Southern Fork Sustenance: A Conversation with Chef Scott Peacock (Marion, AL)

The Southern Fork

Alabama native Scott Peacock is a James Beard Award-winning chef and one of the foremost authorities on American Southern cuisine. He might be best known for his work at Watershed restaurant in Decatur, Georgia, and his partnership with culinary icon Edna Lewis, but his recipes and writing have appeared in numerous publications as well, including The New York Times, Better Homes & Gardens, Gourmet, Food & Wine, and Bon Appetit. Although I was very aware of his reputation, it was through one of those recipes that I first personally encountered Scott, since I believe recipes well-written by one and well-executed by another become a sort of strange collaborative alchemy. Soon we connected further over the familiarities of food, common friends, and special Southern locales, and one such place for Scott is Marion, Alabama—the heart of Alabama’s Black Belt region — where he has opened the historic kitchens of Reverie mansion for the Black Belt Biscuit Experience. These intimate, small-group workshops on the fine art of traditional Southern biscuit-making are built on his celebrated biscuits that have been on the covers of Gourmet and Food & Wine, and which Food & Wine named one of their 40 best recipes ever published, but the class is as much meditation as it is method. I could think of no better baking and conversation partner to end this year’s Southern Fork Summer Tour, and here he invites us deep beyond ingredients and techniques into the art of presence, the commitment to a creative path, and the power of passionate attention to detail.