{"id":11870,"date":"2019-12-12T15:45:44","date_gmt":"2019-12-12T20:45:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ncseagrant.ncsu.edu\/coastwatch\/?page_id=11870"},"modified":"2024-08-20T13:37:07","modified_gmt":"2024-08-20T17:37:07","slug":"the-story-of-ricky-moore-the-best-chef-in-the-triangle-talks-carolina-cooking","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ncseagrant.ncsu.edu\/coastwatch\/the-story-of-ricky-moore-the-best-chef-in-the-triangle-talks-carolina-cooking\/","title":{"rendered":"The Story of Ricky Moore: The “Best Chef in the Triangle” Talks Carolina Cooking"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\n\n\n

“When I opened up Saltbox, I wasn\u2019t trying to be trendy,\u201d says Ricky Moore.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

His small walk-up counter, Saltbox Seafood Joint, quickly has become recognized as one of the top places to get fresh seafood in the <\/em>Triangle. Moore has gained local and national acclaim for his use of North Carolina seafood and traditional recipes \u2014 but with modern twists.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/a>
Photo by Baxter Miller<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Raised in New Bern, Moore thrives on local flavors that he now brings to his customers. \u201cI grew up eating seafood,\u201d he says. \u201cI felt like if I was going to do a seafood concept, and in the context that I wanted to do it, I didn\u2019t want it to be in a fine-dining setting.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

His food, served on trays and in paper baskets, is reminiscent of a fish-fry or road-side stand \u2014 and that\u2019s how he wants it.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s an everyday thing for these fishermen to get fish and provide this food,\u201d he says. \u201cI want to make it an everyday occasion to eat their food.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Saltbox highlights the bounty of the North Carolina coast, cuisine that customers traditionally have found difficult to enjoy inland.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSeeing that we have all of this coastline and all of these wonderful natural resources, why are they not showcased on menus?\u201d Moore says, adding that he draws inspiration from his time in France, where globally-known recipes, like bouillabaisse, rely on locally caught seafood.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

He spotlights North Carolina\u2019s catch, even when the species are not as well-known as some frequently appearing on menus. \u201cFlounder, shrimp, and oyster,\u201d he says of common public perceptions and options. \u201cDone. That is seafood.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

But by including other N.C. species on his menu \u2014 like triggerfish, mullet, or sheepshead \u2014 Moore is changing the narrative around local seafood.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI want to diminish the terminology and reputation of \u2018trash fish,\u2019\u201d Moore says. \u201cJust because it isn\u2019t mainstream doesn\u2019t make it lesser.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

To him, \u201cnative fish\u201d is the more appropriate term.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI understood and knew that it was going to take time to inspire and influence people to try some different things,\u201d Moore says. \u201cI have a standard menu, but also a try-me kind of dish, which is literally, \u2018Try this fish!\u2019\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

His small, personable locations allow more interaction with consumers, including opportunities to answer their questions about unfamiliar species and seasonality.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In response, <\/em>IndyWeek readers named Moore \u201cBest Chef in the Triangle\u201d last June.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

And what are the best chef\u2019s personal favorites?<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI grew up eating bonefish, like croaker, spot, and star butterfish,\u201d he says, adding that one of his beloved preparations is \u201cfried hard.\u201d This eastern-North Carolina cooking style includes a whole or butterflied fish, seasoned in cornmeal batter and fried in a cast iron skillet, bones and all.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhen you fry it so crispy,\u201d he says, \u201cit almost becomes like bacon.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

