Latest / Wanderlust: Off the Page / Discover the American South: Good Cookin’, Sweet Bourbon and Wild Horses

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Discover the American South: Good Cookin’, Sweet Bourbon and Wild Horses · Wanderlust: Off the Page

0:06
SPEAKER_03: Welcome to the latest series of Wanderlust off the page.
0:11
SPEAKER_03: I'm Lynn Hughes, founding editor of Wanderlust.
0:14
SPEAKER_04: And I'm Laura Field, regional editor here at Wanderlust.
0:18
SPEAKER_03: And it's series line already! Good heavens! In past series, you've travelled with us to places near and far, from journeying through colourful Queensland to exploring the beauty and biodiversity of Colombia.
0:33
SPEAKER_04: And Series 9 continues our audio adventures around the world.
0:37
SPEAKER_04: From experiencing the cloud forests of Quito to delving into the carnival and cultural heritage of Mobile, Alabama.
0:44
SPEAKER_03: So stay tuned and prepare to be whisked around the world.
1:10
SPEAKER_03: We certainly will, Laura.
1:11
SPEAKER_03: We'll be heading on a journey to take in Kentucky's bourbon scene, North Carolina's wild horses and Tennessee's seasonal produce.
1:20
SPEAKER_04: Joining host Aaron Miller today is Peggy No Stevens, the world's first female master bourbon taster who's based in Kentucky.
1:28
SPEAKER_04: Meg Puckett, Director of Herd Management for the Corolla Wild Horses, and Trevor Stockton, a chef based in Tennessee's Great Smoky Mountains region.
1:37
SPEAKER_04: Can't wait, let's get started.
2:03
SPEAKER_00: So welcome to the show, Chef Trevor Stockton from the great Smoky Mountains of Tennessee.
2:09
SPEAKER_00: Peggy No Stevens, the world's first female masturbon taster out of Kentucky, and Meg Puckett, the Director of Herd Management at the Corolla Wild Horse Fund of North Carolina.
2:20
SPEAKER_00: I'm excited to talk about kind of your specialist areas, but I thought we should start by kind of just getting a more broad overview of the state.
2:28
SPEAKER_00: So let's start with you, Trevor.
2:30
SPEAKER_00: The great Smoky Mountains, that is somewhere that I really want to go back to.
2:35
SPEAKER_00: I felt like I kind of only had a day or so to sort of dip into it, but talking about natural beauty and the outdoors and outdoor recreation and all that stuff, before we get to the food, what a beautiful place that you live in.
2:46
SPEAKER_01: It really is.
2:48
SPEAKER_01: The Smoky Mountains, when I first moved here, I learned that the Smoky Mountains have more different species of trees than the entire continent of Europe, which was astounding.
3:00
SPEAKER_01: And it really is uh you go into those mountains, and I love going to those mountains and thinking of people that passed over those mountains to come settle on the side of the smokies that I'm on.
3:12
SPEAKER_01: And whether it's springtime when everything's first coming up, whether it's fall when obviously the colors are beautiful, whether it's summer when you're trying to escape the heat and get up into the mountains, it's a pretty magical place.
3:24
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I've been lucky to kind of drive around Tennessee.
3:27
SPEAKER_00: I was actually doing something called the Tennessee Music Pathways, which is amazing.
3:31
SPEAKER_00: Like when I think when a lot of people think of Tennessee, they think of the music rightly so.
3:35
SPEAKER_00: But there's so much history there, and you know, it's not just Nashville and Memphis, they'll obviously go and see those two places, but there's just so much history in music.
3:45
SPEAKER_00: You must have a lot of good tunes to accompany your food.
3:48
SPEAKER_01: I will say the the musical acts that come through East Tennessee, it's it's pretty astounding.
3:53
SPEAKER_01: I was shocked at how many people come through East Tennessee, the traditional music of the area, but also just people love music here.
4:00
SPEAKER_01: And everywhere you go, every event you're at, there's always great music here.
4:04
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and I you know what I like about your area in Appalachia is you know, when we talk about Nashville, what I think a lot of people don't realize is when you head out to East Tennessee, the sort of roots of that are in those Appalachian Mountains and the and the kind of bluegrass and folk music that came out of there.
4:21
SPEAKER_00: And and when you do drive around and see the state, you kind of get a sense of of all those different influences coming together to really to create that American sound.
4:30
SPEAKER_00: Speaking of bluegrass, there's some great blue bluegrass down in North Carolina, isn't there, mate?
4:34
SPEAKER_05: Yeah, there is, especially on the western part of the state.
4:37
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I think Asheville is somewhere that's been on my hit list for a while.
4:41
SPEAKER_00: There's some really fun music cities there.
4:44
SPEAKER_00: But tell me about your region, the outer banks, because that, you know, aside from the wild horses, which I want to get into in a minute, the outer banks themselves, the sort of barrier islands, are just a fascinating ecosystem in their own right.
4:55
SPEAKER_05: It's a place that's um, you know, just very deep-rooted in a in a lot of different culture from food to music to, you know, just our history.
5:05
SPEAKER_05: And then you add into that the natural elements between the weather and the tides.
5:09
SPEAKER_05: And, you know, when when you live on a barrier island, you're never still, you know, the sand is always shifting, things are always changing.
5:15
SPEAKER_05: So it's a very, very dynamic place.
5:18
SPEAKER_00: I think a lot of people won't necessarily be familiar with the kind of ecology of a barrier island.
5:23
SPEAKER_00: Like what is it?
5:24
SPEAKER_00: What makes it a barrier island?
5:26
SPEAKER_05: So we are we're just a spit of sand, literally.
