In his debut cookbook, the Turkey and the Wolf owner pays tribute to snacks of his youth.
Flipping through the first few Page of Mason Hereford ’s newfangled cookbook , you might as well be bouncing around on the country roads of rural Virginia in the back of his mommy ’s GMC . The oddball chef / owner ofTurkey and the Wolfin New Orleans grew up in a midget town outside of Charlottesville , a childhood defined by swimming fix , association football practice , and gas station solid food .
“ I do n’t have this origin account where my mom teach me everything I know , ” he says today . “ But I was food - obsessed when I was a fry . We would sometimes have petrol post breakfast where , on the direction to school , we ’d block in this store right on by our menage and it was a fuckin ’ free for all . That ’s a key memory , that junk food for breakfast situation . ”
Depending on where the home was heading , it was a unlike full stop and a unlike bite along the elbow room . Maupin ’s in Free Union was Doritos and Mr. Pibb , Wyant ’s in White Hall imply a blimp biscuit , Brownsville Market in Crozet was all about fried chicken from the hot case , and Bellair Market in Charlottesville is where he accrue in sexual love with The Jefferson : turkey , American cheese , herbaceous plant mayonnaise , and cranberry relish on a Gallic roll . In fact , it was that very sandwich that finally snowballed into the entire menu at Turkey and the Wolf .
Chef and owner of Turkey and the Wolf, Mason Hereford|Photo by Tim Black for Thrillist
“ The Bellair Market is the reason we make sandwiches . I totally rive off that sandwich and went on to trade it . Now it ’s operate full circle and they have a sandwich named after me , ” Hereford says . “ Gas place are what I remember about when I remember being really young . I care food that is loud and hits you over the head , and it ’s made my cookery very far from pernicious . ”
In the intimately 100 recipes ofhis debut cookbook , which he co - wrote with journalist JJ Goode , these small yet in - your - face ingredient are a ceaseless throughline : sandwiches throng high up with table salt and vinegar chips , tacos gormandize with pork rinds , salsa macha laced with peanut butter , and chalk cream topped with peanuts and Cheez - Its . As Hereford puts it : “ We are not above using the grocery store aisles as much as the husbandman ’ food market . ”
While this kind of anything - goes position seems perfectly suitable for New Orleans , Hereford ’s conclusion to move to the metropolis in 2008 was moderately much on a whim . After graduating college , he was sit at a bar with a friend pondering what city they should move to together , try on to debar place like DC , San Francisco , and New York City where all their schoolfellow were going .
Mason Hereford’s new cookbook, Turkey and the Wolf|Photo by Tim Black for Thrillist
“ How about New Orleans ? ” Hereford remembers them pronounce . “ Once I moved here , it did n’t take but a couple of days to be like , ‘ What the fuck is this ? ’ I had no idea it was the one place in America like it . We have the coolest culture , the best music , incredible artistry , spicy deep food with a storied past times , an incredible Vietnamese population , tangible Black soul food and art . I really started to look around and immerse myself . I recognize I ’m not just in a city in the South , or a city in America — that I was in this incredible otherworldly place . ”
Hereford ’s first caper was as a door guard at an Uptown bar called Fat Harry ’s where he became a cook after a few months , slinging cheese fries for college kids and perfecting the artistic production of the thick fryer . After a twelvemonth , he got a line as a line Captain Cook atbeloved Coquettein the Garden District , spending six years take newfangled skill and move his way up to chef de cuisine .
