FEATURED CHEF OF THE MONTH

If John Fleer hadn’t become a chef, he might have been your favorite humanities professor—deeply thoughtful and intellectual, yet warm and humble, with a playful sense of humor. Luckily for those who have tasted his food, however, Fleer left graduate school in North Carolina to follow his passion for cooking. During his fifteen-year tenure as the head chef at Blackberry Farm in Walland, Tennessee, he earned national acclaim by pioneering a style of locally and traditionally inspired “Foothills Cuisine.” Though his answers to our questions brought up allusions to such wide-ranging inspirations as Wittgenstein, John McPhee, and sixteenth-century Italian painting, this “thinking man’s chef” is no egghead. (“He’s a rock star, that Fleer, a rock star,” asserts his friend and fan John T. Edge.) With the requisite confidence of any top-notch chef, he assures us that he plays a mean game of beer pong.

THE OXFORD AMERICAN: What do you love most about cooking?
 
JOHN FLEER: There are so many things, but mostly I love the fact that it always draws a crowd. Cooking has the rare magnetic capacity to get people to gather around a table, a stove, a grill, a bowl of salsa, a fire pit.

THE OA: You started out blazing a trail toward academia, in the footsteps of your parents. What made you change course?
 
JF: There was a moment, sitting in my graduate-school adviser's home during a seminar discussing Wittgenstein’s notion of “craftsmanship,” when I realized that I actually knew nothing about what “craft” was. I had always had great admiration for my brother-in-law, who was and is a boat builder. I had for years enjoyed cooking, but not taken it seriously.  I decided to do some “field research” on a craft, hence the restaurant job in graduate school. I intend to return to that seminar discussion one day and really be able to contribute.  

THE OA: Which school was harder: Duke or the Culinary Institute of America?

JF: At CIA, the program was so focused. As long as you were passionate about what you were doing, the curriculum was easy. Duke was harder (and not because I almost failed calculus).  There were so many options of fascinating things to study and explore, and I was pulled in so many directions. Intellectual freedom is hell!  

THE OA: Have you ever had a disaster in the kitchen?

JF: Of course. But each one teaches you a lesson. My first disaster is still my most memorable. In my first job, working as a pastry cook, one day I confused the bin of sugar with the bin of salt. I proceeded to make a full batch of Aurora Restaurant’s signature Black Tie Pie. Only later, when the owner came back to the kitchen at the end of my shift was the mistake realized. The look of disappointment (and rage) on his face will always be with me, reminding me to taste everything at every stage of its cooking, and teach anyone who works with me to do the same.

THE OA: What is the nicest thing anyone has ever said to you about your cooking? The worst?  

JF: They are the same. Several years ago, a famous chef who had been a guest chef at Blackberry Farm said to a colleague that we “cooked like housewives.” Now this was certainly intended as an insult, and coming from a Frenchman, probably more like a condemnation.  For me, it was a validation that my food had heart and history—that it was firmly rooted in the cooking of the people around me. To that note, there is nothing more satisfying in my life than to hear my sixteen-year-old tell me about all the great food he enjoyed on a recent trip to Ecuador, to watch my ten-year-old carefully prepare risotto for family and friends, or to hear my seven-year-old-say, “May I have some more, please.”

THE OA: Do you have any “blind spots” when it comes to cooking? Is there anything you have hesitated to try to make?  

JF: I am envious of all these folks making cured pig products. I love and appreciate their work but have only dabbled to this point. I imagine this will come in time. Other blind spots, like beets and brussels sprouts, have become favorites.

THE OA: If someone were to watch you in the kitchen what are the adjectives that person would use to describe you?  

JF: “Unflappable.” Sounds like a typical chef, huh?

THE OA: Can you tell us a little bit about “Foothills Cuisine,” the style of cooking you pioneered during your tenure as head chef of Blackberry Farm from 1992 to 2007? For example, how does it differ from what most people think of as traditional Southern fare? What other world traditions and cuisines does it draw upon?  

