3/11/2023 0 Comments The grit athensMusing on his life’s “strange trip,” Acheson philosophizes, “Boiled peanuts are an acquired taste,” but once that taste is acquired, “you change the route to hit all the small highways where the stands are.” Although his cottage is still on Lake Simcoe, Acheson’s route has definitely changed - and Athens has benefited, hugely. At age 12, in Clemson, S.C., he met the girl he would eventually marry her studies took them to Athens. “I love to cook Southern food and its rich mosaic of ingredients,” says the Concordia University graduate, who eschews “fancy restaurants” for “community restaurants.” These include the Five & Ten, The National, Gosford Wine and Empire State South - slated to open this August in Atlanta.īorn in Kingston, Ont., the acclaimed chef grew up mostly in Ottawa, with frequent detours to the South. Canadian chef Hugh Acheson is a driving force behind the thriving restaurant scene. surprises locals with the odd unannounced set.īut you don’t have to love R.E.M. Rock star Michael Stipe keeps a home in Athens R.E.M. Automatic for the People, R.E.M.’s breakout 1992 album, was named - with the owner’s permission - for Weaver D’s slogan at his soul food spot on East Broad St. At the Hot Corner, where jazz clubs and black-owned hotels catered to musicians back in Jim Crow days, a photo of Barack Obama graces the window of Brown’s Barber Shop. In the 1980s and ’90s, bands like R.E.M., The B-52s, Pylon and Widespread Panic drew like-minded types to Athens. “Athens was not cool until R.E.M.,” concludes the Harvard-educated Crosby. In antebellum times, the town had amassed immense wealth from growing cotton, but that all changed after what a campus plaque calls the Southern War of Independence (The Civil War). Not everyone was pleased.ĭuring that turbulent era, “The KKK was picketing the Varsity ,” he recalled, referring to the college hangout popular to this day for its chili dogs and onion rings. The University of Georgia (founded in 1785), had just been integrated. Over Sunday brunch at the Five & Ten Restaurant, native son Bob Crosby sums up 1950s and ’60s Athens as “a little redneck town.” Returning home after a high-school football game, the 15-year-old walked smack into a riot. ATHENS, GA.-Old South, New South, plain old weird South: that’s Athens, Georgia, a historic college town 97 kilometres northeast of Atlanta.
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