Wednesday, October 14, 2009

The Art of Community: Local Foods that Harmonize

On Saturday, CreateHere acted as a facilitator in bringing together some of our city’s specialty artisan chefs for a small tasting. The culinary leg of the Geiger & Associates journalism tour spent a week in Chattanooga exploring local flavor through a jam-packed schedule of farms, shops and restaurants. We got hold of them for a two hour block first thing Saturday morning.

A week prior to this, we sat down with a very talented group of local chefs—Wendy Buckner from The Hot Chocolatier, Trae Moore and Tom Montague from Link 41, Warren Stanko from Alchemy Spice, John Sweet from Niedlov’s Breadworks, and Matt Lewis and Ryan Chilcoat from Terminal Brewhouse—to talk about presenting an artisan tasting for the visiting writers.

As we came to discover in these initial meetings, the local food economy of Chattanooga is unique not only in flavor, but in the intimate connections that exist between those involved. The five diverse food shops that we brought together, as it turns out, either were already using one another’s products to create their own quality treats or were eager to do so.

Niedlov’s bread was already being utilized by Link 41 and Terminal; Terminal has been providing Niedlov’s with its recycled grain for a while now; and everyone involved relies on a variety of Alchemy’s spice blends for their signature flavors. And through the course of organizing the tasting, new relationships were formed—The Hot Chocolatier has now replaced the Guiness in her Extra Stout truffle with Terminal’s Southsidenstein. 

With the thickest, richest sipping chocolate you’ve ever tasted, bread dipped in seasoned oils, three varieties of fresh sausage, yummy cheese paired with micro-brew beers, and giant blackberries drizzled in white chocolate, there was little room for this tasting not to be a success.  The journalists left full, happy, and without many leftovers.  But in case we doubted it, Wendy reports that she was bought out of her Hottie Sipping Chocolate at the Chattanooga Market on Sunday by some familiar faces. 

It was a pleasure to both present and learn from this tight-knit community that we are so very proud to have as a part of our city. They are a remarkable element in Chattanooga’s food culture, both as individuals and as the key ingredients in a broader recipe for community-based business relationships.

Thanks to everyone involved for a proud and delicious morning.