To bring coastal Carolina cooking to the broader public, Moore recently published the <\/em>Saltbox Seafood Joint Cookbook.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Written with K.C. Hysmith, the book explains the basics of preparing seafood and how to make classic North Carolina recipes.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In these excerpts from <\/em>Saltbox Seafood Joint Cookbook, Moore discusses North Carolina\u2019s foodways and how they have shaped his career.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2014 Danielle Costantini<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Growing Up in New Bern<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Local seafood is my gospel and always has been. My mother\u2019s side of the family came from a community called Riverdale, situated between New Bern and Havelock. My father was from Harlowe, halfway between Beaufort and New Bern. You crossed waters whichever way you went.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I grew up along the Neuse and Trent Rivers and spent plenty of my childhood fishing those waters, but I don\u2019t want this to sound as though we were eating fish all the time. We ate it whenever we could get it, whenever it was available, or whenever somebody went out fishing. This was real life, so we ate standard eastern North Carolina stuff, too, like greens with white cornmeal dumplings and salted pig tails, collard sandwiches, tender flat biscuits, fried chicken, and iceberg lettuce covered with thick salad dressing. It was never all fish.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A lot of people in my area didn\u2019t have traditional families or upbringings where the mother or grandmother stayed home and cooked everything from scratch. They had jobs, too. My mother worked at the local hospital for a long time. She was incredibly busy, but when she had time to cook she always did it in a very organized way. At no point in her process was the kitchen ever a mess. She kept things clean and neat, and made things like \u201cpriddy fried chicken,\u201d clean fried fish, and meatloaf with a tight and tidy ketchup glaze on top. My maternal grandmother, Bernice, worked in a Havelock school cafeteria and would bring home all sorts of extras from work. Hot, scratch-made dishes like lasagna, chicken tetrazzini, yeast rolls, and hamburger steak and gravy. Bernice had a close companion named James \u2014 we called him Tick \u2014 who learned to cook when he was stationed at Cherry Point. He was a kind of grandfather figure to me (and later married my grandmother Bernice) and was always cooking good food. Tick was known for his big breakfasts. They weren\u2019t anything fancy \u2014 standard eggs and potatoes, fresh sausage, boiled and pan-fried ham, and bacon with a thick rind on it \u2014 but they were always done with precision.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/a>
Moore has gained experience in domestic and international culinary settings. Photo by Baxter Miller.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Food and work were always tied up together. In the summertime, when we wanted some pocket money, all of us kids would get on our bikes and ride across the Bridgeton Bridge to go pick blueberries at Morris Blueberry Farm. The earlier you got there, the sooner you could finish before it got too hot. The farm paid in crisp, clean dollars that stuck together when you first got them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My first official job was in a barbershop where I ran errands, shined shoes, and swept up the hair from the floor. My aunt got me the job. Down the street from the shop, a lady would cook food and sell plates heaped high with fried chicken, roast beef, chitlins, barbecue ribs, macaroni and cheese, collards, corn pudding, and such. I took orders, ran to collect the plates, and brought them back to the barbershop. At the end of the day, I spent the tips on a plate just for myself. Later, I ran a paper route, but I spent all my money on candy, so my mother made me quit. In high school, I worked at the Piggly Wiggly as a bagger, cashier, and produce stocker. Then I took another job as a dishwasher at a local seafood restaurant called \u201cFriday\u2019s 1890.\u201d They never made the kind of fish you ate at home; instead, they made popcorn shrimp, fried flounder, hushpuppies, all the normal sides, and classic North Carolina pulled pork barbecue. A lot of restaurants did pork and seafood, like an eastern North Carolina surf and turf, and served it all on the same plate. I\u2019ve always wondered why barbecue took the lead.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/a>
Photo by Baxter Miller.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Life was busy, and everybody had work to do, so we didn\u2019t always gather at the table together to eat, but the food we had was always nurturing. Whatever I was fed, whichever friend or family made it, it was good to me. And, thankfully, we still found time for fishing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

During the summer all the cousins would gather at my other grandmother Lottie Mae\u2019s house. Once a week or so we\u2019d set off on very informal fishing excursions with bamboo fishing poles fitted with standard bits of bait. Whenever you did go fishing, everybody caught enough for everybody \u2014 at least, that was the plan anyways. We\u2019d haul our catch home for our aunts and grandmother to do the extra-messy job of scaling, gutting, and cleaning. They never trusted us kids to do it. When we couldn\u2019t make it out to the water, there was a gentleman who drove around selling freshly caught fish in his pickup truck that he had outfitted with a wood and galvanized tin storage setup and a big metal scale. All the fish was stored on ice \u2014 it seemed so special. You made your selection and he would weigh it out and wrap it up for you to take back into the house. Fish was either fried or stewed, depending on the size of the catch, and always very simply prepared. It was served with boiled potatoes or other some vegetable. Everybody, even us kids, ate the same thing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Launching a Career<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/a>
Photo by Baxter Miller.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

