农业+生活方式

Farm talk with celebrity chef, Kevin Gillespie

Posted on March 30, 2018 12:00 AM

Maybe you’ve heard Chef Kevin Gillespie’s name from the television show “Top Chef.或者你可能在他在亚特兰大开的两家餐厅——Gunshow和Revival——里吃过饭. 如果你没听说过他, 在这里，你有机会了解这位迷人的乔治亚州厨师，他因独特而新鲜的农场养殖方式而成为头条新闻，并获得了全国的关注, 工匠的食物.

Kevin Gillespie grew up in Locust Grove, just south of Atlanta. He began his culinary education at the Art Institute of Atlanta, and then went on to work in restaurants in Atlanta, 波特兰也是如此, 俄勒冈州. 在亚特兰大的Woodfire Grill工作期间，他的事业真正开始起飞. 从那时起, he’s been named to Forbes “30 Under 30” list, 并且不止一次进入詹姆斯比尔德奖的“年度新星厨师”半决赛.

在他的荣誉中, Gillespie has remained true to his Georgia roots, 他热衷于推广农场养殖的食品和当地采购的食材，并因此而名声大噪. We sat down with Gillespie to talk about his career, the importance of farming and what makes Georgia cuisine stand out.

Why did you choose to start your career here in Georgia?

I grew up in Locust Grove in Henry County, which is now a suburb of Atlanta. When I was a kid, it definitely wasn’t. It was wide open fields and kind of in the middle of nowhere. 小时候, I wanted to be more in the action, 所以当我18岁的时候, 我在职业生涯的初期搬到了亚特兰大，在那里工作，但我觉得我需要看到一些其他的东西.

My mentor suggested that the best thing for a chef to do is to uproot, to go somewhere and see a cuisine that’s unlike what you’re doing here, to try to learn something by being ensconced in the environment. 所以，我搬到了俄勒冈州. After many years of being out there, 我发现我开始准备的食物里有很多南方的元素, and it didn’t really resonate with folks out there.

This was before the big explosion in popularity of Southern food, and people didn’t really understand the ingredients, they didn’t really understand the approach to cooking, 所以我知道，我该回亚特兰大去，在那里试着干自己的事了. It’s one of the best decisions I have ever made.

What’s your relationship with agriculture and farming?

这很有趣，因为我娶了一个女人(瓦莱丽)，她的兄弟、父亲、祖父和整个家族一直都是农民，他们现在还在种地. They’re located in Missouri growing crops such as corn, soybeans and wheat. 我已经了解了大量种植这些东西的实际情况.

I grew up in a family that grew their own vegetables to feed our family. 我们有100英亩土地, basically a football field-size garden, that my parents and all my aunts and uncles kept, 照料和使用. 我们都住在同一条街上. So, I’ve gotten to see it from two different sides: that very small, 几乎精品花园, all the way up to the realities of real life, 商业化的农业.

What role do chefs play in the local food economy?

Chefs have a really important role. 人们通常首先没有意识到的一件事是，许多趋势——从杂货店或农贸市场买到的东西到消费者的需求——都是从餐馆开始的. The trend for everybody wanting kale started in a restaurant; it’s not just pulled out of thin air.

因此，厨师在人们想吃什么的问题上有很大的发言权? 他们在寻找什么? 厨师有责任为他们的客人提供他们知道当地有的东西, 这是当季的, and that is the best version of something that they can possibly get. It’s sort of a give-and-take relationship, I’d say.

作为一名厨师，重要的是要尽职尽责，与你的食物来源建立关系. Ideally, in our world we love to purchase directly from the farm. We like to make that possible, but it’s also very difficult. 有很多元素可以从地里的作物变成可出售的商品. 我们在亚特兰大很幸运，我们有专门填补这一空白的人, 他们四处奔波，从当地农民那里拿东西，让我们有机会获得超本地和超季节性的东西.

What are the benefits of buying directly from farms?