5:28
SPEAKER_05: Um, you know, we're sand that formed an island right off the coast.
5:32
SPEAKER_05: And so as a barrier island, we are the protection from the mainland from storms and things like that.
5:37
SPEAKER_05: And and it's always shifting.
5:39
SPEAKER_05: You know, sand is not stable.
5:40
SPEAKER_05: And so it's always moving.
5:42
SPEAKER_05: The topography is always different.
5:44
SPEAKER_05: You have sand dunes in places where there weren't sand dunes, you know, before the last storm, that kind of thing.
5:49
SPEAKER_05: So um, and it's not just all beach.
5:51
SPEAKER_05: We've got just thousands and thousands of acres of marsh, of coastal maritime forest.
5:57
SPEAKER_05: We've got some of the most pristine marshland and area like that left on the East Coast.
6:02
SPEAKER_05: And so it's habitat for a lot of different species of plants and animals that you don't find anywhere else.
6:08
SPEAKER_00: Last but not least, Peggy, we're gonna talk about one of my favorite subjects, bourbon, in just a second.
6:13
SPEAKER_00: But tell me about Kentucky as a whole first.
6:16
SPEAKER_02: Well, I think what people fall in love with Kentucky is the natural beauty, you know, the rolling hills of Kentucky, the seasonal way that our industry of Kentucky evolves, you know.
6:31
SPEAKER_02: And when I say seasonal, everything from food to horses to, you know, nature and landscape, they really appreciate the different four seasons because it's a beauty anywhere you go.
6:43
SPEAKER_02: And so you can have an incredible culinary scene experience.
6:48
SPEAKER_02: You can enjoy going to all the distilleries, which there are well over 60 distilleries throughout the state of Kentucky.
6:54
SPEAKER_02: If you love the equine industry, we have two of the world's famous racetracks right here in our backyard.
7:02
SPEAKER_02: And if you truly just want to enjoy a natural setting, the parks that we have here, the lakes that we have here is really awe-inspiring.
7:12
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, absolutely.
7:12
SPEAKER_00: And and speaking of kind of the outdoor aspect, if you're kind of wanting to combine some of that distillery tours with some of the outdoor experiences, Mammoth Cave National Park is kind of bit, I'm a bit of a national park chunkie, and Mammoth Cave has been on my hit list for a while.
7:27
SPEAKER_00: Is that somewhere you've been?
7:29
SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
7:30
SPEAKER_02: I've been, and I've done something called cave splunking in the past.
7:34
SPEAKER_02: Well, though.
7:35
SPEAKER_02: And that was in a different section of Kentucky in London, Kentucky, but it sure was fun.
7:39
SPEAKER_02: Uh, but Mammoth Cave is a natural wonder.
7:42
SPEAKER_02: And anyone who travels to see the caves, they're really struck by not only the beauty, but just the formation and the history behind it and the geology behind it.
7:55
SPEAKER_02: So it's almost like this mother nature meets science feeling that you get when you travel through the caves.
8:03
SPEAKER_00: And uh just to set the scene as well for listeners, one of the reasons why Mammoth Cave is so amazing is it was discovered about 200 years ago.
8:10
SPEAKER_00: I mean, Native Americans used it for thousands of years before that, of course.
8:14
SPEAKER_00: But since those 200 years that it's been explored in the modern era, they've I think they've uncovered about 400 miles underground, but they reckon it could reach to a thousand miles.
8:24
SPEAKER_00: It's the longest cave system in the world.
8:27
SPEAKER_00: So I don't know the level of your cave spelunking, but if you wanted to, you could probably get seriously lost in there.
8:35
SPEAKER_00: Uh okay, so we're gonna stay now on on uh some bourbon, Peggy, and this is gonna be like I'm I'm seeing this like our kind of aperitif for the rest of the show.
8:44
SPEAKER_00: So we're starting with you.
8:46
SPEAKER_00: Tell me about Kentucky bourbon and what makes it so special.
8:49
SPEAKER_02: Well, you know, you mentioned the 200 years for Mammoth Cave.
8:53
SPEAKER_02: Bourbon shares that history of over 200 years that we have been making bourbon, and it is a completely Native American spirit, which we love because it is a simple process yet, as we talked about Mother Nature having a hand in it, it makes a huge difference on the time that we age our product.
9:16
SPEAKER_02: So, you know, across the state of Kentucky, whiskey 200 years ago really had a Scotch-Irish heritage.
9:24
SPEAKER_02: It was the Scotch-Irish immigrants that came to Kentucky with their whiskey making experiences.
9:31
SPEAKER_02: And because Kentucky had what I call natural resources, you know, fertile soil that grew corn, incredible.
9:40
SPEAKER_02: We had limestone water, which is a key ingredient to making great whiskey because it's rich in calcium.
9:47
SPEAKER_02: That is also shared with our thoroughbred horses, with their bone structure, having that calcium.
9:54
SPEAKER_02: Uh, that's why we're known for our horses as well.
9:57
SPEAKER_02: So that seasonality that I mentioned is wonderful for maturing whiskey because in as the barrel made out of white oak wood is sitting in the warehouses, the extreme temperatures through those seasons allows the barrel to expand and contract, pushing that whiskey in and out, catch capturing those flavors.
10:18
SPEAKER_02: So, in essence, we were born to do this in Kentucky.
10:23
SPEAKER_02: We were born to make the best whiskey, and I think we deserve that pedigree of making the world's best bourbon due to that experience that we've had.
10:32
SPEAKER_02: And in 1964, it was put in writing.
10:36
SPEAKER_02: It was an actual legislative initiative that bourbon is its own distinct category of spirit, and we have our own unique definition that goes along with that.