It was part of my personal practice to further my culinary education and experience by working abroad whenever I had the opportunity. I wanted to work in specific restaurants just to define for myself what, exactly, a Michelin-starred kitchen was and what made it so special. Through this work abroad, I found a shared sense of tradition, culture, behavior, and, most important, discipline when it came to food and dining.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I was the only person of color in these European kitchens, which made me even more intense about learning as much as possible. Back then, the only African American chef I knew of was Patrick Clark, who ran famous restaurants like Odeon and Tavern on the Green and was on Iron Chef <\/em>back before the show was big in the United States. Being black automatically pigeonholed you. By focusing on the classical cuisines of France and Italy, Clark was never perceived as a typical African American chef. Not wanting to be recognized as just a southern cook, I thought that I should follow a similar path.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After some time and additional stages in European restaurants, I realized that the rustic roots of these culinary mainstays weren\u2019t that different from the food of my childhood. I began to see that southern food is not a lesser cuisine, and I shed many of the insecurities I had held about my own food culture. It was time to head back to the States.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Doing One Thing Really Well<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

I wanted a little shop, to do one thing really well, and to control every aspect of it. This was ultimately the base of my business model…during my search and was my first thought when I finally found a small building, a little walkup with the right bones, that wouldn\u2019t require a lot of staff and would allow me to be in a place where I was there every day doing it all myself. A place where I wanted to be all the time. Seafood just made sense.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/a>
Saltbox Seafood Joint highlights North Carolina\u2019s catch and offers customers traditional and novel meals. Photo by Baxter Miller.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Unfortunately, this little shop was not for rent and was occupied by a burger and hot dog joint, so I decided to observe this operation\u2019s routine. For about a week, I went there in the morning, at noontime, and late at night. I observed the traffic patterns, the local activities, the types of customers on foot and in cars, and the neighborhood vibe. I also watched the business. The owners weren\u2019t working the place as I thought they should have been. They were always late, glued to the loud television in the restaurant kitchen, and seemed to have no interest in serving food. So, I thought I would ask them, \u201cYou must be tired of this?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They were a little offended.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I talked to the building\u2019s owner, an elderly lady whose family had owned the place for a long time, and I told her about what I wanted to do and what the place could be. Thankfully, the timing was right, the old business left, we drew up a new lease, and I found myself with a small restaurant without bells and whistles and in need of a thorough cleaning and complete reorganization.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then came the naysayers. \u201cYou going to go to that little building over there?\u201d \u201cWe\u2019ve seen so many different things in there… \u201d \u201cYou\u2019re coming in here with seafood, okay… you\u2019ll be gone in three months.\u201d But they were all missing the boat. I had driven around this neighborhood and seen firsthand the changes that were coming. I knew, five years from now, this would be a success. I could get it done. This was a practical opportunity to go into business for myself, do something creative and thoughtful, without big loans or investors. I could work this little thing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Soon the questions changed. \u201cWhere did you find this space? It\u2019s so cool!\u201d Seeing the success, the people who ran the burger stand before me even came back and wanted to take over my lease. People were really excited about what I was doing, and it seemed as if every chef in Durham came by to eat. As a chef, I feel that I know what chefs like: goodness, simple goodness, and to taste the care in what we\u2019re eating.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My original plan was to have a food truck (it was all the rage at the time). In\u00adstead, I got a stationary concession stand with two small fryers and a four-burner range. I was cooking everything to order. And I found I could do everything I wanted all for myself. I had Saltbox.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/a>
Moore has drawn acclaim, including recognition as IndyWeek\u2019s \u201cBest Chef in the Triangle\u201d and owner of one of the News and Observer\u2019s \u201cBest New Restaurants.\u201d He also now has a new UNC-TV show (above) called The Hook<\/em>.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