JF: Foothills Cuisine was always intended to mirror and blend with a certain place. I wanted it to stylistically match the experience at Blackberry, so as Blackberry changed, so did Foothills Cuisine. At its root, I have always said that it blended the rugged and refined, the fancy and the familiar. Over time, Blackberry became more refined and fancy, and the cuisine reflected this. Conceptually, the ideas were still drawn from the rugged and the familiar, but the execution grew increasingly refined.  

THE OA: What are you currently cooking up at your new restaurant, Canyon Kitchen, in Cashiers, North Carolina?

JF: More rugged and familiar. Again, the place demands it. Staring up at the beautiful box canyon that surrounds the restaurant, it just doesn’t make sense to be too precious.

THE OA: What is your favorite taste of fall?

JF: Butternut squash roasted in a mop of Benton’s bacon fat.

THE OA: There’s been a great deal of buzz in the media lately about eating locally and seasonally. What advice do you have for consumers who want to adopt more sustainable, responsible food habits?

JF: Fear nothing. To this point, this movement toward local, seasonal eating has more integrity than any other thing that’s happened in food in the last thirty years. This is a simple and honest approach to nourishing yourself, your family, and your community. Most of all, don’t fear the self-proclaimed “foodies.”  They are just a little overwhelmed by how delightfully simple and honest food can be. It is only the hubris of this discovery that makes them act that way.  

THE OA: Do you have any favorite books [or other works of art] related to food and/or cooking?

JF: John McPhee wrote two essays that have always meant a lot to me in cooking and living.  “Brigade de Cuisine” tells the story of a chef in the Northeast who, as a team of one, was intimately attached to his kitchen, his food, and his guests.  He “prefers being a person to becoming a personality, his wish to be acknowledged is exceeded by his wish not to be celebrated.” “Giving Good Weight” talks about the New York Greenmarket—the producers and their love for their product and, most importantly, giving above weight in all their transactions.  It’s proof that the “food revolution” so hot right now has a sustained history at least dating back to the mid-’70s when this essay was published. The painting “The Bean Eater” by Carracci from the 1500s has always represented to me the purity and depth of feeling in a simple meal. One day, it will have a prominent place in a restaurant of mine.

THE OA TEN—questions we ask all our interviewees.

1. What superstitions do you have?

Not necessarily a superstition, but I always enjoy mindless physical challenges like tossing corks into wine glasses across the dinner table at the end of dinner or skipping rocks across a lake. The belief or superstition is that you can do anything in ten tries. Consequently, I am wicked competition in H-O-R-S-E and beer pong.

2. What would you like to change about yourself?

I’d love that little patch of hair back on the top of my head.

3. What are you still trying to accomplish in your professional career?  

To be anywhere close in ability to the cooks and restaurateurs whom I have always admired the most: Frank Stitt, Ben Barker, John Currence.

4. What is your hidden talent?  

Juggling (and tossing corks into wine glasses from twenty paces).

5. What subject causes you to rant?   

Slow drivers in the left lane.  

6. What is the biggest mistake you ever made in your professional life?

Remember the salt/sugar mix up?!

7. What is one thing that you used to dislike but that you now like?

Brussels sprouts and bluegrass.  

8. What profoundly underrated book, album, or movie would you like to champion for us?  

How about one of each? Book: Bill McKibben’s DEEP ECONOMY, because it places the importance of eating locally and sustainably in the much broader context of what is required of all us to be responsible citizens of this fragile planet. Album: The Heartless Bastards’ first album, STAIRS AND ELEVATORS—rock & roll is not dead.  Movie: John Sayles’s THE SECRET OF ROAN INISH—A beautiful fable about the power of place and belief in our lives.  

9. What is your favorite line from a song?

Anything Elvis Costello ever penned.

10. What was your favorite childhood toy?  

Lincoln Logs—fun to build with, and they made excellent projectiles in fights with your siblings!

[Photo of Chef Fleer by Heather Anne Thomas of Beall + Thomas Photograpy]