10:48
SPEAKER_02: And that's something that we jealously protect because it is so special to us.
10:53
SPEAKER_00: Fast horses and good bourbon.
10:55
SPEAKER_00: I think I liked Kentucky a lot.
10:58
SPEAKER_02: You forgot beautiful women as well.
10:59
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, beautiful women.
11:00
SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
11:01
SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
11:02
SPEAKER_00: I like it even more now.
11:03
SPEAKER_00: Um so you're the first female master bourbon taster.
11:08
SPEAKER_00: So you obviously have, you know, naturally, probably an incredible palette, and there's varying levels of like the palette that people have and how you can identify the different tastes and flavors.
11:18
SPEAKER_00: But how would we develop that?
11:20
SPEAKER_00: I feel like with some knowledge, like when you go into something completely blind, you're just like, oh, that tastes good, or you know, I'm not like don't like that as much.
11:27
SPEAKER_00: Or maybe you can pick out the smoke or some of the really big notes.
11:30
SPEAKER_00: But is it possible with a little bit of knowledge and like expertise to develop our palate and get more out of the bourbon?
11:37
SPEAKER_02: You know, that is a fabulous question.
11:40
SPEAKER_02: And frankly, I'm glad you asked because it's really just about food memory.
11:45
SPEAKER_02: And the way that you design your palate and develop your palate is simply walking yourself mentally to your kitchen.
11:55
SPEAKER_02: Because we all know what a fruit tastes like.
11:57
SPEAKER_02: We know what a banana tastes like, an apple tastes like.
12:00
SPEAKER_02: When we think about sweets, we know what caramel tastes like, vanilla tastes like.
12:06
SPEAKER_02: Then you think of spice rack, uh, our spices of cinnamon, nutmeg.
12:12
SPEAKER_02: But when it comes to someone describing what a bourbon tastes like, they freeze up because they're afraid of saying the wrong thing.
12:21
SPEAKER_02: So what I tell them to do is when they nose it, you know, what's the first thing that hits you?
12:27
SPEAKER_02: What is the predominant aroma?
12:30
SPEAKER_02: What do you nose or taste that's sweet?
12:33
SPEAKER_02: And then we categorize it.
12:35
SPEAKER_02: And what do you nose or taste that might be spice?
12:38
SPEAKER_02: And then we categorize it.
12:39
SPEAKER_02: So once you start connecting the dots, your vocabulary grows.
12:43
SPEAKER_02: And that's when you become an expert.
12:46
SPEAKER_00: I love that.
12:46
SPEAKER_00: And what a great way to kind of start your distillery tour, you know, of Kentucky or before you go and try out a few different things.
12:53
SPEAKER_00: Get a little bit of that knowledge, or perhaps while you're there, I'm sure you can do some, you know, tastings and learn about the different bourbons there as well.
13:01
SPEAKER_00: But speaking of that, like we've let's say we've learned a little bit of that flavor profiles, but now we want to go visit some distilleries and have some experiences while we're traveling around the state.
13:11
SPEAKER_00: What would you recommend?
13:12
SPEAKER_00: Like, what would be some of your favorite experiences?
13:14
SPEAKER_02: Well, the Kentucky Bourbon Trail expands from, you know, all across Kentucky.
13:20
SPEAKER_02: So you can go to their website and they literally have this beautiful list of all the area distilleries so that you can chart the course.
13:29
SPEAKER_02: I call it the bourbon journey.
13:30
SPEAKER_02: You can kind of chart your course, build your own itinerary, and then figure out the distances.
13:36
SPEAKER_02: And what's so beautiful about our distilleries now is if you happen to visit two distilleries in the morning, then you can pick your lunch distillery because they have a restaurant.
13:47
SPEAKER_02: And that's what I would go for is a distillery that actually does food service.
13:51
SPEAKER_02: So you don't spend your time looking for a restaurant, you know, and then you might knock out a couple more in the afternoon, and then you might end the day at a distillery that has a really great myctology program or cocktail bar so that you can start your happy hour a little early.
14:08
SPEAKER_02: So it's being strategic on how you spend your time for sure.
14:13
SPEAKER_00: That's such a great tip.
14:14
SPEAKER_00: The Kentucky Bourbon Trail and plan it out so you know when you're getting your cocktail, you know when you're getting your lunch.
14:19
SPEAKER_00: That's awesome.
14:20
SPEAKER_00: And of course, you can combine that with all those other beautiful things in the state as well, from the outdoors to, of course, food.
14:27
SPEAKER_00: Um, and I think place helps to define food in some way.
14:31
SPEAKER_00: They're sort of linked together.
14:33
SPEAKER_00: And I kind of want to get into that detail, you know, within Tennessee.
14:37
SPEAKER_00: But let's broaden it out a little bit and talk about the American South, which has its own sort of food identity as well.
14:44
SPEAKER_00: And I'm kind of gonna put you both on the spot here.
14:46
SPEAKER_00: Like, if you had to choose one dish, one southern dish, and that was the only dish that you could eat for the rest of your life, and health wasn't a concern, let's say as well, then what would you choose?
14:58
SPEAKER_01: Okay, for me, that that is tough, but I absolutely love collard greens.
15:04
SPEAKER_01: And the the classic way of cooking collard greens, I think, kind of exemplifies everything about the sauce.
15:10
SPEAKER_01: Growing up as a kid in in Detroit, I came to my great-grandfather's farm in Middle Tennessee, and there were collard greens every year for Thanksgiving then.
15:19
SPEAKER_01: And then you're cooking it with some sort of salted and smoked pork, which brings back the just kind of the heritage of this area.
