Have A Heart: Slow Food's Feast in the Field 2012

Last night, Slow Food St. Louis’ annual Feast in the Field was held for the second time at Claverach Farm—an ideal setting for celebrating local food prepared by some of the area’s best chefs. Slow Food organizers Kelly Childs and Bill Burge teamed up with Local Harvest’s Clara Moore, this year’s “chef wrangler,” and a veritable who’s who in the St. Louis food scene to turn out a stellar event. The fact that all proceeds from the dinner will contribute to the organization’s Small Farm Biodiversity Micro-grants made the night even more of a success. 

Andrey Ivanov, from 33 Wine Shop and Tasting Bar, served at the front of the house alongside volunteers from Hickey Culinary Institute. Beers on tap (below left) came from Schlafly and Perennial Artisan Ales (including the latter’s newly released “Brew for the Crew,” developed in conjunction with Farmhaus), while Matt Sorrell from Cocktails Are Go! mixed up tasty libations from Claverach’s “Green” Wine, peaches, and strawberries (below right). 

Appetizers were comprised of pizza from Criminal Pizza (topped with “veggies of intrigue”) and Sam Racanelli’s The Mad Tomato along with a smoked liver parfait and a goat cheese terrine (below left) from Kitchen Kulture and a pork liver pate from Entre. The goat cheese terrine, with zucchini, tomato, eggplant, bacon jam, and crispy shallots, was a perfect bite of summer, and we look forward to watching Kitchen Kulture (website soon), currently selling out of the Tower Grove Farmers’ Market, continue to grow.

With bread from Companion as accompaniment, the symphony of flavors began with the first course: a king crab terrine (above right) from Stellina Pasta’s Jamie Tochtrop and Harvest’s Nick Miller. The pickled vegetables on the plate started a theme that would run throughout the evening and offered a piquant contrast to the mellow terrine. Next up was a delicious chilled ginger and tomato bisque with bunching onion relish and smoked shrimp (below left) from Stone Soup Cottage’s Carl McConnell and Ya Ya's Euro Bistro’s Rob Uyemura. Rabbit haggis (below right), with an oatcake, English peas, and heirloom carrot sprouts—compliments of The Scottish Arms' Liz Schuster and Sage Urban American Grill ’s Jeff Schaffer—provoked discussions about what a culture’s food choices reveal about its identity (rabbit vs. chicken vs. insect, for example), and our guess is that it won over a few who normally balk at eating something so cute. 

The fourth course—our personal favorite—was Clara Moore’s “sweetly” smoked Missouri trout with Amish shelling pea cream, Chicagoland green garlic vinaigrette, and herb Yorkshire pudding (below left) . Although Moore was the first contestant voted off of Bravo’s Around the World in 80 Plates, she appears to have remained friends with some of her fellow contestants as two—Gary “The Renegade Chef” Walker and Nick “Culinary Mercenary” Lacasse—helped prepare the trout. For the fifth course (below right), Cassy Vires from Home Wine Kitchen offered red-wine-braised bacon with sorghum, pickled vegetables, and Claverach micro greens—a dish that drew much praise from nearby diners. 

As each course came out, Bill Burge introduced the chefs who spent a few minutes describing the food and preparation. Before the sixth and last savory course, Burge noted that the chefs asked him if anyone had ever done anything unusual. Enter shaved lamb heart. Representing Sidney Street Café and Niche, Chris Bolyard, Matt Olson, and Nate Hereford’s dish of shaved lamb heart, smoked carrot, dill-pickled turnip, and charred leek and miso puree (below left) had more than one diner worried at the start of the meal. Like the rabbit haggis that preceded it, however, the dish not only tasted good but elicited a conversation about nose-to-tail eating, and how one culture’s “unusual” is another’s “normal.”

Dessert (above right) arrived in the form of honey ice cream, fresh berries, herbs, and rice crisps from Frazers' Kim Bond, who’s set to open a catering company, Gooseberries, soon, and was the perfect way to end a night of heavy eating. And, just when we thought we had eaten all we could, we found photographer Greg Rannells in the courtyard, with a cooler containing homemade “icy pops”—rhubarb-elderflower and hibiscus-orange blossom—so we ate more. And it was good. 

In the recently published Omnivorous Mind, research scientist John S. Allen argues that while habituation is “necessary for the brain to perceive the surrounding environment in the midst of multiple sensory inputs,” chefs like Thomas Keller and Ferran Adrià “actively combat sensory habituation by serving many, small varied courses over a long (and expensive) meal.” The latter part of the quote, not including the expense comment, applies to last night’s Feast in the Field dinner. The only thing we became habituated to throughout the seven-plus courses was delicious food.

Above left and right, the barn at Claverach Farm and Gypsy, the farm's guardian.