Kentucky Official Visitor's Guide 2018 - Kentucky Official Visitor's Guide 2018
Year Of Kentucky Food
2018-01-07 01:31:34
THE STATE’S NINE TOURISM REGIONS CELEBRATE TIMEHONORED DISHES THAT ARE AS MUCH A PART OF THE PLACE AS THE LAND AND ITS PEOPLE.
You can dig into pinto beans, spider cornbread, collard greens and fried fish from the Southern Shorelines or chow-chow, pickled beets, soup beans and fried potatoes in Daniel Boone Country. Savor salmon patties with cucumbers, tomatoes and onions bathed in Italian dressing in the Kentucky Appalachians or tomato pie, goetta and potato cakes in Northern Kentucky.
Bourbon, Horses & History loves its Kentucky Bibb salad dressed in Benedictine, while Bluegrass, Horses, Bourbon & Boone cherishes its beer cheese. Bluegrass, Blues & Barbecue has the lock on burgoo and barbecue mutton, and Western Waterlands is all in for baked country ham. In Caves, Lakes & Corvettes, it’s all about pork chops and sweet corn – fried and cream-style.
These are the foods that have been on our tables for ages – the dishes that taste like home and bring natives back to the Bluegrass with the very first bite, no matter where they may be.
And what does a state with a sweet tooth serve for dessert? Fried apple pie, apple stack cake, blackberry jam cake with caramel icing. Yes, please! Or transparent pie – that sugary-buttery confection that dates back to Kentucky’s frontier days. Maybe peach cobbler, fruit cobbler topped with local ice cream, banana pudding and, this being Kentucky, bourbon biscuit pudding.
While 2018 has been declared "The Year of Kentucky Food," it's only the beginning. No matter what region you visit, and when, you’ll savor culinary treasures that have been tempting the taste buds of Kentuckians for generations.
Centuries of Tradition
Having traveled throughout Kentucky to see firsthand the distinct food cultures each region has to offer, state tourism commissioner Kristen Branscum knew the stories behind these culinary tastes and traditions had to be shared.
Right away, everyone in the food and travel business rolled up their collective sleeves, tied on their aprons and got to work identifying the signature meals in each region that are nearest and dearest to those who live there.
"This is not just to celebrate Kentucky food, but to designate those iconic, traditional dishes in each of our nine tourism regions,"
Branscum said, noting that each meal incorporates beverages, appetizers, entrées, sides and desserts.
“But beyond the uniqueness of these meals, each is a reflection of centuries of Kentucky food traditions. They represent the history behind them and the people who create them.”
And so it was decreed: 2018 – The Year of Kentucky Food.
History of Good Taste
“Tradition relates to history, and no one has a longer history in Kentucky food than the Beaumont Inn,”
said fifth generation innkeeper S. Dixon Dedman. Closing in on a century of service in 2019, this James Beard America’s Classic award recipient, founded by Glave Goddard and Annie Bell Goddard in 1917 and opened for business in 1919, is deeply rooted in Kentucky culinary traditions.
Little has changed since the days when pioneering food critic and Bowling Green native Duncan Hines was a regular.
“Now write this down for the people in Kentucky,” he told a reporter back in 1949. “Say I’ll be happy to get home and eat two-year- old ham, cornbread, beaten biscuits, pound cake, yellow-leg fried chicken and corn pudding. And you can say what I think is the best eating place in Kentucky: Beaumont Inn at Harrodsburg.”
These very same dishes Hines gave a shout-out to nearly 70 years ago are still on the menu. Recently, a ham house was added to the grounds and, at any given time, some 200 to 250 hams are curing to full flavor. Guests so inclined may tour it.
Historic Feuds, New Foods
In a place renowned for an epic feud between warring families, the infamous Hatfields and McCoys, a young chef is giving expression to traditional Appalachian cuisine with modern flourishes. Matt Corbin never planned to stay in Pikeville, but the owner and executive chef of The Blue Raven is embracing his roots and then some, serving up what he calls pub-style Appalachian cuisine.
“We use Appalachian staples and cooking methods to translate the dishes to this region,” he said. “For example, we have taken something like a Shepherd’s Pie and used burgoo – a Kentucky staple – as the base of the pie and make fish tacos with blackened catfish, apple red onion slaw, local tomato and lime aioli.”
Although classically trained at culinary school, Corbin admits the food he enjoys making is the food he grew up eating.
