- Welcome to Atlanta, where the city's diversity is celebrated through its unique culinary landscape.

Today, our talented SCAD students, along with host John Goode, visit Chef Debra Van Streak at her restaurant, twisted Soul to discover the story behind her modern, eclectic dishes.

After the students take a field trip to gather ingredients, everyone will roll up their sleeves from the SCAD kitchen side by side with Chef Debra to cook up a dish and story of their own from the first bite to the last.

We're discovering the soul of the city one dish at a time.

This is chef a TL, - Huh?

Through food.

Through food.

Ignore the rules.

Let's see.

Cool.

Cool.

Through, through the rule of food, through food rutabaga.

I always wanted to put rutabaga in a poem.

Yeah, yeah.

That's it.

Fried corn rutabaga, peers, just like mama used to make.

Okay, let's take this through.

Through food, my exploration of Atlanta Soul began on Candle Road.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Back when Sunset and Hodges.

This used to rule in Decatur.

Hey, who's that back there?

Who's back there?

Sorry.

Hey, what's going on guys?

Y'all good?

John?

That was amazing.

What?

You liked it, man.

- Nice to meet you person.

So good to meet you, man.

- It was so cool.

What were you doing?

I'm working on this piece of our soul food.

Right?

I don't have it quite down just yet, but I'm, I'm, I'm getting close.

- Well, that's pretty perfect because we are about to head to meet Chef de Van Treese who owns Twisted Soul.

It's the best soul food here in Atlanta.

So might have some inspiration for you.

- Oh, I'm starving.

I'm starving.

Look, look at starving.

Look at me.

I need it.

I'm gonna follow you.

Listen, - There's a lot of work in this real of the culinary world has to be done, and I take it on wholeheartedly, and I enjoy it.

So I hope I'm making an impact, actually.

I know I am.

Because I do see and meet people across the globe that know of me, that know what I'm doing, and they know that every door that I open, I make sure it stays open.

- Here, look at that.

Oh my goodness.

Come on, cobbler.

- I see it.

Sunday Supper.

- Oh, man.

That's the universal language.

- Okay, so we're gonna jump in.

Also, my daughter, Kirsten, she's our beverage director here, so we got fancy mocktails and great southern cuisine.

- I love it.

This is Southern hospitality - Here.

Thank you.

Yes, yes.

- Good food.

And I just don't know what else to do.

- Thank you.

- What's, - What's up?

Thank you.

I'll let you do the honors and get started.

Thank you.

- I cook a lot and I try to play with like different things, but obviously it doesn't always turn out the right way.

Okay.

Yeah.

But that's how you start.

Exactly.

Have to, - To, sometimes it - Doesn't turn out - The right way for me.

Exactly.

- Chef.

This fried chicken out, I gotta tell you.

Reminds me of home.

- Eat it with your hands.

Do not cut the chicken with a nine R Oh, I know.

- I love fried chicken.

And in Columbia it's, it's, it's really famous to eat fried chicken with honey.

- Oh, wow.

- And so like that, that little sweetness that it has, it reminds out of it.

- There's a little bit of drizzle.

Okay.

That's on there.

And it's a honey cayenne drizzle.

This dish here is probably one I'm the most proud of because it has been around for, since 1998.

This - Is a family recipe.

- It's not Okay.

It was, this was the beginning of me wanting to experiment with soul food.

Mm.

And I wanted to take that traditional fried chicken dinner - Yeah.

- And do something special with it.

Mm.

And so, instead of candy yams, I came with the idea of doing a sweet potato chutney.

The collard green roll is like the signature dish that I know for a fact that no one was doing before.

So the first time I did them, it was for a party for 800 people.

Wow.

But that was the beginning of my journey into the industry on my own.

So I wanted to make a splash, and that's how I made the splash.

I see.

Wow.

- And I know all the food has a, you know, a unique - Story.

Yeah.

- So what inspired you to, you know, make salmon egg rolls?

