01 issue 2018

Table Talk with Chef Dave Snyder

EACH ISSUE OF SOUTHERN SOIL WILL FEATURE A CONVERSATION WITH INDIVIDUALS REPRESENTING DIFFERENT PERSPECTIVES ALONG THE FOOD SUPPLY LINE.

Earlier this month, Editor-in-chief LeeAnna Tatum sat down with Chef Dave Snyder at Halyards on St. Simon’s Island to talk about locally sourced food - the good, the bad and the ugly. Snyder owns three culinarily distinct restaurants on the Island, as well as a sea-to-table chartering business, Hook and Knife.

When possible, Snyder uses locally-sourced ingredients to supply his restaurants. As an avid fisherman he also serves on the Advisory Panel for Snapper/ Grouper Species for the South Atlantic Fishery Management Council and has worked with the South Atlantic Fishermen’s Association to improve the sustainability and health of the South Atlantic, the availability of local fish and the financial future and heritage of the fishing industry.

In a frank discussion about sustainability and

locally sourced foods, Snyder admitted that customers who dine at his restaurants rarely question where the food comes from or how it is produced. He also concedes that customer preferences and taste often run contrary to his own ideal for locally sourced quality ingredients. As with any business, demand is king.

St Simons Island and Glynn County have their own unique challenges for locally sourced food, from geographic disadvantages to a lack of local supply and demand.

“The market is so small here, it’s tough,” Snyder explained “And, of course, the land here isn’t very kind ... The Okefenokee comes all the way up here. So, it’s very difficult. So, we source (locally) what we can, when we can.”

Glynn County recently lost a local organic farm that was sold to developers, reducing local supply even more. “There was only one farm in Glynn County, Sapelo Farms … we had been getting organic tomatoes, herbs, goats, lettuces, baby veg from her for years, decade or more, and now they’re gone,” Snyder said.

Despite the setback, Snyder pointed out that Canewater Farms in Darien is making good progress, but also acknowledges that they have a stronger market in Savannah than in the nearby Brunswick area.

“Plain and simple, if it’s not important to the consumer yet down here, we’re not going to knock on people’s doors and say why don’t you do this?”

“I get more inquiries for why don’t I just open up another restaurant ... people in my immediate

neighborhoods here on this island, they don’t want to cook. They want convenience.”

Which brings the conversation back to the consumer and demand - or the lack thereof - that drives supply. Snyder, who did his culinary training in Vermont, recently returned there and compared the level of interest in organic food between the two places.

“I was in Vermont for the first time … in 20 years … this past summer and then I was actually in Massachusetts last month. And people ask their grocers where’s this food coming from? They’re asking their chefs where’s their food coming from.”

“Nobody asks me these things. I think there are different priorities here in Southeast Georgia … people don’t ask me where the food’s coming from. They don’t ask if it’s been treated with pesticides, does it have hormones in it? They just don’t ask. And up there, it’s a different priority, it’s just a different lifestyle. I mean, I can put the stuff on the shelf, but if there’s no demand for it, it doesn’t matter.”

When good food is a part of the conversation, it often involves cost.

“What I’m trying to do is change the conversation when it comes to food in general. People will say, why is it so expensive for organic vegetables? Why is it so expensive

for good chicken? Why is it so expensive for these eggs? Why is fish so expensive? Why is good food so expensive?”

“That shouldn’t be the question,” Snyder suggests. “The question should not be why is good and healthy food expensive; the question should be why is crap food so cheap?”

“Again, when I was up in Vermont, the organic sections were huge in the grocery stores. You don’t see a Fresh Market in this town or in this county. You don’t see a Whole Foods. And when you go to Savannah which is a much bigger town, how many do you see? One of each and they’re not very big. So, what does that tell you about demand? It’s just not the same here. I think it takes educating the children so that 20 years from now there’s a much bigger demand because they care about what they put in their bodies.”

The other side of demand is customer expectations which don’t always fall readily in line with locally

sourced ingredients. When dining out, customers have certain expectations for fresh fruits or vegetables whether they are locally grown or in season or not.

“We’ve got the Italian restaurant next door,” Snyder explained, “and even here (Halyard’s Restaurant), people love tomatoes. And if I don’t serve tomatoes in December and January, people are going to be mad with me. Are they in season? No, but there’s a demand for it. So, we will bring in things that aren’t in season to be successful. I don’t think our models would be successful if we only served what was in season. But we do what we can, when we can.”

When it comes to proteins, customers often associate size with quality which creates its own set of challenges for the restaurateur.

When we had it [pasture raised chicken from Grassroots Farms] on the menu, unfortunately, people … how can I politely say this … people associate taste with size and when these gorgeous chickens that were so small with little meat ... they’re like these don’t taste good. And I’m just like, it’s a real chicken! So, part of that is my job to get the education across about the type of French hen that it is and why it tastes the way it does, versus the size and lack of hormones and that sort of thing. Maybe part of that’s on me. So, that’s been very tough.

“Some people will tell me that the little bay scallops that we get (locally) are not as sweet as the big ones. Science shows that there’s actually more sugar in the bay scallop than the diver sea scallop. So, technically, it’s sweeter. But they still say it doesn’t taste as good. But that’s part of my job-- to educate people, especially when it comes to fish.”

