When he's not busy with his day job as director of culinary operations at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital in Memphis, Chef Miles McMath is consumed with spreading his 'culinary gospel”that hospital food can be both healthy and delicious. This month, he introduces his The Farmer & the Chef series to Nashville for the first time (April 12 at Green Door Gourmet), with all ingredients sourced from a 100-mile radius and courses prepared by local culinary masterminds: Kristin Beringson (City Winery), Tyler Brown (Capitol Grille), Todd Alan Martin (The Treehouse), Deb Paquette (Etch), and Tandy Wilson (City House).
You've been at St. Jude for eight years. What's been your vision when sculpting the campus' food presence?
Having 4,000 employees coming from all over the world, you want to attract them to Memphis so having a Farmer's Market every Friday, the garden, food truckswe're just having food grow all over the place. Now, most of the patient food is 'local”: I get chicken from Arkansas, I get pork from two places within 150 miles, I do all grass-fed beef. Many of the patients have compromised immune systems, so by using grass-fed, there's less levels of E.coli.
We do a lot of cool things, like making gummy candy for kids who won't drink PediaSure. I had a kid not long ago from China who wanted adzuki beans cooked all day in an enamel pot with black chickensit was a spiritual thing; the mom believed her child needed it every day. So I went and found a farmer to help me do just that.
What are some of your most requested items at the hospital?
I've always grown gardens, I've always raised animals, I've always hunted. When I get a child who wants a goat, I know where to get a goat. I've cooked raccoon at the hospital, I've cooked rabbit, alligator gar sausage. The kids are usually looking for comfort, mother's food, home-cooked food. We still have kids that love the macaroni and cheese packages, and I don't like that but I don't want to frustrate themthey're sick, and the goal is to get them to eat. If a kid wants a Pop-Tart, we get them a Pop-Tart.
How did you come up with idea for The Farmer & the Chef?
I create different brands to go out into the public that St. Jude presents, and The Farmer & the Chef is one I've been using for year. The first one we ever did four years ago raised $56,000, and the last one we just did was around $300,000. This is the first year we're doing five Farmer & the Chef eventsNantucket, the Hamptons, Sarasota, Nashville, and Memphisbut they're all different. I call them a culinary circus.
Our concept is not to go and write a menu and source the ingredients. Our concept is to source then ingredients and then write the menu. It makes us better stewards, it makes us more creative, it really challenges you. Anyone can go make beef tenderloinbut can you get a roomful of stuff and say, 'I have all these ingredients,” and then write a menu?
Explain the 'culinary circus.”
The culinary circus is simply this: We're inviting a lot of chefs who can juggle, who can cook; you're getting a bunch of stuff shipped out to a field, then we all show up and put it all together pulled from these ingredients. Everyone's got to harmonize. The idea is to not have a lot of labor so when one chef is doing his course, all the other chefs are support for that chef, and then when you go to the next course, the leader role switches.
The Farmer & The Chef will be held on April 12 from 4 to 9 p.m. and also features a silent auction, farm tours, and live entertainment. Prices are $150 for a single ticket, $1,200 for a table of 8, or $1500 for a party of 10. Proceeds benefit St. Jude.