For me, Saltbox means hometown, and I kept this in mind as I created the menu. I wanted to bring that hometown food forward. I did my research and asked, \u201cWhat was your hometown food in Durham?\u201d The default answer was always pulled pork. Growing up in New Bern, it was fried hard crabs or fried chicken from Melvin\u2019s Chicken Shack, where they cooked chicken to order and you\u2019d wait a while but never complain. In Chapel Hill there was the Rathskeller, where you could get the best spaghetti dinner, and Hector\u2019s, which was known far and wide for its wraps before wraps were cool. I wanted Saltbox to be a place like this, a place folks would consider part of their hometown and the fabric of the community. A place that would make folks say, \u201cYou ain\u2019t been to Durham if you haven\u2019t been to Saltbox.\u201d I opened the doors in October 2012, just in time for the first fish running of the fall.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Four years on, after staying steady, preaching the gospel about local seafood, and having confidence in my work, I decided to expand. As I drove back and forth between my home in Chapel Hill and my work in Durham, I kept passing the old Shrimp Boat restaurant. I thought, \u201cIf this space ever comes available, it would be ideal for a sit-down Saltbox.\u201d Through word of mouth, I found out that the Shrimp Boat\u2019s owners wanted to leave, so I jumped. Norma and I went through the bank process, cleaned up the space together, and turned the restaurant into a seamless second version of Saltbox. We painted the bricks the signature Saltbox colors that always remind me of the beach: the light green of seagrass, the orange of life preservers and fishermen\u2019s jumpsuits, and a light blue to represent North Carolina. Everything needed to be authentic. For inspiration, I visited the Core Sound Waterfowl Museum on Harkers Island, noting all the natural wood and the purposeful lack of mermaids, pirates, and anchors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Locals Seafood sent over cleaned oyster shells that we spread under the picnic tables situated beneath our giant vintage 1969 marquee. The marquee is how I communicate with my customers, building a space of awareness about local seafood and letting folks know what fish is in season. Although I use social media, I like this old-fashioned version, too. I\u2019ll spell out \u201cCroaker Season\u201d or \u201cButterfish is here\u201d and watch as the cars pull in with curiosity. As a final touch, two vintage boat clocks hang over the door, so customers and cooks can see the time and understand the importance of how this process of slow, local food works.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/a>
Ricky Moore. Photo by Baxter Miller.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Saltbox quickly became a platform for me to advocate for good cooking, evangelize local North Carolina seafood, and give back to the community. It\u2019s important to give back and give back genuinely, not just because you\u2019re supposed to, but because you are connected to it all.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019ve had the great fortune to partner with many meaningful events from fundraising dinners for homeless organizations to working with Durham Independent School District kitchen managers to create recipes for school cafeteria menus. Recent events I have held with Adrian Lindsay and the Green Book Supper Club, a pop-up dinner series showcasing African American chefs in North Carolina, have even inspired much of the historic and cultural research for this cookbook. The Green Book <\/em>was an annual guidebook for African Americans during the Jim Crow era that pointed out shops, hotels, and restaurants that were friendly to the black community. Back then there were two places in Durham where you could stop and grab a bite to eat. Ultimately these places were a way to bring folks together.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Change seems to happen if you put good food in front of people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2022 From <\/em>Saltbox Seafood Joint Cookbook by Ricky Moore. \u00a9 2019 Ricky Moore. Used by permission of the University of North Carolina Press, www.uncpress.org<\/a>.<\/em>
\u2022 Order the cookbook here: go.ncsu.edu\/Saltbox<\/a><\/em>
\u2022 Watch <\/em>The Hook, Ricky Moore\u2019s new television show with UNC-TV: go.ncsu.edu\/Ricky-TV<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n

Related<\/h2>
\n Winter 2019 Issue<\/span>\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\n\t\t<\/svg><\/span>\n <\/a>\n <\/div><\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“When I opened up Saltbox, I wasn\u2019t trying to be trendy,\u201d says Ricky Moore.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":67,"featured_media":24201,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"views\/single-immersive.blade.php","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"ncst_custom_author":"Ricky Moore","ncst_show_custom_author":true,"ncst_dynamicHeaderBlockName":"ncst\/default-immersive-post-header","ncst_dynamicHeaderData":"{\"backgroundColor\":\"custombg_one\",\"displayCategoryID\":647,\"showAuthor\":true,\"showDate\":true,\"showFeaturedVideo\":false,\"subtitle\":\"\u201cI began to see that southern food is not lesser cuisine, and I shed many of the insecurities I had held about my own food culture.\u201d\"}","ncst_content_audit_freq":"","ncst_content_audit_date":"","ncst_content_audit_display":false,"ncst_backToTopFlag":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[574,600,595,647],"tags":[],"_ncst_magazine_issue":[659],"class_list":["post-11870","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-574","category-coastal-cultures-and-histories","category-seafood","category-winter-2019"],"displayCategory":{"term_id":647,"name":"Winter 2019","slug":"winter-2019","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":648,"taxonomy":"category","description":"","parent":574,"count":10,"filter":"raw"},"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nThe Story of Ricky Moore: The "Best Chef in the Triangle" Talks Carolina Cooking - 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