Buying direct has a lot of benefits for both sides. Obviously, there’s an economics component to it. Theoretically, it saves us money. 当付诸实践时, 我不知道实际情况是否如此，因为我们总是尽我们所能做到最好, so we really take the money part a little bit out of the equation. But the part that we do care about, 从经济角度来看, is that we’re putting money directly into our local economy. So rather than sending our money afar, and maybe having no idea what happens to it, I like the idea of buying something from somebody.

I also think the other side to that, 为了农场, 能够直接看到将要使用他们产品的人想要什么，这是否灌输了一点市场经济思想的心态. So, it helps them to understand what they can sell. 我记得几年前有一个非常年轻的创业农民，我希望他能成功，但他有点天真. 他心想, I’ll grow whatever I want to grow, 而不是去考虑产品最终会去哪里以及它将如何被使用.

我认为在完美的情况下，当你直接从农民那里购买时，这是一种对话. People tell you what they like to grow and what they grow well; you tell them what you like to use and what you like to prepare, and hopefully there’s some symbiosis in the middle.

We have to condition ourselves to think of seasonal produce as special. Be excited about the fact that it’s not available all the time, 而不是从另一个角度来看，你只是因为在冬天买不到好番茄而烦恼. You know that’s what makes summer tomatoes so special.

随着农民越来越少，人口越来越多，厨师如何发挥作用?

我认为厨师可以做几件事，因为成为农民的愿望正在消失，这是一个非常现实的问题. 我从两方面都听到了. I hear it from the local farmers who are trying to grow vegetables, 我从我的姐夫和岳父那里听到这一点，他们一直指出，现在当农民真的很难. 当一名农民从来都不容易，但肯定是越来越难了.

What I think has to take place to right the ship, 在某种程度上, is that there has to be a commitment on several levels. 这里有一个关于厨师能做什么的想法，以及我们在一些农场尝试做的事情. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t. I think people are still a little hesitant to this idea, 但如果餐馆承诺购买农场能种植的所有东西，并说, 看, if you’ll grow the stuff we know we can use, I’ll buy 100 percent of your crop. And if that’s 1,000 pounds, great! And if it’s 100 pounds, that’s ok, too! And the knowledge that things aren’t going to go to waste, 这种劳动有一个最终的结果, I think that’s a huge piece of it.

我认为他们可以做的另一件事是我们一直在做的，我之前提到过. There’s an educational component for your restaurant’s guests. 让他们渴望某些食物, 但是给他们食物，他们满足这种渴望的直接途径就是去当地的农贸市场从那些农民那里买东西. 当我们需要更多的美国农民种植农产品时，让你的客人对秘鲁的芦笋上瘾是没有帮助的. It’s being cognizant of our climate and our economy and working with that.

What sets Georgia’s cuisine apart from the rest of the South?

从烹饪的角度来看，乔治亚州非常有趣因为我们有两种非常独特的南方食物在这个州融合在一起. We have the lower sort of coastal, 我称之为“种植园美食”,” that 看s a lot more like light, contemporary European cuisine than it does Southern food. Then we have the Appalachian cookery, which is what most people think of as country cooking and Southern cuisine. In Atlanta those two things collide because of the history of the city, and it’s not weird to share a menu with those cuisines.

Add into that the fact that Georgia is in a really great place, 尤其是亚特兰大地区, for its accessibility to farms and farmers. 你真的没有理由不能从这里得到你所需要的绝大多数东西. We have a fairly mild climate – sure it gets cold, 当然天气很热，但我们的通道比这个国家的许多其他地区都要热. I just think that means our cuisine should be very vegetable-heavy. Even though I’m known as the meat guy, the guy who cooks a lot of meat, deceptively I use a lot of vegetables in my food.

我还认为，我们应该吸取这两种不同风格的南方菜的元素，并将它们与我所认为的亚特兰大菜融合在一起, which is the cuisine of the rest of the world. 亚特兰大是一个商业贸易的城市，这里的大部分人口都不是本地人. 所以, taking those influences and kind of making a really interesting melting pot, to me that’s what makes our cuisine distinctive and unique.

*Interview edited for space and clarity.