THE CIVIL WAR BEGINS

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We are at the part of any trip where we start making changes to the itinerary because we realize we were over ambitious in what we wanted to try and see and maybe more, because the aging process is catching up with us, and a few more minutes of sleep each day becomes very important.

Today is our last day and we originally had three things on the schedule, one we did yesterday so now we have two, so the day will not be as rushed. The only thing we took off the itinerary was breakfast at the local hotspot. Will save some time and money by just eating another vegetable frittata.

The trip has been a good one and I am glad we finally made it to Charleston. This like Savannah and New Mexico have been planned and canceled several times. We checked Savannah off in 2015 over Thanksgiving, and New Mexico is back on the travel schedule for Next Christmas/New Years. Tarragon has also enjoyed his little vacation, especially the king-sized bed, but he is ready to return to the comfort of his NYC Hamilton Heights Apartment. While, we have not become true New Yorkers, and never will, he seems to have adapted to the big city with ease.

Today will be the last two contestants for best fried green tomatoes and shrimp and grits. At this point there is a clear front runner on the fried green tomatoes, but the shrimp and grits is a close competition.

While I have a few extra moments this morning, I think it is appropriate to make a few comments on race relations. This is a very southern city, but the downtown area, most of the service workers and 95% of the tourists are all very white. Our impression is that segregation is still alive and well here. Through our walks around time, we once were walking through a predominantly black neighborhood, and the economic difference was overwhelming. As usual we do try to get off the main tourist path and out to the real neighborhoods, North Charleston, appears to not be as economically affluent as the neighborhoods closer to downtown. I will say, while there is a level of homelessness, here it is no where near as bad as it is in New York City, or Portland Oregon. I don’t know if they have stricter vagrancy laws, or better services, or just hide them better, but there isn’t the in your face pan handling like NYC. When we have been eating out there are maybe one at most two black patrons in the restaurant, most of the time there are none.

Fort Sumter

We had a quick bite to eat downstairs, before heading out, a bonus today was bacon, crispy but not Susan E. Crispy. We were going to take the free shuttle to the boat, but we were a bit behind schedule so had to take our first cab instead.

We arrived a bit early, but that gave us time to go through the history of Fort Sumter on display in the waiting area. I learned a few new things about the civil war, slavery (I which states were slave states and which weren’t) and read an interesting quote from Abraham Lincoln, that I think is not taught in history. While I knew that he really didn’t care about slavery in the south, was more opposed to its expansion, I didn’t quite understand how racist he himself was. I don’t remember all of the quote, but he clearly expressed his opinion that he had no intention of allowing the “negros” to vote, be elected to office, serve as a jury, or in any way be equal to white people, in his words “the superior race.” I lost some admiration of him as a president and a human.

We boarded the boat to Fort Sumter at 11 and it took about 30 minutes to get to the Island out in the Harbor. Shortly before docking at Fort Sumter we came upon a flock of pelicans diving for food and a pod of dolphins. We spent 15 minutes of our tour time, watching and trying to get pictures of the dolphins. There was clearly a school of fish in the area, because the dolphins were jumping and the pelicans diving for the catch of the day.

After our nature time, we headed to the Fort. First stop was a brief ranger talk about the history of the fort and its place in the Civil War, followed by a flag raising ceremony. I am not going to go in to an in-depth history lesson here, but long story short. Union Troops set up shop at the Fort shortly after it was completed and a few days after South Carolina succeeded from the Union. This was done in the dark of night. The next day the U.S. Flag was raised over the fort, which enraged the Charleston militia and the first shot was fired. 34 hours later, the Union surrendered the fort and the war was on. The rest is history as they say.

It was another 30-minute trip back to shore. The weather was nice, but a good breeze and the first day coats were needed. After the tour, we walked down Calhoun street towards our spot for Lunch. As we walked down the street, we passed the AME church, the sight of the mass shooting a year or so ago. A reminder that racism, is still alive and well, even though 750,000 people died fighting in part to end slavery.

Lunch was at the Swamp Fox in the Francis Marion Hotel. The interiors were not what we expected, but the hotel lobby was quite grand. We had a simple lunch, BBQ Short rib Sandwich, Fried Chicken Sandwich, side of mac and cheese and potato salad. It was all very good.

After lunch, we hopped on the free shuttle on to the last sight of the trip.

Slave Mart Museum

Our last sight was both very interesting and disturbing. It is in a building that was the sight of slave auctions. We could only take a picture of the outside as they did not allow pictures in the inside. I am not sure why, most of the exhibit was large panels telling the sad story of slavery and those who traded in people.

It was a very well-designed museum and dealt directly with the harshness of the institution. Some of the most interesting information presented was the fact that free blacks actually owned slaves. I understand those that bought friends and families out of slavery, but to actually own a plantation and use slave labor to run it, is pretty amazing.

