Join the UNC Charlotte Center for the Study of the New South, The UNC Charlotte Botanical Gardens, and the UNC Charlotte Urban Institute for a Virtual Opening of the Carolina Garden Trail! Before the trail physically opens next year we are getting people into the mood to discuss food! Speakers will include Chef Kevin Mitchell and Dr. David Shields. Find out more about them below!
Kevin Mitchell
In December of 2008 Chef Mitchell became the first African American Chef Instructor at the Culinary Institute of Charleston located within Trident Technical College in Charleston, South Carolina. At the Institute Chef Mitchell is involved in designing new curriculum for new students as well as teaching classes. Chef Mitchell ran the test kitchen for the Gullah Cuisine cookbook, authored by Chef Charlotte Jenkins of Gullah Cuisine restaurant in Mt. Pleasant, SC., and published by Joggling Board Press. Working with Chef Jenkins, he tested all the recipes for the book. In April 2015, Chef Mitchell was Chef Coordinator for Nat Fuller’s Feast, a recreation of a banquet held in Charleston in 1865 by renowned chef and caterer Nat Fuller. The original feast, held at Fuller’s famous Bachelor’s Retreat restaurant, was the first to bring together both black and white patrons to break bread in a celebration of the end of the Civil War.
In August 2016 Chef Mitchell began his graduate studies at the University of Mississippi and graduated in 2018. There he focused on Southern Foodways, the preservation of Southern ingredients and the history of African Americans in the culinary arts. In August of 2016 Chef Mitchell also became a Nathalie Dupree Graduate Fellow of the Southern Foodways Alliance. The mission of the SFA is to document, study, and explore the diverse food cultures of the changing American South. Our work sets a welcome table where all may consider our history and our future in a spirit of respect and reconciliation.
In 2017 Chef Mitchell was featured in the Emmy nominated Hailstorm Dabney, a documentary based on the life of John Dabney. John Dabney was a renowned African American restauranteur in 19th-century Richmond Virginia. https://www.hailstormdabney.com/watch In 2019 Chef was contracted by the University of South Carolina Press to write a book that addresses South Carolina products and dishes. He will write this book with Dr. David Shields, professor at the University of South Carolina
At the end of 2019 Chef Mitchell was appointed by the governor of South Carolina as a South Carolina Chef Ambassador. Every year, a Chef Ambassador is selected from the state’s four regions: the Upstate, Midlands, Pee Dee, and the Lowcountry. Each Chef Ambassador’s professional creativity and personal style is contributed to an ongoing effort to promote the state’s authentic culinary experiences and encourage the incorporation of buying local into every day meal planning – all while bringing a taste of the Palmetto State to dinner tables across the state and increasing demand for the best of what South Carolina has to offer. The Chef Ambassadors work closely with the South Carolina Department of Agriculture (SCDA) and South Carolina Parks, Recreation and Tourism (SCPRT) by attending and participating in a variety of public events, performing cooking demonstrations, taking part in educational discussions on establishing healthy eating habits for children, and showcasing the best of South Carolina’s bounty in both agriculture and tourism.
Chef Mitchell has also has held several lectures on his work uncovering the stories of formerly enslaved and freed cooks and his master’s thesis “FROM BLACK HANDS TO WHITE MOUTHS: CHARLESTON’S FREED AND ENSLAVED COOKS AND THEIR INFLUENCE ON THE FOOD OF THE SOUTH
David Shields
David S. Shields is the Carolina Distinguished Professor at the University of South Carolina and Chairman of the Carolina Gold Rice Foundation, the non-profit that restored many key ingredients to southern cooking. An historian of agriculture and food preparation, Shields published Southern Provisions, on the Creation and Revival of a Cuisine (Univ. of Chicago Press, 2015) and The Culinarians: Lives & Careers from the first Age of American Fine Dining. In 2021 the University of South Carolina Press will publish Taste the State Signature Foods of South Carolina and their Stories, a guide co-written with Kevin Mitchell. For his work Shields has won the Southern Foodways Alliance’s “Keeper of the Flame” and the Slow Food USA “Snail Blazer of Biodiversity.” In 2018 he was a finalist for the James Beard book award in food scholarship. Shields also publishes books in the areas of history of photography and early American print culture. His nickname in Southern food circles is “the flavor saver.”
Participants Receive Access To:
“Making an Edible South” a video with Dr. David Shields and Chef Kevin Mitchell.
