This is an edited
extract from
Dispatches,
edited by René
Redzepi and Chris
Ying (Workman,
$29.99, pbk).advocacy of Southern food for luring him to the region
and keeping him there for three and a half years.
“I used to think that Southern cuisine was just fried
chicken and barbecue, but it’s actually an incredibly
refined way of cooking that’s taken its influences from
the Huguenots, from the Jewish settlers, and especially
in Charleston, from the Gullah people,” says McGlone.
Southern cuisine is, in fact, a cuisine that is
especially black – African – in that the food was grown,
cultivated, processed, improved, prepared and served
by West African people and their descendants. “It’s not
from my culture,” he says. “I just gravitated toward it.”
In many places, but particularly in America, this
is where things can get tricky. Anyone can gravitate
toward a culture, and “Southern culture” contains
a sprawling, nebulous multitude: everyone from trap
rappers to rural squirrel hunters will talk about their
love for the culture, land and food of the South. But
it’s easy to misappropriate culture, too. There is a
distinct pattern in the United States, wherein African
American chefs struggle to find parity with their white
counterparts in terms of recognition, funding and
reward. Both codified and unspoken social policies
ensured that the black women who worked as waiter
carriers in the 19th century never saw their business
become a global franchise.
Brock, McGlone’s mentor, has had to walk
a careful line in trying to show appreciation and
deference to the black Southern cooks who came
before him while still becoming a prominent
proponent. And while Brock grew up in the South,
McGlone is one step further removed – an immigrant
of Polynesian and European descent, who sells hot
chicken on the other side of the world.M
cGlone is a talented chef. He’s beloved
all across the restaurant world. He has
studied the nuanced levels of hot chicken
spiciness, the benefits of flour hydration,
and how oil temperature affects the crispness of
his chicken. He acknowledges the lineage of black
American entrepreneurs who invented and popularised
hot chicken. He is an engaged citizen of the world, who
speaks four languages. His chicken has won dedicated
fans from Australia as well as visitors from America
and other parts of the globe. He is proud to say his
beans, greens and macaroni and cheese are faithful
to the recipes he learned in the South. He likes to
feed people, and to eat his cooking is a joyful thing.
But American fried chicken will always be
tied inextricably to race and the violent, egregious
exploitation of black Americans. Outside of the
United States, this complex food can seem dissociated
from its history.
“First they want to make sure that it’s delicious,”
says McGlone of his diners at Belles. “And then they
want to make sure that it has provenance, and then
they want to make sure that it’s a continuation, that
it means something.”
And there, McGlone has landed on the two
questions that give all food consequence: Is it tasty?
And does it mean something?
With fried chicken, the taste question is moot.
Vegetarians notwithstanding, everyone loves fried
chicken. Some fried chicken is better than others, but
even bad fried chicken is better than none. Everyone
who wants to cook fried chicken should. Everyone
who wants to sell American-style fried chicken ought
to be able to give the market a try. Fried chicken is
eaten all over the planet. People from completely
opposite sides of the socioeconomic and political
spectrum, who might agree on almost nothing,
can agree that fried chicken is good.
With its deliciousness unquestionable, all that
remains is what fried chicken means. No matter where
it’s cooked, American fried chicken carries the learning
and effort and skill of a people who persevered against
unfathomable odds. That Southern hue follows fried
chicken all the way to Melbourne and Sydney, too. And
therein lies an incredible opportunity. If everyone can
agree to share fried chicken, then perhaps that’s a step
toward sharing the weight of its complex legacy as well. GOURMET TRAVELLER 79