15:26
SPEAKER_01: Uh, but it's a dish that contains all of these things that I think really does exemplify the food of the South.
15:34
SPEAKER_00: Meg, what about you?
15:35
SPEAKER_00: If you had one dish you could choose from the American South, what would it be?
15:39
SPEAKER_05: Well, I I think, you know, I have to say seafood, right?
15:42
SPEAKER_05: So there's nothing better than fresh oysters, you know, whatever, whatever's in season, tuna, oysters.
15:47
SPEAKER_05: You know, we just have uh more fresh seafood than you could ever want in your life here.
15:53
SPEAKER_05: So um, but and then there's also um this is very um niche, but northeastern North Carolina is kind of well known for its really good gas station food.
16:03
SPEAKER_05: So there are gas stations around here that you can get a better meal than you would get in any five-star restaurant.
16:10
SPEAKER_05: So yeah, there's there's something to be said for for really good gas, you know, fried chicken, collard greens, all that kind of stuff.
16:18
SPEAKER_05: Fried fish.
16:19
SPEAKER_00: So perfect for a road trip.
16:21
SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
16:22
SPEAKER_00: And so, like when you're on a road trip, do you just like fill up a quarter of a tank?
16:25
SPEAKER_00: Do you have to stop again?
16:26
SPEAKER_05: Well, you have to know where to stop, you know.
16:27
SPEAKER_05: I mean, usually there are places that you wouldn't really think to stop, and those are usually the best places for good food, yeah.
16:34
SPEAKER_00: So that's great.
16:35
SPEAKER_00: So, Peggy, five-star gas stations.
16:37
SPEAKER_00: Can you beat it?
16:38
SPEAKER_00: What is your favorite southern dish?
16:40
SPEAKER_02: Well, mine, of course, number one would be the hot brown.
16:44
SPEAKER_00: Okay, nice.
16:45
SPEAKER_02: It was created at the Brown Hotel, which is a beautiful hotel, a luxury hotel in Louisville.
16:52
SPEAKER_02: And it is this gorgeous combination of layered ham and turkey.
16:58
SPEAKER_02: But what it has is a beautiful like cheese sauce on top of it.
17:03
SPEAKER_02: And it's all layered on slices of bread.
17:07
SPEAKER_02: And it's the most hearty, comforting food you could possibly eat.
17:12
SPEAKER_02: It's also like taking a sleeping pill because you're you're so comfortable after you eat that and so full that you just want to relax a little bit.
17:20
SPEAKER_02: But if you've got a full day of traveling through the Kentucky Bourbon Trail, there is not a better dinner that you could possibly have than the hot brown.
17:29
SPEAKER_00: I really should have eaten before this conversation.
17:30
SPEAKER_00: Like listeners, if you're hearing a a tummy rumble, it's mine, and I I apologize in advance.
17:36
SPEAKER_00: So, Trevor, you mentioned growing up in Detroit and then kind of coming down and visiting your grandfather at his at his farm.
17:43
SPEAKER_00: That must have been a big influence on the kind of food you serve today.
17:47
SPEAKER_01: It it really is.
17:48
SPEAKER_01: We we would come down every year for spring break and Thanksgiving break, and their farm is in Gainesboro, Tennessee, in middle of nowhere, and it really was like stepping back in time on their farm.
17:59
SPEAKER_01: They raised probably 90% of of what they ate, whether it be their cows, their their pigs, chickens, goats, all of that.
18:07
SPEAKER_01: But my favorite part of the property was the canned house.
18:11
SPEAKER_01: It was dug into the side of the mountain there, and just a couple little steps down into this tiny door that you had to duck your head to get down into, and you're all of a sudden in this little cave.
18:20
SPEAKER_01: And as a little kid, that was something you don't have many of those in Detroit.
18:24
SPEAKER_01: Um, but it was just lined with jars upon jars upon jars of canned vegetables.
18:31
SPEAKER_01: There was ham and bacon hanging.
18:33
SPEAKER_01: There was a smokehouse on the property where they still did all of their own curing and preserving, and that wasn't that long ago, but that really was the way of life for them.
18:43
SPEAKER_01: And for me, the cooking that we do now at our restaurant is definitely rooted in that.
18:51
SPEAKER_01: We do a lot of our own curing.
18:52
SPEAKER_01: We get pigs from my parents' farms, break them down, cure them, smoke them.
18:57
SPEAKER_01: We try to pickle and preserve as many things as we can from our local farmers throughout the year and use those products throughout the year.
19:03
SPEAKER_01: And it really does allow you in the times when there isn't fresh food coming in to have a taste of summer in January.
19:10
SPEAKER_01: So yeah, it really has driven the the way that we cook.
19:13
SPEAKER_00: There's this term I heard quite recently, which I I hadn't heard before, food anthropology.
19:19
SPEAKER_00: It's about looking at the way that food, uh how we can understand cultures, societies, and and individuals through food and through the way that food uh has changed over the years.
19:29
SPEAKER_00: And I really it really struck me, it's like, yes, because when we talk about preserving landscapes or wildlife, that that makes total sense.
19:37
SPEAKER_00: But we don't really talk about that in terms of food.
19:40
SPEAKER_00: And and you know, the way that we consume and and cook food has changed so dramatically, you know, over the last hundred years.
19:47
SPEAKER_00: When I hear you talking about your grandparents' farm and how that inspired you, I I sort of think of that in a way.
19:52
SPEAKER_00: Do you feel that you're part of that kind of preserving or keeping alive that that sort of generation of how food?
20:00
SPEAKER_00: Was was thought of and consumed and served?