- One thing was wanting to do a twist, you know, play with the other piece of it was because we do have such a large pescatarian, you know, population, it was a way of incorporating two things in one and putting a little twist on what the typical egg roll is.

- Twisted soul, - Twisted - Souled soul.

Look at that.

It's right there.

Can you touch on just a bit of the history of soul food?

You know, I know that you have definitely elevated it.

- Yes.

- And, you know, just brought it to a whole new plateau.

- Yes.

The African American experience was more vegetarian, you know, vegetables were easy to grow.

Meat was something that was very rare.

And then when it was given, it was the meat that no one wanted.

- Exactly.

- You know, so we use it more for seasoning than, you know, as a main item.

You know, also being the cooks we had an to start experimenting with, you know, things that maybe we weren't used to, as well as a lot of the things that had been brought with the slaves.

So trying to put all of that together is just, I think it starts as a story of survival and it kind of, you know, blossoms into a story of love.

- This is like home cooking.

I know I'm not at home.

Yes.

But I feel like I'm, I'm expecting my mom to walk through the door at any moment and say, actually, I made this.

This was made by me.

- Now, when I first came to Atlanta, the municipal market was one of those places that you knew you could go and you could get it.

You know, it was where farmers were coming, you know, where they were coming to, to sell products, you know, with, with me sometimes just want some inspiration.

You know, it's just a great little place.

If I wanna roast a whole pick, I'm going to the municipal market to find a whole pick to roast.

I can't, I can't go to the regular roast.

I think you should go and check it out.

It's, you know, one of the few places that's really inside of the city of Atlanta that is still existing after all these years.

- I love that you preserve the history, the stories, the history.

They have to be kept and they have to be told by people who, you know, have some, no pun intended, skin in the game.

- Yes.

Yes.

- There's a saying that says that until lions have historians, hunters will always be heroes.

So we need people, you know, like you just stand here and tell us the story.

- You're gonna A true story.

Make me cry.

That was that.

Yeah.

That moves me.

Thank you.

No, - Thank you.

No, thank you for what you do, chef.

- This is beautiful.

Yes.

Yeah.

Well, cheers y'all.

- Hey, cheers.

A mock toast.

Amazing.

- When I first migrated here to Atlanta from Kansas City and asking around, where can I go?

You know, buy some of the things I want to buy.

Whoa.

- Market this is huge.

Chef was right.

It's a cool place, huh?

- Oxtails, collard greens, big feet, you know, all those type of things.

I'd hear about the municipal market.

I didn't know before.

Look at this.

Yeah.

It's been around for years and years.

I do know.

But it was started by a woman way back when African Americans really could not go inside of the building, you know?

So the other name they have for it is the curb market.

- I, when I go in there, I'm just like, whatever you want.

Whatever you want, it is there to be, had to, you know, take home and make something amazing.

With, in this cooking space, you know, as a chef, it appears to be on a hog, like a white male dominated space.

- Yes.

- What have been your challenges in this space, the hurdles you've had to overcome become Chef Debra.

- Good question.

And I would say the isms.

Okay.

The - Racism.

- Yeah.

- The sexism, the age isms, the colorism.

Is any of isms, you know, have pre-produced themself in some form or fashion?

Yeah.

You know, in, in my journey as an African American, you know, woman who identifies as LGBTQ plus, there's, you know, no doubt that, you know, there's still a lot of work to be done just to get to a point of equity and equality, you know?

So I fight for that.

You know, I fight to see more women.

Yeah.

You know, in the kitchen running the kitchen.

- Yeah.

- Owning the kitchen.

- Yeah.

- I continue to talk about it.

I think that's the first part.

And then share my food.

Share, - Yeah.

- My food.

Because, you know, my food speaks a whole nother language and that crosses all cultures.

Yeah.

You know, to me, food is that thing that can bring us together.

If we have nothing else in common.

Good food is a commonality for all of us across the world.

- Yeah.