“Both of my grandmothers were excellent cooks and gardeners, so they have influenced a lot of what we do here at the restaurant.”
Part of Kentucky’s farm-to-table restaurant culture, The Blue Raven is all about homegrown food and recipes with a focus on quality ingredients with simple preparation. The restaurant features a seasonal menu that takes advantage of locally grown produce when available. The restaurant also preserves foods for later use, like putting up corn and making pickles.
“To me, nothing beats quality ingredients with proper preparation,” Matt Corbin
A Fruitful Endeavor
Reid’s Orchard in Owensboro dates back to the 1870s and a Scottish immigrant’s love of peaches and apples. Allan Reid, a pioneer in developing new technology for the fruit and vegetable industry, passed his love of fresh, locally-grown produce and horticulture progress and technology on through generations.
In fact, today the fifth generation is preparing the sixth to work in the family business that has branched out into strawberries, blackberries, pears, cherries and all types of vegetables. Not only that, Reid's also grows flowers; sells its products from its Apple House retail store along with homemade fudge, jams and locally harvested honey; and hosts an annual Apple Festival in October that has dozens of crafts booths, carnival rides, a play land called “Reidland” with a petting zoo and horse rides, and live music.
Not bad for a place built on one man’s passion for fresh fruit, and his desire to share it with others.
Col. Sanders: A Household Name
Kentucky’s most high-profile culinary contribution is its fried chicken – and not just any fried chicken, mind you, but one created by a former service station attendant in Corbin that is now enjoyed by diners all over the world. All of them presumably licking their fingers. Although Col. Harland Sanders’ recipe for fried chicken was (and still is) a secret, his culinary prowess and business acumen were widely known.
Hungry diners would come for miles to get a bucket of his chicken and dine at the café, where they would see a cleverly displayed model of a motel room. Ever the entrepreneur, Sanders had built a motel adjacent to his restaurant. The motel is gone today, but the model remains at the Harland Sanders Café and Museum in Corbin. This is where the magic began, with the colonel’s journey narrated at the museum adjacent to the restaurant he operated from 1940 to 1956 – from early menus to Sanders’ cooking innovations, not the least of which is developing the world’s most famous 11 herbs and spices.
Sanders also left his mark in Shelbyville, where he and his wife, Claudia, opened the Claudia Sanders Dinner House in 1968, at that time called The Colonel’s Lady. The couple’s portrait still hangs on the wall of this restaurant, a tribute by Thomas and Cherry Settles who eventually bought the business from the colonel. Cherry had been a national sales hostess for KFC and Col. Sanders gave her away at her wedding.
Today, this family-style restaurant, serving “old-time cooking” remains famous for its fried chicken, but equally beloved among diners are the homemade yeast rolls.
In the Beginning, there was Bourbon
Just how important is bourbon to Kentucky’s culinary culture? From their earliest settlement years, local farmers crafted bourbon from pure limestone water and local grains. Each distiller had his own recipe for this bourbon, and each housewife had her own plan to use it in cooking and medical preparations.
“A lady took pride in the quality of her food and always chose a local whiskey,” said historian Dixie Hibbs, whose books include Bardstown: Hospitality, History and Bourbon. “This was a bragging right, and it also supported her neighbor’s product.”
And in Kentucky, there is plenty of product to support.
From distilleries on the Kentucky Bourbon Trail® and the restaurants and bars on Louisville’s Urban Bourbon Trail, to the countless distilleries and micro-distilleries across the state, it’s hard to drive too far in any one direction without happening upon one. Stopping for a sip and a sample is the only neighborly thing to do.
Not surprisingly, bourbon shows up in drinks and desserts for three of the state’s nine featured regional meals. But it isn’t Kentucky’s only signature beverage. Ale-8-One, the only soft drink invented in the state that’s still in existence, was handcrafted in 1926 in Winchester.
“The proprietary blend created with a secret recipe is flavored with real ginger and citrus,”
said marketing manager DeAnne Elmore. “It was originally marketed as something women and children could enjoy during Prohibition. Later it became the original bourbon mixer in line with Kentucky’s rich history.”
That marriage made in heaven is still sipped and celebrated today. It’s a classic story of the past meeting the present – with delicious results.
To learn more about the nine regional meals featured as part of “The Year of Kentucky Food,” please see the regional sections in this guide beginning on page 42.
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