Photo by Lucie Monk Carter
At Beausoleil Restaurant in Baton Rouge, chef-owner Nathan Gresham has pioneered the local farm-to-table movement, calling on influences from his Mississippi childhood and Puerto Rican heritage to his French master butcher mentors and extensive collection of cookbooks. (He’s read them all.) We spoke with Chef Nathan about his own culinary style and the hopes he has for the local food scene.
LMC: Take us through your process as you create a dish.
NG: Have you ever eaten Little Smokies … the little sausages in the crockpot? The way we did it back home, we’d use KC barbecue sauce and grape jelly. Here we do our lamb meatballs “Little Smokies” style. We make our barbecue sauce with fig preserves. We sauté the meatballs and put the barbecue glaze with figs over. We had to find a bottom—I do grits a lot with meatballs, so I did polenta this time—goat cheese polenta.
LMC: What keeps you inspired?
NG: My cooks do. I’ve got people here waiting for the next move. If I sat back there and just did the same old thing, if I didn’t show them new ideas … I’ve got to study nonstop.
LMC: Are you reading anything good?
NG: The Slanted Door: Modern Vietnamese Food by Charles Phan. He’s a chef out of San Francisco who’s just doing it all right. What I look for in his recipes are flavor profiles. I started using more fish sauce, more palm sugar in my soups. Fish sauce by itself is probably the worst ingredient in the world, but when you add it to a hot stew, it just opens it up and becomes something different.
LMC: Is there an ingredient you're favoring in the kitchen?
NG: My favorite ingredient’s vinegar. We’ve got probably ten different vinegars in the kitchen right now. We use them for different soups, sauces, pan sauces, whatever.
Probably the one I use most is sherry vinegar. I always tell my cooks if they’re making something, like a sauce or soup, and it’s just a little undersalted to put a splash of vinegar in there and let it sit for thirty minutes. It makes the flavors pop. That way, you’re not adding too much salt to it. Kind of works the same way with citrus. If you put citrus in something, it brings out the flavor, rather than adding more salt.
LMC: What’s your favorite dish to eat at home?
NG: Two things of my wife’s, actually. There’s the enchiladas she makes, and then she does arroz con pollo with black beans. It’s her grandmother’s recipe, so I’m not going to mess with that. I’ll eat that all day long.
LMC: How about a cold-weather dish?
NG: Chili! I love some chili.
LMC: What would be Beausoleil-style chili?
NG: Well, I made one the other day. I did a lamb, Swiss chard, and bean chili. I used ground lamb and I used confit lamb. I shredded that confit so you get two different kinds of meat in there. Then I like a lot of citrus in mine; I used lemon.
LMC: You were at the forefront of the farm-to-table movement in Baton Rouge. What’s the next food trend you hope catches on here?
NG: Well, I wish the farm-to-table movement would pick up more. I have a lot of good connections with the farmers, but some have had to get off their regular schedule coming to see me because not many people are buying from them.
It’s really heartbreaking. I want that truck going to all the restaurants. I want the other restaurants buying from them. If it’s just me doing it, I’m going to fail. It’s not going to take off.
I also want to see people supporting the local pig farmers and chicken farmers. I get my pigs from Iverstine Farms. Great people, great people. And I just went out to a farm on Monday and I bought a cow.
LMC: Oh, yeah? And where do you keep the cow?
NG: I don’t know yet. That’s what I’m working on!
Beausoleil Restaurant and Bar 7731 Jefferson Highway Baton Rouge, La. (225) 926-1172 beausoleilrestaurantandbar.com
