Georgia-based Hugh Acheson of Empire State South, Five & Ten, and the National is the 2012 James Beard Award winner for Best Chef Southeast, and the judge on Top Chef with one eyebrow. But the important thing to remember here is: Hugh is a transplanted Canadian, so he is too polite to make sweeping statements about Americans that could seriously be considered rude. Keep that in mind as you take down his technique for perfect just-hard-enough boiled eggs. I spoke with him at the Cooking Light "Light Up the Night" 25th anniversary party, where he was seasoning a tray of the aforementioned perfect eggs, on their way to a delightful little salad.
photo from Cooking Light
I've noticed that whoever puts an egg on something in Top Chef, will win that challenge.
HA: Usually. You know, I’ve had about a hundred people ask me tonight how to cook an egg. I think America does not know how to cook a fucking egg.
This is a 9-minute egg. [Indicates his tray of uniformly beautiful eggs.] Boil the water, eggs go in, 9 minutes, eggs get chilled down.
[At this point a young woman interrupts and says to Hugh: "I love you. Can I have a picture? I love you." Hugh says, "Awesome," and obliges. I think I may have photo-bombed them; sorry drunk girl.]
How do you lighten up the heavier elements of Southern cooking, say fried chicken?
HA: There are some things you can lighten up in the Southern vernacular. But the Southern dinner is not fried chicken and biscuits. It’s a small amount of fried chicken with greens, succotash, hoppin' john. A big spread. So I don’t want to change the good Southern food. But I want to change food across America, which is stupid in a lot of ways and really unhealthy for us. I want to make sure kids know food doesn’t come out of a bag, that it’s grown by people. Food Corps [the evening's beneficiary] is doing a great job in that. It's not Southern food, but it’s food of convenience that is bad for us.
How do you stay in shape?
HA: I smoke and drink bourbon -- it’s very slimming! No, I eat a lot of salads, healthy. I don’t workout as much as I used to. You have to be smart with food. Understand when overconsumption happens. Americans have been trained to overconsume. We need to stop that, it’s pointless. Bad for our food supply, bad for obesity rates, bad for diabetes rates. We need to think about how much we eat.