20:02
SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
20:03
SPEAKER_01: I mean, like a lot of the traditions of food, the way that certain types of food come about are born out of necessity.
20:10
SPEAKER_01: Whether it's the cooking in the French countryside or uh eating tacos in Mexico City that are made with offcuts that most people don't like to eat, or if it's the type of food that we're eating here in the Appalachian region, all of those things were born out of necessity.
20:28
SPEAKER_01: And uh nowadays for a lot of us, we don't have to be as innovative with food because we have all of the modern technology to, you know, we don't have to salt our pork anymore.
20:43
SPEAKER_01: We have refrigerators.
20:44
SPEAKER_01: But then we lose that.
20:46
SPEAKER_01: I mean, and this is something that's been done for uh hundreds of years by some people in this area and thousands of years for people that came well before us in this country.
20:55
SPEAKER_01: So I think that continuing to do things in that traditional way really does help move into the next generation.
21:05
SPEAKER_01: And for people that don't understand, well, why would you go through all of that trouble when you could just cook that piece of meat?
21:12
SPEAKER_01: Well, I I think it's important to keep going back to that.
21:16
SPEAKER_00: Meg, what about you?
21:17
SPEAKER_00: I know you're not a chef, so it's it's obviously different, but how do you relate to that as someone who lives in this unique place, the Outer Banks?
21:26
SPEAKER_05: Sure.
21:26
SPEAKER_05: I mean, you know, I am a Southern historian.
21:29
SPEAKER_05: That is actually like my background.
21:30
SPEAKER_05: And so, and you can't tell the history of the South without talking about food.
21:35
SPEAKER_05: Like food is an intrinsic part of our history here.
21:38
SPEAKER_05: It tells the story of everything, right?
21:41
SPEAKER_05: It's just a very, very important part of our culture and our history here.
21:44
SPEAKER_05: So, but yeah, I mean, here, you know, on the Outer Banks, just like anywhere else, you know, you use what's available to you.
21:51
SPEAKER_05: You can go back and and read accounts from the 1700s and they're recording, you know, people eating oysters and people eating a lot of pork and people eating, you know, the same things that we eat today.
22:01
SPEAKER_05: And and I guess a lot of the ways that we, you know, handle it is different now with technology and everything, but but we're ultimately doing the same thing here people were doing, you know, 200 years ago.
22:13
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, really interesting.
22:14
SPEAKER_00: And and interesting that you mention using what's available and us kind of coming back to that and the preserving you're doing as well, Trevor.
22:22
SPEAKER_00: But seasonality, I think, is something that people are are looking more and more into.
22:26
SPEAKER_00: You know, we can get whatever you want, whenever you want, at a supermarket right now, but that doesn't necessarily make things better.
22:34
SPEAKER_00: There's something about just eating seasonal and and savoring some of those summer fruits or whatever it might be that is, you know, really delicious in its own right.
22:42
SPEAKER_00: What's your approach to seasonality, Trevor?
22:44
SPEAKER_01: 100%.
22:45
SPEAKER_01: Cooking with the seasons means I put on the menu whatever my farmer brings through the back door, and then we figure out a way to put on the menu because that's what's growing here at that time.
22:56
SPEAKER_01: I think that it's not only a way to make really tasty food, but I think it's definitely a more sustainable way to live, not just for restaurants, but for uh the population in general.
23:05
SPEAKER_00: That's awesome.
23:06
SPEAKER_00: And it reminds me, this whole thing kind of reminds me of of something that I've covered in the past, which is slow food, the slow food movement.
23:13
SPEAKER_00: And I think people are familiar with you know, slow travel, but you know, us travelers that are listening to this show right now, and that's you know, staying longer in a place, absorbing it, you know, not just ticking things off a list.
23:25
SPEAKER_00: That approach to food when you travel is true too.
23:28
SPEAKER_00: Like, how can I eat seasonally?
23:30
SPEAKER_00: How can I kind of eat in a way where I understand the history of it and just kind of absorb a more sort of total experience while hitting a few gas stations along the way.
23:41
SPEAKER_00: Nothing wrong with that.
23:42
SPEAKER_01: You have to I when you said that I I agree wholeheartedly, I ate some of I ate a really, really good sandwich um at a little gas station outside of Asheville.
23:54
SPEAKER_01: We were traveling through and a friend of ours said he heard of this place, and we're like, we are not going 45 minutes.
24:00
SPEAKER_01: I mean, I don't mind going out of the way for good food, but we kept driving, we got there, and it was one of the best damn lunches I've had in a while.
24:10
SPEAKER_01: And it was just at a random gas station 20 minutes outside of Asheville.
24:14
SPEAKER_05: That's it.
24:14
SPEAKER_05: You never know.
24:15
SPEAKER_05: You never know.
24:16
SPEAKER_00: You never know.
24:17
SPEAKER_00: Okay, we'll keep our eye out for that.
24:18
SPEAKER_00: It's a little secret to find a gas station 20 minutes outside of Asheville.
24:23
SPEAKER_00: That's the only clue we're gonna give.
24:25
SPEAKER_00: Um, fantastic.
24:26
SPEAKER_00: Well, that's been really interesting talking about food.
24:28
SPEAKER_00: Before we leave, tell me a bit more about your restaurant.
24:30
SPEAKER_01: Uh yeah, so it's RT Lodge, and we have a it's a small hotel and restaurant.
24:35
SPEAKER_01: We're in Marival, Tennessee, but it's kind of like an old, it's a almost a hundred-year-old building, so it's a kind of nice lodgy feel, beautiful, beautiful outdoors just in the foothills of the Smoky Mountains.