You're an amazing chef.

- Well, thank you.

- I would imagine that you weren't born a chef.

I don't imagine you came out of the womb with a spatula in hand.

Like, you know, that sauce is broken.

So how did you become a chef?

What was your journey to becoming chef Debra?

- I took the long way around.

- Okay.

- I went to school initially for fashion merchandising at the University of Missouri.

And then decided I was bored with that.

So I got a job as a flight attendant.

Now, cooking though, was something that was always of major interest to me.

But I grew up in a household where everyone cooked.

- Okay.

- You know, and around neighbors who, everyone cooked, everyone had something special that they cooked.

Fast forward flight attendant.

Now I'm flying all over the place, you know, and I'm learning more and more about food and food culture.

You know, I'm flying with people of other, other nationalities and they, you know, are sharing stories with me about their food.

And we're exchanging recipes.

- So when you're a flight attendant and you're going to these different cities, and so when you're there, you're just hitting like the food scene in these different cities.

- Oh yeah, definitely.

Yeah.

The greatest pastime for me was going not only to restaurants, but also going to the grocery stores.

Ah.

You know, I'm actually shopping in those markets at those shops.

And then bringing that back, you know, to our home and preparing it and just learning so much about culture, not understanding that one day this would all come together and make sense to me.

- I love it, man.

I love it.

I love how it all, you know, it Tetris together, you know?

- Yes.

And I thought, let me get something going that I can have more control over.

You know, the same time a commercial comes on about a culinary school here in Atlanta.

That's really what I did.

I enrolled in culinary school and started this professional journey.

- What's the difference, do you think, between southern food and soul food?

- Traditionally, you know, soul food was something that, as African Americans, we decided we're gonna take something that you've made so negative, so bad.

Yeah.

And we're gonna say, yeah, that's ours.

And it's good.

- Yeah.

- And it has value.

And it came from love, it came from passion.

And you're not gonna take that and tear it down.

I didn't know what my place was.

I've learned, you know, the French cuisine and you know, I learned an Italian and German and all of these things.

Right.

But then here, if it was said that it was southern food, it seemed to be okay.

- Right.

- If it was said it was soul food, it wasn't, you know, so then learned how to take those French techniques and utilize them on this food that you don't have that much respect for.

- Yeah.

- You know, that was my way of changing your mind.

You know, I didn't want to present it as cafeteria style.

I want a plate that looks like a five star restaurant.

- Yeah.

- You know, but when you ask me what is it?

You know, really, you know, I'm like, it's some black eye peas and hammocks.

Okay.

That's what it is.

That's where it came from.

Right.

With some cornbread.

- Right.

- You know, but on that plate, that presentation and that technique has turned it and elevated it into something completely different.

You know, if you look at African American cuisine now throughout the United States, you find little nuances in each part that we do different, - You know?

Right, right.

- One big one for me is, you know, coming into the south, 'cause I'm not from there.

And realizing that you eat fish and grits and not fish and spaghetti.

- Yes.

Okay.

Yes.

Yes.

The first time I heard fish and spaghetti, I was like, what?

What are you, why are you saying - This?

Yes, yes.

- Why are you saying - This?

Yeah.

And it's a big, it's a big argument still.

It always will be.

I'm sure.

- I mean, there's a lot of arguments.

You know, - Who's got the best barbecue?

You know, who - Got the best barbecue?

Do you put, do you put sugar or salt on grits?

- You knows - A lot of arguments that people get into surrounding food.

People feel very, very passionate about it, you know, as they move through it.

Yes.

Alright, I'm gonna do a few rapid fire questions.

All right.

Alright.

You're from Kansas City?

Yes.

So who has the best barbecue?

I do.

Okay then.

That's honest.

I like that.

I like that.

I do Is Jiffy Cornbread.

- Yeah.

To a lot of people.

So yes, it is - Mac and cheese or cacio.

I pepe.

- Oh, y'all killing me here.

