"When you're traveling, the best experiences are the ones that connect you to the place you're traveling through, so you feel like a local." That's how Ted Lee, one half of Charleston, SC-based culinary duo, the Lee Bros., describes the benefits of his and brother Matt's new Group Culinary Experience at Wild Dunes Resort (located on the Isle of Palms, about a half-hour drive east of South Carolina's capital city). The program gives meeting groups the chance to not only learn about Charleston-area culinary traditions and history, but to take part themselves in preparing southern specialties like oyster pie, she-crab soup, and banana pudding.
From launching a successful mail-order catalog of southern pantry favorites (The Lee Bros. Boiled Peanuts Catalogue), to a James Beard Award-winning cookbook (The Lee Bros. Southern Cookbook), to frequent appearances on the Food Network, the siblings have created a cottage industry around the food they grew up eating in downtown Charleston. Now, the duo has partnered with Wild Dunes Resort to bring their brand of cuisine to meetings.
Groups of 10 to 250 can take part in one of several culinary experiences, in which the Lee Bros. will provide cooking demonstrations and tell the stories and history behind Lowcountry (the local term for the region around South Carolina's southern coast) cooking. Themed cooking classes include "The Lowcountry's Greatest Hits," with favorites like shrimp and grits, Hoppin' John (a dish of peas, rice, and bacon), and banana pudding; or "Simple Fresh Southern" with contemporary Southern food such as honeydew wine coolers, pimento cheese potato gratin, and cornmeal drop biscuit peach cobbler. Groups can sign up for a full meal, a demonstration with tasting samples, or just the demonstration.
"When we serve Lowcountry cooking and tell stories about it, we're connecting people, through taste-immersion, with what makes Charleston so enchanting and unique," says Ted Lee. Matt Lee adds that the area's cooking is especially conducive to groups because "it's fundamentally a luscious, crowd-pleasing cuisine."
But perhaps the most memorable and interactive offering is the "Oyster Roast Experience." Attendees can sip local beers and brandied plum cocktails while the brothers get them involved in preparing, roasting, shucking, and eating local oysters. A classic outdoor Lowcountry dining experience, the full immersion of the oyster roast actually includes three stations of local seafood: the wood-fire pit where the oysters are roasted on a griddle, the crab crack table, and the Frogmore stew table (a boil of fresh shrimp and freshly shucked corn).
The Wild Dunes' oceanfront Grand Pavilion, with a covered gazebo and expansive decks, flanked by a pair of swimming pools, makes an ideal venue for the oyster roast. But the property offers plenty of other meeting spaces that can accommodate the culinary experiences, such as the 10,000-square-foot Sweetgrass Pavilion, the 4,000-square-foot Palmetto Hall, and brand-new outdoor Palm Cove with landscaped lawn and pool deck that can host up to 250 attendees.
"The experience captures the essence of Charleston cuisine in a way that's delicious, but more so -- entertaining," says Jeffery Payne, director of event management at Wild Dunes Resort. "Not only do Matt and Ted create quintessential Charleston dishes, selected specifically for that group, they embody Charleston charm and tell a story about the history of that dish and how its ingredients and composition have progressed from centuries past to modern day."
Below, watch a video of a Lee Bros.' group-dining experience in action.