How Did Columbia Become a Cool Food City?
April 11, 2013
By Tracie Broom
Slow Food Columbia Board of Directors
Columbia, SC
April 12, 2013
Anyone who’s in on Midlands food culture can tell you: it’s blowing up around here. Our sustainability-minded chefs and food leaders are being featured on the Cooking Channel, in Town & Country, New York Magazine, Conde Nast Traveler, US Airways Magazine, Garden & Gun, TheLocalPalate.com, SouthernLiving.com, and more. A high-quality culinary experience is no longer the sole domain of foodie destinations like Charleston or Asheville. How did this happen?
I’ll hand over this food column each week to one of the pioneers who’s had a part in transforming Columbia into a food town, so that they can crow about their favorite local, seasonal ingredients.
A large handful of green business pioneers can take the credit for raising the bar in Cola. There’s no room to list them all here, but a few of the bigger guns include Emile DeFelice, owner of Caw Caw Creek Pastured Pork and founder of Soda City Market on Main Street (f.k.a. The All-Local Farmers’ Market), and Basil Garzia, who has been selling organics at Rosewood Market and Deli for over 20 years.
At Slow Food Columbia, where I serve on the board, we love to throw our Slow Food at Indie Grits party (coming up this Sunday, April 14) to highlight the chefs who walk the walk and buy in quantity from farms that aren’t just local but also sustainable. What is sustainable? We define it as good, clean and fair, or as close to organic as possible, if not certified organic, an expensive, difficult status reached recently by City Roots urban farm in Rosewood. (Congrats, guys!)
Sustainable Chefs Are Leading the Way
Mike Davis, Chef/Owner at Terra, has cooked at the James Beard House, was an early Slow Food supporter, and works with sustainable farms all over the state. Kristian Niemi, owner of Rosso Trattoria and the soon-to-open Bourbon on Main Street, is a regular host of the Nose-to-Tail dinner series at City Roots and tweets regularly about the horrors of farmed salmon – and the glory of making your own soap from rendered fat from the kitchen. Ricky Mollohan’s menus at Cellar on Greene, Solstice and Mr. Friendly’s always feature something from City Roots or an it producer like GA’s Sweet Grass Dairy.
Chef Scott Hall decided that his Bone-In Artisan BBQ on Wheels food truck would use sustainable ingredients like City Roots vegetables and pleasingly bizarre ingredients to entice repeat visits and food blogger interest. He has since ended up starring in national food shows including Eat St. and Man Fire Food on the Cooking Channel.
Green Business is Paying Off
Motor Supply is seeing revenues go through the roof as a result of investing in farms that go above and beyond to be organic or near-organic. Tim Peters, Executive Chef, and the bistro’s owner, Eddie Wales, have teamed up to prioritize buying in bulk from small, sustainable farms, as well as decorating with flowers grown in Lexington, SC at Floral and Hardy Farms, giving head barman Josh Streetman free reign to pimp out the cocktail list with farm-fresh ingredients, and outfitting tables with wine bottle votives from Mr. B’s Sustainable Glassworks. All of this, one would think, could put a dent in profits. Actually, revenues are higher than ever at Motor Supply.
It’s a no-brainer for us to choose small, sustainable farms like Wil-Moore, Doko and Caw Caw Creek for our chicken, lamb, and pork, for example, says Peters. It’s not just that they treat their animals humanely – the actual product tastes miles better than what you get from mass-production suppliers.
Wales is thrilled. Owning a green business in Columbia, SC is great. You can feel the enthusiasm for sustainable projects coming from City Hall and the State House, and our customers are rewarding our decisions by coming back for more. In addition, Wales has seen a notable uptick in business travelers, many of whom have learned about Columbia’s food scene from a growing body of positive reviews on TripAdvisor, Yelp, Foodspotting, OpenTable and UrbanSpoon.
A Strong Foodie Community
It doesn’t hurt that we have a highly active group of local food writers who cover our sustainable restaurants and farms, including The Shop Tart‘s Anne Postic, the Free Times‘ Eva Moore, Jonathan Sharpe and Tug Baker, The State‘s Otis Taylor, Jr. and Susan Ardis, SC Insider‘s Gwen Fowler, and Skirt!‘s Jenny Maxwell, not to mention magazines like Columbia Metropolitan and lifestyle bloggers like Shani Gilchrist, Jimmy Sobeck, April Blake, Teowonna Clifton, Laura Aboyan, Eb Looney, and Shanika Pichey. We also have wild foraging, backyard farming, and heirloom tomato growing groups on Facebook, as well as local food initiatives in the works by great orgs like Sustainable Midlands and the Carolina Farm Stewards Association. What other entities do you recognize to be leaders in greening up the food scene?
The more of that tasty, sustainably produced food our restaurants serve, the more small, organic and near-organic farmers can be supported – and the more Columbia will be known as a destination for a fabulous dining experience. As our reputation grows for high quality of life, the Midlands will attract more talented knowledge economy workers and the companies that employ them. Win-win.
The Next Big Foodie Party: This Sunday, April 14
This Sunday, April 14, join me and 250 of your food-loving brethren from 4-7pm at the market building next to 701 Whaley to enjoy tasting tables with the most sustainable chefs in town, plus a Slow Food community potluck that will rock your socks. The Greater Columbia Society for the Preservation of Soul is DJing, and The Whig will be selling beer from Columbia’s spanking new Conquest Brewery (with brewmasters on site) as well as Ridgeland, SC’s new River Dog brewery. Tickets for Slow Food at Indie Grits are $20, $15 and $10 and can be bought at http://www.indiegrits.com/food.
Full disclosure: The Indie Grits Festival and Bone-In Artisan BBQ on Wheels are past clients of my PR firm, Flock and Rally. Motor Supply is a current client. Slow Food at Indie Grits is a 100% volunteer-run fundraiser for Slow Food Columbia and The Nickelodeon Theatre.
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