Yours and Mine: Taste buds changing at King and Prince
Sunday, January 15, 2012  ~ By Christine Tibbetts


ST. SIMONS, Georgia — Dancing in the dining room gets my taste buds popping. So do 76 years of culinary excellence now also embracing wild Georgia shrimp, regional local honey, coastal chocolates, peach cobbler, artisanal cheeses, wines, spirits and olive oil—all Georgia born.

The King and Prince resort on St. Simons Island is the purveyor of all this fine dining, plus golf and beaches too. The dining room was a dance club early in the last century, and I felt foxtrot and rumba energies when I ate there recently. Vast views of the Atlantic Ocean at eye level in that spacious room; horizontal stained glass windows of local icons reach the ceiling. Grand room, and just one of the dining locations Food and Beverage Director Vinny D’Agostino utilizes to showcase fine flavors. 2012 will be his first full year at the King and Prince, drawing on a stellar 23-year career as chef, sommelier, spirits master and restaurateur. He’s serving elegant cocktails with fresh fruits from resort trees, Georgia craft spirits from 13th Colony Distillery in Americus and syrups and bitters he crafts himself.

Generations of southern families have enjoyed the King and Prince, and their favorite peach cobbler, oatmeal raisin muffins and shrimp and grits in Tasso cream sauce are still happening. I’ll share those recipes on my web page. Seven decades of tradition continue, D’Agostino says. I felt new excitement, too, the way he’s incorporating close-to-home food artisans and their ingredients. This is a story guiding all of us to incredible Georgia grown food artistry and purveyors you can expect to find at the King and Prince.

Spartina grasses in marshes and estuaries all around St. Simons Island give Georgia wild shrimp their sweet taste. Local families catching them give me confidence about their freshness, and the absence of chemicals found in farm-grown shrimp from other lands. John Wallace has been netting shrimp in these waters for 35 years, even building his own wooden boats. He laments the loss of up to 200 area shrimping boats, down to 100 today because of low-price competition from foreign farm-raised shrimp. That’s why he devotes lots of time to Georgia shrimp certification. He favors shrimp from pristine local estuaries, not imports pumped with antibiotics and pesticides. So does King and Prince’s D’Agostino. “We only use shrimp from right here,” he says, and here are some of the ways: Salads, fried, grilled with Vidalia onion chow-chow, poboys, and the signature shrimp and grits.

“Cheeses the way they were made 100 years ago” is how Keith Blok describes his individual, handmade products at Flat Creek Lodge in Swainsboro. Cheesemaker is his title. Seven of his 25–30 cheeses he makes year-round and 95 percent rely on raw milk from his cows, all Jerseys. “I am very cognizant of what my cows eat,” Blok says. That made me thoughtful about the flavors I was finding with Flat Creek artisan cheeses served at the King and Prince. Aztec cheddar has subtle layers of chili and chocolate. Leiden is a Gouda spiced with cumin seeds and reminded me of happy travels with my sister in Holland. Vidalia onions spice his Colby-style Paris Medley with chives and red pepper too. Flat Creek Lodge is the source of artisan cheeses and farm-raised oyster mushrooms. Peconino is a sheep cheese, rivaling parmesan, and his Heavenly Blue Stilton is made from an old Irish recipe, aged in what he calls a flora and fauna cave. Blok raises chemical-free oyster mushrooms on this farm too, liking them as much as wine with his artisan cheeses.

“The only food that never spoils” is one way Ted Dennard likes to think about honey. “Honeybees are one of the most ancient creatures still living today” is another philosophy that pumps his soul. Dennard talks freely about honeybee’s symbiotic interactions with the world while he dishes up dabs of many honeys to taste with a tiny spoon, sustainably harvested from Oregon woods. Living, breathing, shaping honey with his Savannah Bee Company he considers a lifelong dream - and that follows Peace Corps work in Jamaica, guess how? Teaching beekeeping. Ancient civilizations counted on honeybees,  Savannah Bee Company today honors
the history, flavors and multiple uses of honey and its comb. Vocabulary is fun at a honey tasting: words like buttery undertone for Tupelo and gingerbready for sourwood. Earthy and mineraly is how he describes sage honey and snow-on-the-tongue for wildflower honey from Montana. That’s the taste bud part; he also believes in beeswax body care. Wonder if I’ll find that luxury in a guest room when I return some day to the King and Prince?

“Olive oil has been the missing link in local food,” believes Jason Shaw. He is changing that with his brother and cousin in Lakeland, Georgia through their Georgia Olive Farms cooperative. Their first batch of estate-pressed extra virgin olive oil received rave reviews from California and Australian experts, and the King and Prince was the site of one of the early prestigious tasting experiences. Anticipate more on resort holidays in years to come because Shaw’s operation is emphasizing education and production, helping South Georgia farmers grasp the significance of olives as a local crop.Expect good health too because those in the know say olive oil and olive leaf tea can lower your blood pressure and blood sugar. South Georgia is emerging s an olive-growing, oil-producing leaders, adding another dimension to local eating.

Small batch is the key to Dale Potts’ chocolates, she says, artisan confections that are sometimes whimsical. She’s a Georgia Tech graduate with 20 years in construction engineering, loving what she calls her second career in a circa 1935 house in Darien, Georgia. I trust her culinary calculations considering that background, and I was challenged by her tasting instructions. Little buds of chocolates to savor and distinguish many flavors, or try to, is her Sugar Marsh Cottage chocolate tasting experience. King and Prince Food and Beverage Director Vinny D’Agostino likes that too, pointing out people use only 400 or so of 2,000 senses. I guess eating more chocolate, slowly and carefully, is a good goal for me to expand my senses. Tough duty. Maybe I’ll master what Potts says are chocolate industry tasting terms: Floral, fruity, pungent, herbaceous aromas or sweet cream, earthy-cutgrass, woodsy, sweet cream, fruity-berry flavors. What about chocolate mouth feel? Thick, smooth, gritty, sticky, creamy, coarse, powdery, flat or chalky? Potts says to use your eyes, fingers, nose, tongue and full mouth with chocolate.

Maybe one reasons peaches are so delectable is because of what David Lane says: “Everything done to a peach tree must be done by hand.” He should know since he oversees 2,500 acres of peaches at Lane Southern Orchards in middle Georgia with what he calls his “family of farmers.” Low country boil is a traditional King
and Prince beach and golf resort specialty. That’s modest I’d say since this family of his has been perfecting their knowledge since 1908. Pecan groves fill 1,800 acres and the strawberry patch is a luscious five acres. Good health figures in with Lane’s hands-on philosophy, saying peaches are loaded with fiber and flavonoids, cholesterol free and dish up only 38 calories. Fresh fruit and nuts certainly are the attraction, along with farm tours, but I’m also fond of their cooking — peach cobbler and ice cream particularly. 

right patriotic to drink Muscadine wine since these grape varieties were local when the Colonies were founded. he vineyards at Still Pond in Arlington, Georgia are 40 years old and owner Charles Cowart says “We have our own little niche, resonating with southern people. ”Everything’s done by hand at Still Pond Vineyard, the ultimate slow food, Cowart says. “We grow the grapes that produce our wine. ”Skins create compost or better yet, good health. Cowart considers Muscadines smart grapes since they have 20 pairs of chromosomes while European and American Concord grapes have only 19. Red and white Muscadines have five times more resveratrol than other grapes, he notes, boosting antioxidants. Festivals at Still Pond, and wine tastings energize Cowart, who says “You get a different sense of wine when you meet the winemaker.” And of these local wines, D’Agostino of the King Prince says, “What we know is subjective so we can learn from each other tasting wine.”

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