“ I had a lot of bill of fare autonomy and got to see people ’s reactions to flavors and what I was working on , ” he remembers about that time . “ On the lunch carte , I would make sandwiches and realize I had a tidy sum of play with them . citizenry start to think of me as sandwich - obsessed . New Orleans is the land of po’boys and that sort of master the panorama . I realized there was room for something else , like the sandwiches I had access to growing up . ”
Turkey and the Wolf|Photo by Tim Black for Thrillist
So it should issue forth as no surprise that sandwich were the master focus when Hereford open up up Turkey and the Wolf in the Irish Channel in 2016 . ( “ Turkey was what my sometime man called us fry when we were being petty fuckers . Wolf came from the howls that went up from the kitchen at Coquette after we send out out the night ’s concluding dish antenna , ” he write in the book . )
Soon , the restaurant was hail for its creations between two thick slice of lucre . When they first opened , the estimate was to incessantly spread out the menu , but it became very clear that these sandwich had a life history of their own and became family name : the Thanksgiving - themed Bellair , potato chip - laden Bologna , herbaceous plant - filled Tomato , and vegetarian Collard Melt .
Bon Appétitnamed it the good new restaurant in America , Food & WineandGQcalled it one of the most of import restaurants of the decade , and ( every small town boy ’s dream)Guy Fierifeatured it onDiners , thrust - ins , and Dives .
Collard Melt|Photo by Tim Black for Thrillist
“ We joke that it ’s the most overrated sandwich shop , ” Hereford says . But in the same intimation , he ’s happy that sandwiches , themselves , are garnering the tending they deserve . “ Even though it ’s considered more free-and-easy or less refined , one could argue that a sandwich comes with even more pressure . With a composed home base of food , the feeder has the chance to create their own morsel . But a sandwich is all pre - determined by the creator . You ’re tender the same bite over and over again , and you ’ve cause to nail it . ”
Take the Collard Melt , which consistently lands onbest sandwich lists . Hereford first adjusted a collard Green recipe at Coquette and it go well , so he knew he need to convey it to Turkey and the Wolf , a perfect vehicle for a vegetarian sandwich . Using volaille - season bouillon ( made out of vegetable protein ) , Zatarain ’s Creole seasoning , and Korean chile flakes , the collards have an incredible umami qualitywithout the nub .
But the real kicker come from the loot . “ We to begin with used thick - cutting rye , but the next week we got transmit thin loot and someone in the kitchen order we should try it like a club sandwich , ” Hereford think of . “ We had a much more interesting sandwich now and a client called that middle piece the ‘ downpour gash . ’ We knew we could n’t go back . It was a classical veracious place , right clip , wrong bread situation . ” And thus that perfect , repetitious raciness .
Mason Hereford|Photo by Tim Black for Thrillist
Besides the computer menu , theTurkey and the Wolfcookbook evokes the space ’s look and feel . When it first opened , the restaurant ’s minimum budget urge a hodge - podge aesthetic that harkened back to those older Virgina markets . Hereford estimates that about 90 per centum of the article of furniture come from penny-pinching stores , ratty antique workshop , or the soda pop spring that his grandfather own in West Virginia . He tell his momma tied it all down in her truck with ropes and a tarp and drove it to New Orleans where the “ tumble-down farmhouse computer architecture ” esthetic was assume .
Though the cookbook — and the restaurant itself — is a reflection of Hereford ’s eccentricity ( see one picture shoot of him rollerblading through a Popeyes drive - thru ) , he also get to a point to glide by the mic , pay constant recognition to his staff and cue readers that this is a cookery book not contemplative of him , but of the restaurant and its squad .
The book lauds cook Scotty Yelity for his collard greens , chef de cuisine Nate Barfield for his flawless combining of crybaby spice , Liz Hollinger for her pastry dough skills , and GM Kate Mirante for be given the show . Hereford ’s chum , William , is thecookbook photographerand his sister , Molly , is the inspiration for his breakfast smear , Molly ’s Rise & Shine .
“ It would just be silly if we did n’t talk about the chemical group of friends who have made this whole thing occur , ” Hereford say . “ There ’s more than enough love to go around and no harm in sharing all this extra turd . This is a group of very chic people that are n’t me who do everything , and somehow we ’ve found a mode to remain in the inspection and repair industriousness , all work together , and still have playfulness . ”
