Omnivore - Notes from the 2014 Atlanta Food & Wine Festival

• Eric Cash

I spent last Friday and Saturday at the 2014 Atlanta Food and Wine Festival, popping in and out of classes, making my rounds through the tasting tents, and meeting a lot of cool food and drink people from around the world. Here are some of the highlights from Friday:

I sat in on a super fun session called “Drink Like a Colonial” led by renowned cocktail historian David Wondrich, Wayne Curtis, a freelance writer and contributing editor at The Atlantic, and Frederick Smith, PhD., author and professor of anthropology and archeology at the College of William & Mary. The audience nerded out while the trio laughed and spoke like true experts about the drinking habits of our colonial brethren. Rum and punch-drinking played a huge part.

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• Jennifer Zyman
• The panel at Drink Like A Colonial

Paper Plane’s Paul Calvert served us a cocktail from the 1760s called Punch Royal, which was a fruity and spicy concoction made with sugar, lemon peel, lemon juice, brandy, and rum. I could easily have one or two of those a night throughout the summer. After tasting the powerful and funky Smith & Cross navy strength rum, Curtis demonstrated another colonial drink, a flip. It’s made by sticking a red-hot piece of metal that’s been sitting in a fire all day (Curtis had one heating by way of torch in one corner of the room) into a mixture of molasses, beer, and rum. What you get is a caramel colored sipper that’s smooth, spiced, and toddy-like.

Friday’s tasting tent lineup was fantastic. The food was hot, exciting, and innovative. I noticed a lot of chefs were doing chilled meat dishes in lieu of the glut of pork belly you find at such events. It was a nice change of pace. On the booze front, Moonshine was the obvious trend with a handful of companies representing their brands. My favorite bite of the day was this noodle salad dressed in a nduja vinaigrette from Alabama restaurant Acre.

• Jennifer Zyman
• Noodle salad from Acre.

Other notable bites were the luscious pulled pork and al dente mac and cheese from Grand Champion Barbecue (soon to open a space at Krog Street Market), the most amazing seven-layer caramel cake from Caroline’s Cakes out of Spartanburg, SC, all of the beers from Chicago’s Goose Island Beer Co., Orpheus Brewing’s tart plum saison Atlanta, and these amazingly tender Tennessee style ribs from Central BBQ in Memphis, Tennessee.

• Jennifer Zyman
• Central Barbecue

A mini-uttapam pancake from Chai Pani was stellar, too. Crisp on the outside and bursting with notes of fresh ginger.

• Jennifer Zyman
• Mini-Uttapam from Chai Pani

Stay tuned. Another round of what we ate and learned at Atlanta Food and Wine to come!