Dabney Dinner: selections from area restaurants honored a Reconstruction Era caterer
Area quintessential Southern-style restauranteurs served their specialities at a Fire, Flour & Fork event (Photo credit: Piet E. Jones)
I love a good festival – complete with long lines and boisterous crowds savoring amazing food from old favorites to new finds.
Richmond's annual food celebration, Fire, Flour & Fork, doesn’t just serve up dishes, it serves up the history of food, its production and the people — both current and historic — who put the food on our plates.
With the theme of "Globally Inspired, Locally Made," the four day festival takes place in venues across the city and the region. With nearly 40 events to choose from, often running concurrently, it can be hard to choose what to attend. In full disclosure, the 4-year-old gathering is a side project of Richmond magazine editorial director Susan Winiecki.
Staff at the magazine took divergent paths. Associate food editor Dina Weinstein set out on a tour tackling the diverse landscape of Midlothian Turnpike that allowed her to nibble her way down the road — from K Bakery for rice flour-based sweets to New Grand Mart for tropical and Asian produce, from Carena’s Jamaican Grille for oxtail to La Sabrosita Bakery for pan de muerto, and from La Michoacana for mango and chili ice cream to Taqueria Panchito for scorchingly hot nopales tacos. On the Urban Agriculture Tour, she peaked into Urban Choice Mushroom Farm, roamed the rows at Tricycle Urban Gardens, viewed a Healthy Corner Store – Corner Farm display and heard about Ellwood Thompson’s efforts to work with local growers. Weinstein and food writer Laura Sant took a virtual tour of Mexico at the Mezcal tasting at Flora with Megan Barnes of the D.C.-based Espita Mezcaleria. Richmond magazine creative director Justin Vaughan took art and food lovers on a Street Art & Street Food Tour Saturday.
But choose one must, and choose I did. To open this year’s festival, I popped over to the First African Baptist Church for the third annual Dabney Dinner — named in honor of enslaved Richmonder turned publican, John Dabney.
The evening included an engaging and informative lecture by Michael Twitty, chef and author of "The Cooking Gene." Twitty discussed how slaves in Virginia pioneered Southern cooking by combining their traditional African cooking with the European influences of their owners and then transported it across the South as the highly coveted cooks were sold and sent to other states. This was followed, after a greeting by Mayor Levar Stoney, by a quintessential Southern dinner served up by some of RVA’s hottest chefs — Velma Johnson of Mama J’s and her amazing mac-and-cheese, ribs with braised kale and mustard greens from Katrina Mazyck of Vagabond, and Gullah red rice and shrimp from Willard Douglas of Delancy’s (opening soon in Jackson Ward).
Wrapping it all up was the premiere of the documentary, "The Hail-Storm: John Dabney in Virginia," the Hail-Storm being Dabney’s fruit-festooned massive version of a mint julep. The evening went by so fast I almost didn’t miss not having any wine with dinner — Baptist church, you know.
The next day at Heritage for lunch, chef/owner Joe Sparatta presented a class on pasta making. To my joy, it wasn’t just pasta he was teaching, it was gnocchi — requiring no special equipment or tools. Will I be able to make those beautiful little “potato pillows” caramelized in brown butter in sage at home as good as his? He made it look pretty simple.
We ended the weekend with an over-the-top five-course dinner hosted by Brenner Pass, guest chef Yoni Levy from San Francisco, and wine pairing from Italian wine maker, Orsolani. With dishes ranging from four gras gougeres to some beautifully cooked squab and even a wildly delicious oxtail falafel, it was an indulgent evening that pushed the boundaries of cuisine.
Was I able to hit everything I wanted? Nope. There’s just too much to choose from. Fortunately, there’s always next year.
