Today's podcast is a gastronomic treat. I'm talking with Chef William Dissen, James Beard Award-winning chef and owner of the restaurant, The Marketplace, located in Asheville, North Carolina. William is the founder of four award winning restaurants and draws inspiration from traveling the world, creating dishes that tell a story, surprising guests with inventive food preservation techniques, and bringing classic dishes with explosive flavors to life. He published a debut cookbook in 2024 titled Thoughtful Cooking - Recipes Rooted in the New South. Food and Wine Magazine recognized it as the best spring cookbook and praised how he takes readers on a culinary journey organized by the four seasons of Appalachia's most sought-after ingredients. William also enjoys the fame of being the first and only chef to beat Gordon Ramsay in a cook off on NatGeo TV’s Gordon Ramsay Uncharted Smoky Mountains. Interview Summary Will, you were early to the farm to table local foods concept. Some years ago, when I dined at your restaurant, the Marketplace, I liked the philosophy, not to mention the food, would you please tell us what led you down this road? You know, I'm originally from West Virginia, from the Appalachian Mountains, and my grandparents were, were farmers that lived in very rural parts of the state. I grew up in suburbia in the capital of Charleston, West Virginia, but spent a lot of my weekends on their farm. And they very much lived the Appalachian mentality and culture of farming, of putting things up for the year. You know, they canned and pickled and preserved and fermented and dehydrated, and they foraged and they had honeybees to pollinate their garden. They irrigated with fresh spring water and things that I think now in 2024, hipster DIY trends that people are saying they're doing in bigger cities. But these are things my grandparents were doing to sustain themselves. And I'd say that those ideas and ideals imprinted upon me about not just sustainability and how to treat the earth, but also about how to make food delicious because great food starts fresh. And from this initial exposure to food customs of your youth what led you to being a chef? You know I think in those hot sweaty August days, as they say up in the holler of my grandparents’ farm, we'd sit in the front porch and shuck corn and string beans. I really kind of kindled a love affair with food. One of my first jobs I had, I was a newspaper delivery boy and shortly after that I was, you know, trying to hustle to make some more money. And I ended up washing dishes at a local country club. And I think a very similar story for a lot of chefs, one day the garde manger cook or the salad and sandwich cook called out. And the chef said can you make sandwiches and salads? And I thought, sure, I can do that. And haven't really looked back since. You've been a chef at many fine restaurants in major cities. What led you to Asheville, North Carolina in particular? After I left West Virginia, I lived all over the place. I was in New York and California and South Carolina and ended up back here where I'm now in Asheville where I have my restaurant, The Marketplace. And one of the things that really stood out to me was the really beautiful region. National Geographic has voted it time and time again as one of the most biodiverse places on the planet. It's actually a temperate rainforest. There are species of wild edible greens and medicinal greens. There are species of lizards and snakes and things that you only find here in this region. It's not just beautiful. It's also a really thriving ecosystem. Terms like intentional, mindful, and in your case, thoughtful - it's in the title of your book - can be applied to cooking and eating. What does it mean to you? I'd say in general, it's going back to what I mentioned about my grandparents. And really focusing on being present but also planning ahead. I feel like in this day and age, we're so connected to computers and phones and social media that we've kind of got disconnected from our food system. People say, well, you know, technology is driving the world and we need to be logged in to be able to stay relevant. And I don't disagree with that, but I feel as our society is doing that, we are losing touch with nature. And if you go back one generation, two generations and ask anyone, their grandparents, I'm sure grew a garden. Or were farmers, and they probably went through acts of preservation because there weren't Whole Foods in every corner. It wasn't Amazon delivery. They had to plan ahead, and to be in touch with the time of year enables them to sustain themselves and their families. And certainly, we're fortunate now in 2024 to not have to think that way all the time, but I do think there's a lot of value into being a little more thoughtful about the world around us. And I think that's really what I want to try to show people with my book, Thoughtful Cooking, is that connecting yourself to the ...
