Published 4:17 pm Monday, July 22, 2024 By Staff Reports By Jim Beaugez Growing up in central Mississippi, chef Nick Wallace admired the work his uncles put into raising crops as much as the lengths his grandmother went to preserving the fruits, vegetables and meats that fed them year-round. “This right here starts with me being a little kid with my grandmother on a farm in Edwards,” says Wallace, who has appeared on Food Network shows like “Cutthroat Kitchen” and “Top Chef,” and won season 34 of “Chopped” in 2017. “When you sit down and eat food, it tastes better when you can talk about that journey, and you can talk about why and how did this get right here on my plate.
It’s just such a beautiful thing.” Preservation was a continual theme on the family farm. In the smokehouse, Wallace’s grandmother cured pork, beef and chicken, including specialties like sausages, chicken feet and pig ears that his uncles could eat as snacks when working the farm plot or in the woods — “a charcuterie, in a sense,” he says.
“That’s the power of preservation, though. You’re always going to have to create several different things. You can sit at home and have one of these lovely meals that has bread crackers, maybe some shaved meats, some cheeses, some jam, some hot sauce.
I honestly can’t picture a better meal than having a preservation table.” The preservation theme will carry over to Wallace’s talk and demonstration at Catfish Row Museum Saturday at.