Keeping Lore Alive

There were no red carpets, stylists, publicists or paparazzi, and no tearful speechifying, but five local dining institutions walked away winners when the Southern Foodways Alliance honored the Guardians of the Tradition at its recent Camp Nashville event. The award celebrates cooks, chefs, restaurateurs and others whose work has kept alive the tradition of Southern food. Recognized as the torchbearers for hot chicken, fried pies, pig’s feet, biscuits and gravy, cornbread, beans, greens, banana pudding and sweet tea were 88-year-old E.W. Mayo, founder of Mayo’s Fried Pies and Mahalia Jackson’s Chicken; André Jeffries, current owner and niece of the crown prince of Prince’s Hot Chicken Shack; David Swett, grandson of the original owners of Swett’s, Walter and Susie; 83-year-old Hap Townes, whose father—who also happened to be Hap—opened a mobile food cart in 1921 that became an iconic Nashville lunchroom until Hap the Younger retired in 1985; and Arnold’s Country Kitchen, downtown’s most popular meat-and-three. To read Nashville’s culinary history as told by the Guardians of Tradition, visit www.southernfoodways.com, click Oral History, then Nashville Eats. The interviews capture anecdotes of the foods unique to Nashville, as well as the characters, culture and traditions that are fast slipping away. In vinea veritas The red-painted plywood at the southernmost end of the strip center that most famously houses Mafiaoza’s has finally been replaced by glass, heightening anticipation in the 12South neighborhood for the wine store that has been “coming soon” for nearly a year. By the end of September, residents will be able to stroll to Vinea—Latin for City of Wine—and select a bottle of vino to accompany the cheese, meat and pastas at Corrieri’s Formaggeria around the corner. Vinea—also owned by Brett Corrieri, and located between an Italian market and a pizzeria—will offer a discriminating selection of Italian wines amid an inventory that will encompass all the wine regions of the world. According to general manager Mark Johnson—who spent eight years overseeing the wines at Sunset Grill—prices will range from $9 to $900, but the vast majority will range between $9 and $30. Vinea will have a temperature-controlled room for collectible bottles, will track customers’ purchases and preferences, and will keep wine lists from local restaurants on hand for reference.   Wine Down Main Street, Franklin’s annual event that invites participants to stroll Main Street while sipping and snacking on foods from local restaurants, has added two vintner’s dinners leading up to the Nov. 3 fundraiser. The first takes place Sept. 14 in the showroom of Hallmark Volkswagen in Cool Springs. Food will be prepared by Providence Farms of Franklin and will feature five wines from Gustavo Thrace, a boutique winery established in 1996. Thrace Bromberger, partner in the winery, will be present to discuss the Napa Valley vineyard and its wines. A second vintner’s dinner, Nov. 1 at Sandy’s Downtown Grille, will feature wines from Napa vineyard Bourassa Wines, which produces handcrafted wines in small lots. Tickets ($100 and $125, respectively) can be purchased at www.winedownmainstreet.com. Now in its sixth year, Wine Down Main Street benefits the Boys & Girls Club of Franklin and Williamson County. The event has sold out every year, so make reservations early. Pasta perfect Fans of the one-bowl meal concept will find what they’re looking for at Bread & Company’s Belle Meade store, which has just added pasta to its menu seven nights a week from 5:30 to 8:30 p.m. Priced from $9 to $10.95, the six-pack of choices titled “Chef Favorites…Don’t Think, Just Order” includes spaghetti with meat sauce (made with ground turkey rather than beef) and mushrooms; penne and chicken Alfredo with mushrooms, artichoke hearts and sun-dried tomatoes; vegetarian pasta Alfredo with broccoli, artichoke hearts, mushrooms and mixed peppers; penne with sautéed shrimp, mushrooms, onions, spinach and sun-dried tomatoes and finished with white wine and feta cheese; penne Alfredo with shrimp and andouille sausage; and Cajun fettuccini with andouille sausage, chicken, mushrooms, mixed peppers and Roma tomatoes. Or diners can use their noodles to design personal bowls of pasta. Start with chicken stock, olive oil or white wine; choose fettuccini, penne or spaghetti; then add a sauce, meat, vegetables and seasoning. Bread & Company, 6051 Hwy. 100, 627-4800. Up in smoke While the state of Tennessee and its 95 counties may never inhibit the use of one of its most profitable agricultural products by imposing a ban on smoking in bars and restaurants, it is increasingly difficult in Nashville for smokers to light up in places that lean toward fine food. Many of the restaurants that have opened in the past couple years have set their own policies from the start, among them Tayst, Radius 10 and Watermark (or confined it to outdoor patios, as the last two have done). Recently, the trend toward clean air is spreading to established eateries. Firefly, whose cozy European-style bar was a favorite among the cigarette set, went smoke-free in the beginning of August and on Sept. 5 will be joined by Midtown Café and Tin Angel. Ashtray removal isn’t the only operational change at these two restaurants. Tin Angel has begun taking lunch reservations for parties of six or more and has instituted call-ahead seating at dinner. The completion of a separate 32-seat dining area with its own kitchen means the restaurant—one of the independent success stories on West End Avenue—can host private lunch and dinner parties, meetings, sales presentations and wine tastings. Owner Rick Bolsom says the fall menu will be in place by the end of September. Midtown Café is completing a $100,000 renovation of the kitchen, upgrading equipment and increasing elbow room in the notoriously tight space. The fall menu remains under construction with creative input from two new sous chefs, William Green from Acorn and Harold Osborne previously of Wild Boar and Zola. Executive chef Brian Uhl, who also oversees the food at Midtown siblings Sunset Grill and Cabana, will overhaul the menu extensively when he returns from foot surgery. Help wanted Nashville Originals, the independent restaurant group that kicked off nearly a year ago, has added two new features to its website. An events calendar will list everything from wine dinners to educational seminars at member restaurants, and a Job Board should prove a boon to restaurant owners seeking help and to foodies seeking news of comings and goings in local kitchens. Click on www.nashvilleoriginals.com to check out both.