitchell's distillation of traditions in several hallmark recipes. Taste the State explores the food of every part of South Carolina-the famous rice and seafood dishes of the Lowcountry; the Pee Dee's catfish and Pinebark stews; the smothered cabbage, pumpkin, and mustard-based barbecue of the Dutch Fork and Orangeburg; the red chicken stew of the midlands; the chestnuts, chinquapins, and corn bread recipes of mountain west. Contributions of Native peoples (hominy grits, squashes, beans), the Gullah-Geechee (field peas, okra, guinea squash, rice, sorghum), and European settlers (garden vegetables, grains, pigs, cattle) in the mixture of ingred