Ka Pepe.

Hey.

Yeah.

Hey.

Yeah.

- Cast iron skillet or stainless steel pan - Cast iron skillet.

- Absolutely.

Every time.

I know when it comes to seasoning, you know, my, my mom, she, she has a book of recipes and it's always pinch a dash.

- Yes.

- There's no cups, there's no nothing.

It's just that, you know, it's like you just, you season until you know - Until it's right.

- An ancient black person whispers in your ear.

No.

- Yes.

That's it.

- That's it.

- Yeah.

My mom used to make the chocolate chip cookies with black walnuts because walnuts were black.

Walnuts were the big thing, you know, in that area.

You know, here's PE Coner, black walnuts.

I didn't really respect it until, you know, once my mom passed away and I found in her belongings this handwritten recipe of these cookies and I put the cookies on the menu.

I wouldn't give the recipe to anyone.

I'll only make them myself.

We'd bake them to order.

And when I would tell people the story, people would eat the cookie and actually cry because they could taste what I'm saying.

That ability to tell a story so well through taste, you know, is something I pride myself on being able to do.

- Chef Debra.

- Yes.

- We have already had your amazing oxtails and you promised not just to give us some more, but to show us how we could make them ourselves.

- Exactly.

- So what's the first step?

How do we start?

- So we've got our oxtails and like some pretty cool ingredients, but you know, first thing we have to do is miis, which is onions, carrots, celery.

So we're gonna rough chop it.

Super easy.

It's nothing special.

Mirepoix, - I thought, I thought said Jamis.

I said - So really it's just rough chopping.

- Okay.

- And everything is really readily available.

Yeah.

So it's nothing in here except for a few of these little Asian style ingredients that I would say, you know, you might have difficulty finding.

You can't ever have too much garlic.

So let's get some more.

This is smash.

Okay.

So just take the back of the knife.

Bam.

Bam.

I just want it smashed.

That's releasing the - Flavor.

And for this recipe, why do you choose oxtail over any other thi meat?

The - Meat cooks down is very - Tender.

- Mm.

Let's put some oil over here, Ernesto, if you will do the honors.

Absolutely.

All right.

So we wanna go ahead and start getting the oil a little bit heated up and you'll start smelling the aroma of the sesame.

It's just another flavoring element.

So this is a dish all about flavor.

All right.

We got oxtails here.

This is basically the tail of a cow we've got here.

Ginger, a garlic powder, Chinese five spice salt, and some fresh ground pepper.

So I'm going to start with the salt.

Try not to have a heavy hand because we don't wanna oversalt it.

We can always add two we can't take away.

All right.

I'm a sprinkler and to me, the trick in delicious food is to make sure you're not a lazy sprinkler.

Go.

Go for it and just do the same thing that you did.

Just the pinch.

Do what I did.

Right?

Okay.

With love.

Should I move it around?

Yeah, move it around.

Touch center it.

Okay.

- Don't be a lazy sprinkler.

Tell the AAL like, - Yes.

Love - Compli.

- I love I love you, I love you.

Yeah.

Yeah.

- I mean I've, I've, I've heard a lot of things have been sold, but one of the most important things is that you gotta cook with love.

- You gotta cook with love.

Yeah.

And so that's why, you know, I take my time and you know, get it all on there and then we'll rub it all in.

Good.

You, you know.

Alright, let's do some five spice.

How about - That?

Alright.

Okay.

I'll take over.

Okay.

Let's see.

I'll warm it up my fingers.

So we're - Gonna like be real generous with - The Oh, okay.

- Yeah.

- Let me, - Because this is all about Yes.

Yeah.

Okay, good.

Did I sprinkle with love?

Yeah, you did.

Did it.

Pretty good.

I feel a little bit more matter of fact.

Got a little base.

We're gonna drop that whole thing in there.

How about that?

So we've got sesame oil, it's heated, you can see it's smoking, so we know it's hot enough.