24:45
SPEAKER_01: So it's a beautiful place to come stay, take a 20-minute drive into the mountains.
24:50
SPEAKER_01: Beautiful.
24:50
SPEAKER_00: Explore some of those lovely mountains by day and then come back for a beautiful dinner.
24:54
SPEAKER_00: Sounds idyllic.
24:56
SPEAKER_00: So, Meg, let's go over to North Carolina.
24:58
SPEAKER_00: And can I just start by saying, isn't there something like particularly magical about wild horses?
25:05
SPEAKER_00: And not only does it just sound beautiful, I feel like it sort of almost symbolizes something.
25:10
SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
25:11
SPEAKER_05: Absolutely.
25:11
SPEAKER_05: It it never gets old.
25:12
SPEAKER_05: I mean, I see wild horses every day of my life, just about, and every single time I see them, it's just awe-inspiring.
25:19
SPEAKER_05: It just never gets old.
25:21
SPEAKER_05: You can't tell the history of this country without talking about horses.
25:25
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and it's it when you talk about it like that, it's it's interesting.
25:28
SPEAKER_00: I I feel that when you think of the America, somehow that sort of the wild horse, I mean, something about this domesticated animal, but it's now wild and free.
25:40
SPEAKER_00: There's just something about that that just seems really powerful and says something.
25:44
SPEAKER_05: Yeah, and survival, you know, I mean, especially here, you know, talking about the outer banks and it's a barrier island, it's sand, it's scrub.
25:50
SPEAKER_05: There's we don't have big pastures, we don't have prairies.
25:53
SPEAKER_05: And so to think that it's not a hospitable place to live for people or for horses.
25:58
SPEAKER_05: And so, um, you know, to to think about survival here for so many centuries is it's really remarkable that they didn't just survive.
26:06
SPEAKER_05: They've, you know, again, the the horses here on the outer banks are just as much tied into the history as as everything else.
26:12
SPEAKER_05: It's very, very difficult to talk about the history of this place without talking about the history of the horses, too.
26:19
SPEAKER_00: And and speaking of that history, I just gotta ask, how did they get there?
26:22
SPEAKER_00: Like talking about it being a sparse place, you wouldn't think of horses naturally, you know, grazing in a place like that.
26:28
SPEAKER_00: How on earth did they get there?
26:29
SPEAKER_00: Sure.
26:29
SPEAKER_01: Aaron, I've been wondering the same thing.
26:31
SPEAKER_05: Yeah, that's a good question.
26:33
SPEAKER_05: For our horses here on the East Coast, when the Spanish started um, you know, sailing around the world, they were colonizing, and and horses were an important tool for that.
26:42
SPEAKER_05: And so horses were originally brought over here on ships from Spain.
26:46
SPEAKER_05: Very quickly after that, the Spanish set up breeding farms in Central and South America.
26:52
SPEAKER_05: Then there was a really thriving horse trade up and down the East Coast for probably about 100, 150 years, um, you know, up the East Coast, down the Mississippi.
27:01
SPEAKER_05: And you had a lot of different American breeds that started to develop, many of which are extinct now.
27:07
SPEAKER_05: They they, you know, morphed into other breeds or whatever over the centuries.
27:10
SPEAKER_05: So that's how horses originally ended up here on the East Coast.
27:15
SPEAKER_05: And then as, you know, settlement advanced up and down the East Coast, you started to have farms and fences and towns and things like that.
27:21
SPEAKER_05: So you lost a lot of that free roaming livestock.
27:24
SPEAKER_05: And so the last remaining groups of these horses that once kind of roamed freely up and down the East Coast are right here in North Carolina.
27:33
SPEAKER_05: So we have the herd here up in Kerala that's about a hundred, a little over a hundred individuals.
27:38
SPEAKER_05: And then there's a herd down at the very bottom of the outer banks at Shackelford.
27:42
SPEAKER_05: And that's it.
27:43
SPEAKER_05: They're the last ones that are still about as genetically pure as you can get to those horses that were originally brought over here from Spain.
27:50
SPEAKER_05: And they're the foundation for any other horses that were produced here in the Americas that are distinctly American breeds.
27:57
SPEAKER_00: And given the, you know, you talk about the sort of encroachment of civilization everywhere, we talk about that.
28:03
SPEAKER_00: But, you know, given the sort of fragility of that ecosystem and the sort of human impact, the horses must still be under quite a lot of threat in terms of keeping them wild and keeping them healthy.
28:15
SPEAKER_05: They are.
28:16
SPEAKER_05: I mean, it's it's been a balance for many, many, many generations, you know.
28:20
SPEAKER_05: And that's kind of, again, the story of the Outer Banks in general, right?
28:23
SPEAKER_05: Is finding a balance between keeping the environment healthy, keeping things as wild and free and pristine as possible.
28:30
SPEAKER_05: But, you know, you've you've got people in the picture, whether that's good, bad, ugly, somewhere in between.
28:34
SPEAKER_05: So there is definitely a balance to be found.
28:37
SPEAKER_05: And it's really important for these horses because they are what they are because of where they live.
28:43
SPEAKER_05: They have developed adaptations to that allow them to survive here that you do not see in any other breed of horse.
28:50
SPEAKER_05: And so if they are removed from this environment, eventually they will cease to be what they are because they will not have to continue, you know, to pass those adaptations on to their offspring.
29:00
SPEAKER_05: So they're very, very tied to this environment.
29:03
SPEAKER_05: You know, you can't really separate them from this environment because it's so unique.
29:07
SPEAKER_05: It just doesn't exist anywhere else in the world.
