An interview with May Seton Corby, Greensgrow Philadelphia From DineIndie.com
You once worked as a chef; tell us about that experience. What are your culinary influences?
It seems like a lifetime ago. I started cooking seriously when I was in graduate school. I thought getting a job as a cook would kill two birds with one stone -I'd get paid and fed. So I went to the only place around that wasn't a chain. They did classical continental cuisine. It was love at first smell.
I opened the kitchen every day and we would have put stock pots of veal and lamb on [the stove] the night before. The aroma was comforting, the bread was still warm at the front door, the coffee freshly roasted. We all had degrees in politics and anthropology and art so the conversation was stimulating. Truly fresh ingredients were hard to come by in 1982; when the herb man showed up (rarely) it was like the Wells Fargo wagon. We weren't hysterical about food; we just got a lot of satisfaction out of working from scratch, butchering our own meats and filleting fish, beating the water out of the butter with a bat so it made a better puff pastry, cracking marrow bones. I have very fond memories. We worked like slaves and ate like kings.
Growing up, my father took us to Eastern Market in DC for fresh fruit and veggies all summer long. We bought food by the bushel and sat around eating tomatoes and peaches in the backyard with the neighbors. I think that was the seminal influence in my feelings about food. It was basic, fresh and it was communal.
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