Okay.

- Okay.

- All right.

We're gonna end for a big old splash.

We wanted to make sure too, that these were really dry because if they had any moisture, like too much moisture, right?

Then it'd be like real.

Yeah.

Shrimp back.

And if you want it, you could do this.

And an actual cooker, like your Insta Pott, it cuts the cooking time down.

Especially on a dish like this.

I've seen some, depending on the type of meat or the grade that is five hours.

And you're still waiting me.

Yeah.

- Okay.

So with the Insta Pott, how, how much cut is it cutting that - Time?

We're gonna five hours a lot.

Fuck this.

For about an hour, maybe a little.

Okay.

But that's still reasonable.

- Yeah.

That's quite - Pretty cool.

- Yeah.

Yeah.

So you go to class, come back and you're ready to eat.

Okay.

My mom actually a lot of times would make oxtail not that much, but she would make it.

She would put it in the crock pott.

Yeah.

So in the morning she would like put all the seasoning and I'll be looking in there because she always her talking.

I'm like, what are we eating today?

And then come back smelling good.

And we're ready to, - These are looking really good.

The oxtails are nice and brown.

I drained off a little bit of the fat, so we're getting rid of some of that.

And now we're ready to roll.

All right.

We have got our slow cooker here that is ready for us to add our brown oxtails.

- Okay.

So the oxtails, they going first.

- Oxtails are gonna go in first.

Okay.

All right.

All these great veggies.

Bam.

Just dump 'em in there.

All right Here.

Got a little soy sauce.

Mm.

Let's add a little of that.

- And that helps with like the Asian flavoring of it.

- Exactly.

Exactly.

And this is a little bit of hoisting.

Hoisting.

So I've got that in there.

All right.

So that's it.

We're gonna put our lid on.

Close it, ready to go.

Lock it in.

Turn it on.

And we're gonna go to class.

Alright.

Right now.

- Oh, that looks amazing.

Look at the vegetables, right?

Look at you.

Okay.

Put your generous sprinkle.

I see you.

Yay, I see you.

Oh, that looks amazing though.

That's so, here we go.

- Thank you.

We moment of truth.

Yeah.

Thank you.

Look at that one.

See all the meat cut looks up.

Oh wow.

Thank you.

Spoons.

Go for it.

Got one.

Got one.

We we go.

Okay.

- Bon appetit.

- Bon appetit.

- Mm.

So tender.

I mean literally came off the bone.

- I think we did pretty good.

I'm so glad we just learned how to make this exact thing and I can make it when I get home.

That's just exciting.

- Chef Deborah.

What?

What a day.

We cannot thank you enough.

Give it up.

Give up yourself, man.

Thank - Up - This amazing meal.

- Look, thank you for dining with me, spending time with me.

This is my gift of love to you and another part of my journey.

Another part of my story.

So thank you for having me.

- Well, thank you for sharing that.

- Thank you.

You're so amazing - In all, all different ways, especially cooking - Cheese.

- So, and I hope we make you proud when we try to recreate this.

Yes.

We'll have to invite you to our door.

It's like, I want to hear all about it.

I wanna - All about it.

I want to eat all about it.

I only exactly eat all about it through food.

My journey to Atlanta soul began on Candle Road.

This is back when Hodges and Sunset used to rule in Decatur and those venues daily on the menu, you could find fried corn, rutabaga and peas.

There would be catfish, grits, ham, mac and cheese, yams, oxtails, and fried chicken.

All piping hot from a piping hot kitchen made and served by women.

They might remind you of your Meemaw while drinking a sweet tea that could make your diabetes seesaw.

You could sit, speak, and listen to everyone from preachers to teachers, plebeians to politicians.

It was like a town square with wisdom and collards.

And what made it unique is that it was distinctly ours.

The product of the people, the community, the streets.

Maybe they call it soul food because over food, it's where souls truly meet.

Maybe they call it soul food because over food is where souls truly meet.