Southern Cast Iron – September 2019

11 SOUTHERN CAST IRON

Chef’s Table

C

hris Coleman grew up in a small town outside of Charlotte,

North Carolina, where children played outdoors until the

streetlights turned on each night. His mother was a pianist

at their church, and his father worked for a nearby energy company.

But each year when school let out, this son of the suburbs traveled

to southern Mississippi for a summer on his grandparents’ farm.

“We called them Mawmaw and Pawpaw,” Chris recalls. “They

had horses, raised cattle, had a little pecan orchard and big fi g

tree. And Mawmaw had these massive blueberry bushes that had

gotten as tall as trees.”

It was on this farm in Purvis, Mississippi—a town of just over

2,000 inhabitants—that young Chris learned to love food. Days

began at the breakfast table where the family gathered over a

piping hot cast-iron skillet of Mawmaw's signature drop biscuits

before she and Pawpaw headed off to work. The boys spent their

time chasing cows, pelting each other with pecans, and enjoying

other youthful antics. But, come suppertime, Chris was back in the

kitchen for a lesson from his beloved grandmother.

At her careful hands, he learned how to put up preserves from

freshly picked fruits grown on the farm. He discovered the secrets

CHRIS COLEMAN

HoW oNe NoRtH CaRoLiNa cHeF kEePs mEmOrIeS aLiVe tHrOuGh fOoD

behind her crispy-bottomed cast iron biscuits, and for a sweet

treat, helped bake her snickerdoodle cookies that were always best

served warm straight from the oven.

“She’s the best cook I’ve ever met,” Chris says.

Southern born and bred, Chris’s parents were also culinary

creatives and teachers in the kitchen. His mother was born in

New Orleans and raised in Mississippi, but her Creole roots shone

brightly through her cooking. When it came to special occasions,

her famous gumbo was the star of the party. Even though she

passed away years ago, the gumbo tradition lives on through

Chris’s practiced hands.

“A lot of it wasn’t, ‘Hey, come into the kitchen, let me teach you

something,’” he says. “It was absorbed over time. I’d observe and

taste and ask how they made something.”

When he was 14 years old, Chris got a job at a fi sh camp in a

town just north of Charlotte. He mostly bussed tables and waited

on guests, but on Friday and Saturday nights, when the crowds

thickened, Chris was promoted to kitchen duty.

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