29:09
SPEAKER_00: So, what's some of the work you're doing to help preserve and protect them?
29:13
SPEAKER_05: We do a lot of work with habitat preservation, um, which is not just preserving land.
29:18
SPEAKER_05: It's it's protecting the you know, the habitat is anything that the horses come in contact with, and that includes people.
29:22
SPEAKER_05: So there's a lot of management that way, which, you know, you see a lot there in Tennessee too, right?
29:27
SPEAKER_05: With bears and people, it's it's very much the same, same kind of situation.
29:32
SPEAKER_00: And like just expanding on that too, like as a visitor, how can we come and experience and see the wild horses in a responsible way?
29:40
SPEAKER_05: Sure.
29:40
SPEAKER_05: So there are commercial tour companies that take people up to see the horses, and and we always recommend that, you know, they're highly regulated, their guides are very well educated.
29:48
SPEAKER_05: We work closely with them.
29:49
SPEAKER_05: Um, and so that's a good way to go see them in a way that's going to be educational.
29:53
SPEAKER_05: You know, they know where to go to find the horses.
29:55
SPEAKER_05: It's it's not an easy place to drive around if you're not experienced driving on the sand.
30:00
SPEAKER_05: And that it also lessens the footprint, you know, because it the area is accessible.
30:04
SPEAKER_05: If you have four-wheel drive, you can you can go find them if you want to.
30:07
SPEAKER_05: But, you know, that's a lot of vehicles, that's a lot of people on the beach.
30:10
SPEAKER_05: And so taking a tour kind of lessens that footprint a little bit.
30:14
SPEAKER_05: So um that's that's a great way to go see them, you know, and we want them to be accessible.
30:18
SPEAKER_05: You know, they are the state horse of North Carolina, they're a cultural treasure.
30:22
SPEAKER_05: And so we we want people to be able to come see them.
30:25
SPEAKER_05: We want people to experience them in their natural habitat.
30:28
SPEAKER_05: But at the same time, you know, everyone needs to understand that if you are in their habitat, you are having an impact on them the minute you set foot in that habitat.
30:38
SPEAKER_05: So um, it's very important that people understand that, not take it for granted, you know.
30:43
SPEAKER_00: For your destination, let's say we've come to see the wild horses.
30:46
SPEAKER_00: That's a sort of draw.
30:47
SPEAKER_00: That's what we really want to experience.
30:49
SPEAKER_00: But we're gonna stay like two or three days or whatever that is around the area, or maybe see some things nearby.
30:54
SPEAKER_00: What would what would you recommend us to do?
30:56
SPEAKER_05: Well, I mean, you know, I think we've got nature and we've got history, you know, and so there's so many places you can get out.
31:02
SPEAKER_05: You can kayak, you can hike.
31:04
SPEAKER_05: We have the largest sand dune on the east coast in Dare County.
31:08
SPEAKER_05: Um, you know, you can climb up to the top of that.
31:09
SPEAKER_05: It's incredible.
31:11
SPEAKER_05: Um, down a little bit south of us, we've got Alligator River, Wildlife Refuge.
31:15
SPEAKER_05: And so where I think that's the highest population of black bears on the East Coast, and we have red wolves, which is the only place that they exist in the wild.
31:23
SPEAKER_05: So, you know, there there are natural resources here that do not exist anywhere else.
31:29
SPEAKER_05: And so, you know, being able to go see one of these wild horses that are endangered or see a red wolf that's endangered is just awe-inspiring.
31:37
SPEAKER_05: It just, it's amazing.
31:38
SPEAKER_05: You know, then we've got historic sites, you know, we've got the lost colony, the, you know, Renock Island, and you know, lots of Native American history.
31:45
SPEAKER_05: We've got lighthouses, and so, you know, there's just there's so many unique things that um they're they're unique to the outer banks, but they are a big part of a much broader history um, you know, of this country.
31:58
SPEAKER_00: So, Peggy, coming back to you really quickly on the theme of horses now.
32:01
SPEAKER_00: I just thought of this.
32:02
SPEAKER_00: Um, they're not wild, but they are fast.
32:05
SPEAKER_00: Have you been to the Kentucky Derby?
32:06
SPEAKER_00: And if so, which bourbon would you pair with it?
32:09
SPEAKER_02: Well, I am laughing that you said, have I ever been to the Kentucky Derby?
32:13
SPEAKER_00: Oh, right.
32:14
SPEAKER_02: I think the question is, how many have I missed?
32:16
SPEAKER_02: That would be the easiest.
32:19
SPEAKER_02: Um I have been going to the Kentucky Derby since I was a little girl.
32:24
SPEAKER_02: And you know, well over 30 derbies I've probably been to.
32:29
SPEAKER_02: Oh, right.
32:29
SPEAKER_02: And but every time I go, I'm reminded of kind of the pageantry and the cultural heritage that we've created that I'm so proud of.
32:42
SPEAKER_02: And when they sing my old Kentucky home, you know, I don't care where you're from, where you've traveled from, but you're a Kentuckian for the day when you hear that song at the track.
32:54
SPEAKER_02: And it's just beautiful.
32:55
SPEAKER_02: So, yes, I have definitely been to the Kentucky Derby.
32:59
SPEAKER_02: It is a bucket list item.
33:00
SPEAKER_02: It is, and I just feel very fortunate to have gone.
33:03
SPEAKER_02: Now, as for bourbon, I don't just drink one during the Kentucky Derby.
33:08
SPEAKER_02: It's going to depend on my mood.
33:10
SPEAKER_02: And, you know, Kentucky Derby, of course, yes, it's the big race of two minutes in sports, but it lasts a week, you know, if you're coming in to enjoy it, you know, as a tourist.