Snyder’s true passion is fish. But even that is more challenging to source locally than one might expect on an island.

“When it comes to fish, it’s challenging and depends on your definition of local. My definition of local is about 30 miles; some people’s is 200. We’re actually almost due south of Cleveland, Ohio, believe it or not. That’s how far West we are. So, for our fishermen to get to the fishing grounds, which are to the East, of course, they have to travel further than anybody else on the Eastern Seaboard.”

There are only two commercial fishermen operating between Savannah and Jacksonville.

“We’re on this beautiful island on this beautiful coast, a hundred miles, and there are two commercial fishermen who live further away from the fishing grounds than arguably anyone else in the Southeast. So, for my definition of local fish, that’s where we get local fish from. And we don’t get it all that often.”

“There are a lot of fishing regulations. I’m passionate about saving fish. I sit on the advisory panel for the Snapper/Grouper Species, I’m on a steering committee for an educational program. So, there are a lot of regulations that prohibit them. You can’t catch Grouper right now. Different species go in and out of harvest depending on spawning season, catch limits. So, it’s difficult for us being here, a little more difficult than other parts of the country.”

When it’s not in season locally, Snyder sources fish from the Florida panhandle and other areas that are as “local” as possible.

ucate consumers about other, lesser known fish options to help ease the pressure on more popular species. For example, demand increased greatly for the patagonian toothfish when it was rebranded as chilean sea bass.

“But that’s my job to educate people ,especially when it comes to fish. I’ve got to teach people about the lionfish ... Part of it is on us to introduce these … “chilean sea bass” of the world. Because if I can sell you on wolf fish, I’m going to take pressure off grouper and snapper. If I can sell you on speckled trout, I’m going to take pressure off of flounder. So, part of that is my job and I’m a steward of that.”

“And that’s one thing I really push at my council meetings,” Snyder continued “… give me more tools to educate people. Let’s educate some chefs and take pressure off those fish. But I think Southeast Georgia is lagging from other parts of the country where people care about their food. And I’m not trying to be insulting in any way, shape or form.”

From the state of local food production and ways to make it work better the conversation also turned to food culture which really begins at home. And it brought up another challenge for a sustainable food system: getting people invested in the process, becoming more than just consumers, but producers as well.

“That’s the hard part, because so many people want convenience. You have to get people out of that lifestyle. Cook your own damn food! Don’t just pick it up, cook it!”

For Snyder, food is not just a part of his lifestyle, it IS his lifestyle. From owning and operating three restaurants to chartering fishing excursions off the

coast, his life is centered around good food. But that appreciation for quality ingredients and good cooking didn’t start in culinary school, it started at home.

“I started cooking when I was 10 years old. I had a paper route in Michigan and it had to be out by 7 a.m., so it was flippin’ cold! I’d come home and six out of seven mornings, my mother would have her version of an egg McMuffin that she’d make in tin foil. While I was out delivering, she’d make it and I’d come home, it’d be in the oven ... One morning, she slept in and I didn’t have my sandwich, so I tried to make one. I made a mess of it. But that’s when I really started cooking.”

“My mom cooked all the time. She was a stay-athome mom until I was about 13 and a great cook. She grew up basically homeless in Colombia, trying to cook good food when you have literally nothing ... she learned a lot of tricks and just developed a great method. So by the time she came into some money after she moved to this country and got a job and all those things, she became a much better cook. I learned from her.

“Until I was 16, dinner with the family was six nights a week. Thanksgiving’s our number one holiday. Why? Food! The culture for me was that food was just an important thing. Because mom did it all the time. And then the day I turned 16 and got my driver’s license, I was working in a restaurant because I had wheels.

“The passion, I didn’t know I had until I was in college. I was paying my own way ... I was completely on my own at 20. And I was skipping school to work, and here I am paying my own way. What’s going on with that? And that’s when the lightbulb

went off and I knew I wanted to cook. So, I went to Vermont to culinary school. Went to New York City, school of hard knocks, for five years, and that’s where the passion just grew more and more.

“Especially with good ingredients. You can make crap food with good ingredients, you can’t make good food with crap ingredients. No matter what you do with that, if you don’t start with something good, you can’t make anything good. You just can’t.

“So, that culture was instilled in me, I didn’t know it, back when I was a teenager with my mom.

“I love to eat! I love to eat. I don’t eat a lot of Doritos and crappy chemicals, I just overeat like a mother, ‘cause I love to do it! So, the culture for me has always been about food. In fact when my mother passed away in November a few years ago. And it was only fitting that she died the month of her favorite holiday. And part of the eulogy was centered around food and Thanksgiving. … it’s that important to me. I love to cook.”

Snyder shares his love of cooking with others through cooking classes that he conducts monthly in his restaurant kitchen. (Currently the cooking classes are on hiatus while he gets his third restaurant up and running).

“We keep it small, six or seven students, because it’s a hands on class. This isn’t where I put 30 people in a room and do a demo. We’re in the kitchen, getting our fingernails dirty. It’s fun because I hand out champagne to everybody and we’re back there chopping and sweating and burning. And people cook their own lunch and they take home what they cook for dinner … So, it’s a lot of fun.”