Join Dr. David Shields, University of South Carolina, and Mr. Kevin Mitchell, Chef Instructor, Culinary Institute of Charleston, for the ongoing launch of the Carolina Garden Trail in the Botanical Gardens at UNC Charlotte. The team will take you on a virtual tour of the garden to highlight what it takes to make an edible South. While much of what the population who resided
in the Carolinas over the past two and a half centuries came from earlier cultures and traditions—whether Native, European, or African—there was an attempt to go beyond the inherited crops, making new things, better suited to growing in the Southern landscape and more reflective of the new foodways being created from the mix of peoples. In every period there were important new items that would become beloved. Shields and Mitchell will focus on three crops: dent corn, asparagus, and Clemson Spineless okra, to discuss how these plants were used in Southern cuisine. Mitchell might even share a recipe or two!
Live Zoom discussion: “The Carolina Garden Trail Conversation with the Experts” a virtual Zoom meeting panel discussion about the Carolina Garden Trail.
When:
Starting on October 19 “Making an Edible South” will be available for viewing.
On Friday, October 23, 2020 at 12:00 p.m. Eastern time a Live Panel Discussion via Zoom with Dr. David Shields and Chef Kevin Mitchell will occur .
Cost:
$5 gives you access to the Zoom meetings and the educational videos! Gardens’ members are free, but must register.
How:
Register at
and you will receive a link and password to access the prerecorded video and live zoom meeting links.
This project is made possible by the North Carolina Humanities Council.
About the Trail
UNC Charlotte Botanical Gardens’ Historical Trail To Interpret Cultures
North Carolina Humanities Council Supports University Collaborators’ Garden
An outdoor, living exhibit is on its way to the UNC Charlotte campus to tell the story of North Carolina through plants and crops crucial to the state’s development.
A team composed of the university’s Center for the Study of the New South,
Botanical Gardens, and Urban Institute received a grant from the North Carolina Humanities Council for the project, “Walking Through Carolina: An Outdoor Living Exhibit.” The project was one of three chosen statewide to receive support through the Council’s 2019 large grant program for community based public humanities programs.
By interpreting North Carolina’s diverse cultures through a historical garden trail, the UNC Charlotte project will illustrate how plants speak universally. The trail will tell the story of North Carolina through these plants and crops.
“Crops were brought here by many cultures and have evocative stories to
tell,” said Ashli Stokes, director of the Center for the Study of the New South. “Visitors will learn how plants were used in different communities, with experts hosting events to encourage intergenerational conversation. By fostering connections between nature and citizenship, our exhibit will spark engagement about being a North Carolinian.”
The Trail will provide a type of universal language, allowing people from varying ages and backgrounds to gain knowledge about their shared histories, Stokes said. This will be particularly true as visitors consider how plants have been used in differing – and similar – ways by people of diverse cultures, generations, and geographies.
The university’s Urban Institute has moved to the renovated Sycamore building, which is adjacent to the Botanical Gardens and the site of the new trail. Urban Institute Director Jeff Michael noted, “We see the partnership with the Center for the Study of the New South and the Botanical Gardens as an exciting opportunity to expand our mission of helping the public better understand the Charlotte region, with the trail being an exciting way to engage our visitors and partners in understanding the region’s cultural and natural heritage.”
The Carolina Garden Trail will provide additional green space and opportunities for UNC Charlotte students, faculty, and staff and community members to engage in experiential learning and volunteerism. Students will gain research, writing and hands-on gardening experiences, while professors will be able to incorporate this space and other garden spaces into their teaching, research and community engagement.
Construction has already begun on the trail in the Botanical Gardens. The
team is scheduling community events, starting in 2020. Plans call for regional and national speakers who will interpret the trail through its connections to common foodways. Other plans call for an interactive online map and in-depth information in print and online, such as podcasts and other media platforms.
The North Carolina Humanities Council is a statewide nonprofit and affiliate of the National Endowment for the Humanities. Through grant-making and public humanities programs, the Council serves as an advocate for lifelong learning and thoughtful dialogue about our shared human experience. While UNC Charlotte College of Liberal Arts & Sciences Dean Nancy Gutierrez is the chair elect of the Council Trustees, she was not part of the review process for this grant.
Words: Robin Rothberg
Image: Lynn Roberson
Links:
nchumanities.org
gardens.uncc.edu
newsouth.uncc.edu
ui.uncc.edu