Interview (Chef Marvin Woods)

Look Who’s Talking Too

Chef Marvin Woods, host of Turner South’s Home Plate recently opened a restaurant in Charlotte called, Woods on South. He’s a southern boy from up north who has a love affair with food. Two his books are, Home Plate Cooking, everyday southern cuisine with a fresh twist, and, The New Low-Country Cooking, 125 recipes for coastal southern cooking with innovative style. He has studied Southern cuisine, and is continually building upon his knowledge.

Q. How would you define the food at Woods on South?

CW. Carolina Cuisine. Carolina cuisine is a cross between slow food and seasonal food found in the Carolinas. I would say that 85% of the menu features food found in the Carolinas.

Q. How has African cuisine, or Southern Soul food influenced your menu, or has it.?

CW. First of all, I don’t get into the whole soul food conversation. I don’t really think soul food really means what a lot of people think it means. When you travel outside this country, not matter what country you go to…every country has a soul food. Nine times out of ten when people refer to soul food, they mean food that has been prepared in the south, but that doesn’t have any legs. With that being said, there’s a direct influence from African culture and Caribbean culture, and the African American culture in American cuisine…There are things that are in the American diet that is a direct derivative of African culture. Gumbo is one of those dishes; eggplant; rice; the true yam is indigenous to Africa. So you have those just to name a few in terms of ingredients, and then you have the way the food is prepared and also the palate of the food. You know, in African and in the Caribbean there’s always been a spice in something. So that is a direct influence from Africa and again, going back to the fact that there was slavery in this country and people of color were preparing the food and had to eat the food and they were talking the scraps that were left of the table and had to make their meals from that.

Q. Besides that idea of the term ‘soul food’, are there any other misconceptions that you’ve seen as far as African American influence in foods?

CW. Yeah, for sure. Gumbo. Most people think gumbo comes from New Orleans. This goes back to the lack of knowledge and where things originally come from. Gumbo is a word that comes from an African dialect. It is a dish that comes from a dish cooked in one pot and it has okra in it. It didn’t start in New Orleans, it started in Africa. Africans actually brought pods over here and planted them. One of the other things I tell people all the times is that gumbo was made in the low-country before it was made in New Orleans.

Q. Carolina low-country?

CW. Yep.

Q. At Woods on South, is there any one dish that you would recommend, or do they all hold equal value?

CW. I was personally involved with every dish. I eat there on a regular basis; I talk to guests on a regular basis. Guests often ask me what do I like the best on the menu, and I always answer that question with, “If you have nine kids and somebody walked up to you and asks which is your favorite kid, what are you going to tell them?”…It’s my menu, it’s my creation, it’s on the menu for a reason. How am I going to put something on the menu that I don’t believe in, that I don’t love?