One Culinary Tour of Charleston’s History

Three glasses of wine and four hours later, a peculiarly vocal bird served as my early morning wake-up call. My husband and I schemed to hit the road by 5 a.m., ahead of the holiday traffic from South Carolina to Maryland. However, a night of liquor, jokes, granny’s overactive heater, and a bed fit for one (but presently accommodating three), sabotaged all plans for a pre-dawn departure. 7:15 a.m. stared me in the face.

Duelers' Alley

Sunday mornings in Charleston are quiet, sleepy, slow, and generally, charming. Periodic visits to my husband’s hometown are usually spent visiting family, hanging with his old friends, and laying back. This time around, I sought to do something different – depart from the norm and be a tourist for once.

Sweetgrass Baskets

After a brief jaunt in the fitness center, a glossy rack card featuring pictures of succulent shrimp, chocolate gourmet deserts, and strips of steak, advertised a culinary tour of Charleston. Hunger pains motivated my next action – within minutes I was making a reservation. The walking tour was advertised to be a culinary journey through the low country’s history as told through the evolution of its foods. “Benne wafers, pralines, sweet tea, collard greens, old-fashioned stone-ground grits, gourmet chocolate, and Southern barbecue” wood all be stars of the story.

Southern Pralines

A widow, six-years removed from Massachusetts, led the tour. She began the journey using colloquialisms native to African American Charlestonians, or as more commonly known, Geechee dialect. I couldn’t help but cringe when she pronounced herself as a “Comeya”, someone who has come to the area, a transplant so to speak, and native Charlestonians as “Binyas”. It was like listening to a gringo explai
Mexican traditions in Spanish using a heavily-accented American tongue. It just wasn’t right. It was also just a first of many moments during the 2.5 hour tour that made me close one eye and raise a brow and thank the stars that my husband hadn’t come along.

Here are a few tidbits (as told by our tour guide) that were new to me:

• South Carolina is the second largest producer of peaches.
• The first Jewish settlement in the United States was in Charleston.
• East Bay Street is shaping into Charleston’s Restaurant Row.
• North America’s only tea plantation is in Charleston. [*After some fact-checking, I learned that Washington has a small operation.

And here were a couple of the brow-raisers:

• “Carolina gold rice is the reason for slavery in the Carolinas.”
• These are thee best restaurants in Charleston: Cypress, FIG, Hominy Grill, McCrady’s.
• This is how you eat old-fashioned stone-ground grits:

Stone-Ground grits?

When I recounted the day’s events to my in-laws, my husband, and his friends, they were gracious enough to correct some of what I had heard. First, grits are supposed to be smooth and creamy, not stiff. Second, there are a slew of local restaurants, less nouveau low-country, that locals consider to be “the best”. And third, although rice cultivation was a big money-maker for Charleston, it wasn’t the reason for slavery in the Carolinas.

Hand-draw
Spice Shop Map

Despite some obvious discrepancies, the tour guide held her fair share of knowledge of Charleston past and present. Charleston tour guides have to take tests to be classified as official guides. In addition, to keep up with the ever-changing landscape, they have to take continuing education courses.

I learned several tidbits of history on the tour and quite a bit more after it was over as well. After hearing the general disdain about the information given on the tour, I was reminded that history can truly be subjective at times – that what some record as facts can actually be no more than their versions of what they deem to be true. However, what may be one ethnic group’s truth may be another group’s falsehoods. Therefore, we have to accept that history isn’t as accurate as we think it is, especially when the dominant ethnic group is the one writing the words on the pages. It all boils down to being no more than his’ story.