In our opinion, this is a must see for anyone who ever visits Charleston. It puts the entire south in perspective. It also makes you fully understand that there would be no South with out slavery. The crops they choose to cultivate were all very labor intensive and could not have been done properly without slavery. This in no way excuses or justifies slavery at, all but it puts the importance of African Americans front and center in the development of this country. The U.S., was literally built on the back of black people. I have always understood this, but being here and seeing the plantations, the slave museum, and hearing the history of how the elite lived, drives it home.

That is pretty much it for this trip, one final dinner and then it is back to NYC, where it just happens to be snowing.

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As is often the case, this last entry is being completed a few days after we have returned from vacation. Most of the entry was typed while we were still there, but the dinner portion is not being done until now.

The final dinner of the trip was originally scheduled for Husk. The menu changes daily, and on a whim, I went on line to check it out. I was very underwhelmed. It was the classic example of fusion gone mad. I am not in Charleston to have southern fused with Asian, African or Italian. While much of southern food does have African routes, they took this to the extreme. This led us to make a last second reservation at one of the oldest restaurants in Charleston, which is very appropriate since that is one of our things. It was also a Monday night, so not a lot of people were going out to dinner.

82 Queen

This restaurant has been in business for 34 years. It takes up three buildings and there are 11 small dining rooms throughout. On a normal night that would be great, however tonight only one was being used. The acoustics are pretty bad, it was very loud but two of the four tables left shortly after we were there, so all that was left was the table next to us. To bad they didn’t’ leave before we got there. Before going on to the meal, just going to spend a few moments, about voice control and respect for others in a small dinning room. We had the extreme displeasure of hearing every word of their conversation. That in itself would not be a big deal, but they were young, possibly on a Tender date (they didn’t seem to know each other well) and the male of the couple was so annoying arrogant and full of himself I wanted to just freaking slap him. Not to mention that he basically mansplained everything to his date. The good news is that the did leave before we were finished with our appetizers.

That out of the way, on to the food. The menu was very traditional low country fare and all of the items looked good; it was a bit difficult to choose what we wanted. They allegedly have the best she crab soup in the city, so that was a must. I started with a cup; Jerry of course shared. It was good, not as rich as Hank’s but you could taste the sherry. I can’t say if it is the best in the city, because we only sampled 2, but it was certainly the best of the two we had.

We did not have champagne, we both had Martini’s, they were needed to tolerate the table next to us. They were good, but very short pours. Before the soup was served out came the basked of biscuits. These were quite different than the other two we had had earlier on our trip. They were small, made of possibly whole wheat flour. They were good, but nowhere near the quality of Poogan’s Porch.

Jerry started with barbeque shrimp and grits. The shrimp had a drizzle of bourbon-barbeque sauce. It was a nice little twist in the shrimp and grits category. I started with the southern tomato pie. A take on a tart. It had a biscuit crust, cheddar and mozzarella mixed with the roasted tomatoes and applewood bacon and scallion. It was really good and very different than any other appetizer we had. The fried green tomatoes were out as they had pimento cheese on them, not touching that.

The main course was the best of the three, but the portions were huge and again I could not finish it. I had braised beef short ribs, with mashed Yukon gold potatoes, garlic butter green beans and crispy onions (lots of them) on top. The ribs melted in your mouth and were very flavorful. Jerry had the French cut pork shop (cooked perfectly medium) with a benne-crusted (don’t know what that is) sweet potato souffle, collard greens and peach chutney. The pork was very moist and the chutney really worked with the pork. The souffle, well that fell flat (pun intended) basically it was just puree of sweet potatoes.

To go with the entrées, we had a nice reasonably priced Burgundy. We rarely order these because outside of France, they are just out of our price range.

Overall, it was a very good meal, not the best of the trip and maybe not worthy of our last night, but it was a good representation of low country Charleston food.

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The flight home was uneventful, were slightly delayed because of weather in Newark, but got home fine. Tarragon was happy to be home, but he does miss the king-sized bed.

Trip Highlights

The most industry historical site on this trip was Drayton Hall. It was nice to see something that had not been updated to modern time and was preserved as it was at the time.

The most memorable site was clearly the Slave Mart Museum, a painful reminder of our shameful past.

Best meal, you already know Peninsula Grill, everything from the service to the food was on point, best evening of the trip.

So now for the winners of the two contests. The best shrimp and grits that we had were clearly those at Slightly North of Broad. The best fried green tomatoes were the ones at Magnolias. Not an official contest by the best biscuits were fare and away those at Poogan’s Porch.

It was nice relaxing trip, we did everything we wanted to do, not that there isn’t a lot more to see, but we hit what was on our list. It also crosses off one more state, 38 down 12 to go.

So, until next time from Dublin, that is all for now.

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Photos

AME Church
Current History

Queen's Salad
Forgot to mention this in the blog