The first bite of the evening highlights the flavors of the Appalachian forest through the flavors of black walnuts. The broth is flavored with sassafras - a plant native to eastern North America - which evokes strong childhood memories for Chef Sean Brock, as it grew everywhere from where he is from. Even the smoked cocoa nibs are a reference to his roots, smoked by Alan Benton, a famed bacon producer in Tennessee.

While the immediate stars of this dish – the shell made of dashima, a favored variety of Korean seaweed, sweet meat of Norwegian king crab, and the deep, savory mussel juice – it is balanced with treasures of the land. The acidity of the fermented mixed pepper balances the flavors of the mussels, and the tea made from foraged pineapple weed used in the finishing layer, balances out the flavors of the sea with those from the land.

An homage to the classic “groundnut” soup, Chef Sean Brock’s version uses African runner peanuts, foie gras, fresh lady peas from Nashville with Appalachian leather britches, and African runner peanuts.

Fresh lady peas are the most delicate grown in the South, such that it is typically enjoyed raw. Here, they have been brined raw in a vin jaune based mix, then softened overnight. Appalachian leather britches - one of over 370 varieties of beans from Chef Sean Brock’s region - are allowed to grow to an extremely large size and snapped in half. Strung with needle and thread then hung over the fire to preserve forever, it as a distinct taste of braised beef.

African runner peanuts, which contain a higher sugar content than most peanuts, are an extremely rare variety in any part of the world. Due to their small size, they can only be hand-harvested, making these inherently rare peanuts even harder to access.

Naeng guk translates directly to cold soup, and is a type of dish that is enjoyed in Korea during the hot days of summer. The cold broth of this dish is a meditation on the refreshing pine plant: the soup itself is brewed from pine cones, then infused with Atomix’s own pine cone vinegar, along with seaweed.

Served with the poached conger eel, binchotan-grilled eggplant and raw threeline grunt fish – paired with Atomix’s barley ssamjang and chopi oil – we hope that these elements of both land and sea provide restoration and relief from the summer’s heat.

Morels, blackberries, and shagbark are all very important ingredients in Appalachian cooking.

The ingredients expressed here on your plate come from the lab at Audrey. Shagbark hickory tree actually naturally exfoliates and the bark releases the smoky sap, despite never having been smoked. It is mixed with blackberry bush, hickory nut oil and morels to create the swirled fruit leather disc, garnished with the same ingredients expressed in a different method.

Chef Sean grew up eating sauerkraut of corn, a blend of the German and Cherokee palates, a combination that exists only in the tiny corner of the Appalachia that he is from, and is what inspired this bite today.

The fresh sunflowers are made into bisque; the kudzu root based dumplings are made from sunflower hearts. The salad is a symphony of sunflower – fresh kernels, roasted seeds, freshly pressed oil – garnished with fresh and sour corn and its petals.

Bok-nal is the traditional Korean calendarization of three days between July and August which marks the three hottest days of the summer. Despite the intense heat, these days coincided with some of the most important days in Korea’s traditional agricultural calendar, in which rice farmers had to labor at length.

Bok-nal became days where it was customary to eat the most nutritious, restorative foods possible to ensure the well-being of farmers. The samgyetang - chicken soup cooked with ginseng, jujube and other herbal aromatics - is the most representative of this category. At Atomix, we have used the Silkie chicken alongside abalone and octopus, two ingredients considered as pinnacle of restorative power, to fuel your energy during these long summer days.

Mr. Stripey is a special variety of tomato, the most common in Central Appalachia that it’s what a tomato refers to. In this dish, Mr. Stripey is the star, accompanied by wild plums from Appalachia. The concentrated tomato syrup is a hard-won technique from the June team that has extracted as much flavor from the tomato as possible.

It is relatively common knowledge how important and essential rice is to Korean cuisine, the foundation to each and every meal. Mieum is a lesser known of the rice: it is a thin rice gruel made by breaking down the rice to its starch, often eaten when low-energy or ill, as it was a comfort food, both easy to digest and nutritious.

Inspired by mieum’s unique texture, it has been reimagined as a sauce, supplemented with clam stock and cheongju. Served with a Korean favorite, the fried Beltfish and changnan jeotgal, we hope that it invigorates both your senses and body.

*Served with Cherokee White Eagle Grits with Bay Laurel

Ossabaw is a tiny island near Savannah, very different from Appalachia in many ways. For a long time, only a single-family unit occupied the island. Iberico pigs were delivered from Spain in the 1490s, and became wild on the island. Once re-discovered, they were studied for their rare form: it was found that through acorn gorging and inbreeding, they had developed a rare form of diabetic dwarfism that led to an insane amount of fat and flavor.

This dish highlights the Ossabaw pork in all its flavor - from the slow ember-roasted meat, to the cream made from sonicated Ossabaw fat and stock. To note is the side of grits which are a special Cherokee varietal which survived the trail of tears: it has taken more than four years to have just enough to cook for special occasions.

The blueberries during this season are truly nature’s candy, full of the sweetness from the sun, reminding us that during the bountiful months of summer, the best flavors come straight from mother nature herself.

To refresh your palate, we have prepared both fresh and lacto-fermented blueberries alongside a syrup made from meadowsweet, oftentimes referred to as the Queen or Pride of the meadow for its delicate clusters of white flowers that were foraged by forager Tama. We hope that the simple techniques applied to highlight the best produce showcase respect we have for the inherent, vibrant flavors of nature at their peak.

Sapelo island cane syrup is one of the most important findings of Chef Brock’s career.

Sapelo, one of the fifteen fascinating barrier islands off Georgia, has a population of 115. Even today, one can only access the island by boat. This remote nature has allowed West African culture to be perfectly preserved without outside influences. Over the years, the main source of the island’s revenue was the island cane syrup.

With this sweet final course, we hope that this evening has been a sweet reminder that the ingredients of our heritage - no matter who or where - are worth an introspection, and more often than not, tell not only a flavorful story through its palette but of ourselves.