33:21
SPEAKER_02: And so we actually start and host, you know, starting on Wednesday because there's so many different activities to enjoy in the state during that time, and then leading up to the Kentucky Derby.
33:34
SPEAKER_02: So it depends on what time of day, because I would drink maybe a lowerproof uh product during the day, and then, you know, gradually building up to going to distilleries and tasting multiple products with different flavor profiles.
33:51
SPEAKER_02: And then, of course, the finale is at the track and normally Woodford Reserve bourbon, and that's where I was trained, actually.
33:59
SPEAKER_02: Uh, that is the official bourbon of the Kentucky Derby.
34:03
SPEAKER_02: So that is the product that I will partake on that particular day.
34:08
SPEAKER_02: The real question, uh, or answer, I should say, to your question is my favorite bourbon is the one you put in my hand wearing a derby.
34:19
SPEAKER_00: I love that.
34:20
SPEAKER_00: That's such a great answer.
34:21
SPEAKER_00: Well, I will see you there with a bourbon in hand.
34:24
SPEAKER_00: Uh, this has been fantastic.
34:26
SPEAKER_00: Thank you all so much.
34:27
SPEAKER_00: Peggy, where can people connect with you?
34:29
SPEAKER_00: Find out more about what you do, maybe the Kentucky Bourbon Trail and just all some of the amazing work that you do.
34:35
SPEAKER_02: Sure.
34:35
SPEAKER_02: Just find me at Peggy KnowStevens.com.
34:38
SPEAKER_02: I'm also on Instagram and Facebook as Peggy Know Stevens.
34:43
SPEAKER_02: You know, if you follow me, I usually post and you can find previous photos of my derby parties uh and experiences.
34:50
SPEAKER_02: And then which fork do I use with my bourbon can be purchased on Amazon and other key bookstore locations.
34:58
SPEAKER_00: I'm putting it on my list for Sansa.
35:00
SPEAKER_00: I think that book would be a really good one for me.
35:03
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
35:04
SPEAKER_00: Hope you enjoy it.
35:05
SPEAKER_00: So, where can people connect with you, Meg, and find out more about the the work you do with the Wild Horse Fund?
35:11
SPEAKER_05: Sure.
35:11
SPEAKER_05: Well, yeah, I mean, they people can go to our website, it's CorollaWildhorses.org.
35:15
SPEAKER_05: Yeah, you know, we've got social media.
35:17
SPEAKER_05: They can keep up with us and our work that way.
35:19
SPEAKER_05: The Northern Outer Banks has a great tourism board and visitors bureau.
35:23
SPEAKER_05: You know, they have a wonderful website that they've actually just revamped, and so that that can give people a lot of information.
35:29
SPEAKER_05: And and I I think that that's a great, great place to get started.
35:32
SPEAKER_00: What's your social?
35:33
SPEAKER_00: Because I want to see some great photographs of wild horses now.
35:37
SPEAKER_05: Sure.
35:37
SPEAKER_05: So if you go to our Facebook page, which is just, you know, crawl wild horses, our Facebook page just has a lot of information.
35:43
SPEAKER_05: We're actually in the middle of a year-in campaign right now, and so we're putting up a lot of content about history, about the work that we're doing.
35:50
SPEAKER_05: So that that's a good, good, good way to get involved.
35:52
SPEAKER_05: You know, we're on Instagram too.
35:54
SPEAKER_05: We have a community toolkit and things like that too.
35:56
SPEAKER_05: So lots of ways to help us advocate for the horses as well.
36:00
SPEAKER_00: Perfect.
36:00
SPEAKER_00: And Trevor, you mentioned your restaurant, but where can we actually go to book our table and maybe see some of your delicious food?
36:06
SPEAKER_00: I'm not sure if you do social as well, but now I want to have a look at that as well.
36:09
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so uh rtlodge.com, you'll have everything there.
36:13
SPEAKER_01: You can come book a room, come get a dinner reservation and stay with us.
36:17
SPEAKER_01: But my we also have we have two different Instagram pages.
36:20
SPEAKER_01: One of them is RT Lodge, the other one's the restaurant at RT Lodge, and that's where you'll see all the good food coming in from our farmers and what we're doing with it.
36:28
SPEAKER_01: Uh so yeah, go check that out for sure.
36:31
SPEAKER_00: Well, you can also go to wanderlustmagazine.com.
36:34
SPEAKER_00: There's lots of great articles up there and photos and information you need to plan your next trip into the beautiful American South.
36:41
SPEAKER_00: So thank you so much, guys.
36:43
SPEAKER_00: It's been amazing to chat with you.
36:44
SPEAKER_00: Thanks for taking the time to come on the show and share everything you love about your home state.
37:02
SPEAKER_04: Sadly, that's the end of today's episode.
37:05
SPEAKER_04: But before you dash off, make sure you hit subscribe and follow us wherever you get your podcasts.
37:10
SPEAKER_03: And although that's it for today, we have plenty more exciting episodes dropping soon.
37:16
SPEAKER_03: So do look out for those.
37:18
SPEAKER_03: And in the meantime, don't forget to check out wanderlustmagazine.com for daily travel inspiration.
37:25
SPEAKER_04: Thanks for listening, everyone.
37:27
SPEAKER_04: See you next time for a future adventure.
37:31
SPEAKER_03: Wanderlust off the page was introduced by Lynn Hughes and Laura Field.
37:36
SPEAKER_03: The interviewer was Aaron Miller.
37:38
SPEAKER_03: The show was produced by Armchair Productions, the audio experts for the travel industry.