Make This Pickle, Get a Friend for Life

In 1994, Food & Wine asked the legendary food journalist Jean Anderson to document a big Southern picnic hosted by husband and wife Ben Barker and Karen Barker. Perhaps one like you’d go to after church on a summer Sunday. Ben and Karen owned and cooked at the Magnolia Grill, the much-loved restaurant in Durham, North Carolina. Among the recipes in the feature was one for pickled shrimp, a favorite in eastern North Carolina where I come from. Thirty years later, F&W asked me to revisit that recipe. I was more than up for the task since I love pickled shrimp, and since Ben and I have been friends for more than 40 years.

Ben and I first met when he and Karen and I all worked in the kitchen of La Residence in Chapel Hill in the early '80s. They moved on, first to The Fearrington House Inn out in Chatham County, and then to open Magnolia Grill in 1986. Magnolia Grill was among the first restaurants in North Carolina to embrace using local produce and cooking with the seasons. Ben’s stellar cooking there put him on the map, and got him noticed by F&W — he’s a member of the 1993 class of Best New Chefs.

Ben Barker's Pork Chops on Creamy Hominy

Magnolia Grill was also one of the first places where I saw an open kitchen. This baffled me since it meant that you had to watch your language and couldn’t put ice down the back of each other’s pants while you worked. But I was behind the times. Their restaurant became famous for too many dishes to name and was much loved in its community.

Meanwhile, I moved down the street to Crook’s Corner a few years later where I continued to cut up in my pointedly not open kitchen. As is often the case in our profession, although the Barkers and I lived in the same place, we only saw each other at food festivals and culinary gatherings in other towns. When we were home, we were always at work. (Sadly, Karen passed away in 2019.) Ben and I managed to become buddies in spite of our schedules and now that we’re both retired, we can get together for drinks from time to time. I often say that the friendship of my colleagues is perhaps the best part of my career as a cook.

"I often say that the friendship of my colleagues is perhaps the best part of my career as a cook."

Bill Smith

So about that shrimp. The first thing I did was to run home and make a batch. I followed Ben’s recipe exactly. It is out of his world. I was a little skeptical about the short cooking time — the shrimp poach for just three minutes — but it was absolutely correct. After a few days in the aromatic pickling liquid, the shrimp were firm and “crispy” in the pickling sense of the word. I love that you occasionally bite into fennel or coriander seeds as you snack. Onion and lemon slices, fresh ginger and bay are layered among the shrimp, so the jars are quite attractive even before you dig in. The recipe said they would be good for at least 10 days, but of course, they didn’t make it that far. Best of all, this recipe is so easy.

I grew up in New Bern, North Carolina in what feels like to me now, a slower, calmer time. Families were big, and each one had a person who was “the cook.” In our family it was my great grandmother. We were spoiled, because everything she made was always delicious. This recipe for pickled shrimp reminds me of those days. It would be an absolutely perfect addition to any late summer menu or any time of year. Just make sure that you make a lot of it.

Ben Barker's Lowcountry Pickled Shrimp

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