NOT since your Uncle Clarence finally completed his Franklin Mint Civil War chess set have the battle lines between North and South been so fiercely drawn.
From fried chicken at David Chang’s Momofuku to Benton’s country ham at Aldea, Southern food is currently all the rage with New Yorkers. But Saturday, a group of Southern-born chefs are venturing into Yankee territory to show New York City how to Git-R-Dun.
As part of this year’s highly anticipated NYC Wine & Food Festival (nycwineandfoodfestival.com), Paula Deen’s “Down South Up North” party will bring a taste of the South to Hill Country, the popular Flatiron barbecue joint.
The sold-out event will showcase Southern-style eats from cookbook authors Katie Lee (“The Comfort Table”) and the Lee Bros. (the forthcoming “Simple Fresh Southern”), plus chefs Art Smith (Chicago’s Table Fifty-Two, DC’s Art & Soul), Chris Lilly (Alabama’s Big Bob Gibson Bar-B-Q) and Hill Country’s Elizabeth Karmel and Pete Daversa.
“It’s a great time to be cooking Southern food in New York, and ‘Down South Up North’ commemorates this moment that we’re in,” says Matt Lee of cooking duo the Lee Bros.
But it turns out city slickers could learn a thing or two from their good ol’ boy counterparts.
We recently brought Deen, television’s resident Southern expert, to Momofuku Noodle Bar to sample its $100 fried-chicken dinner, which is credited for sparking a citywide fried-chicken frenzy.
The meal, which feeds up to eight people and must be reserved in advance online, includes two birds (one cooked Southern-style with buttermilk and Old Bay seasoning, the other Korean triple-fried) plus an assortment of fresh herbs and dipping sauces.
“Oh my God, hands down, the [Korean-style] wings are to die for,” she declared, the Yeah Yeah Yeahs blaring in the background.
Deen, looking svelte in a black scoop-neck sweater and charcoal leggings, also approved of the soft-serve ice cream (“Y’all need a spanking!” she drawled after sampling the angel food cake/strawberry lemonade twist).
But when it comes to Southern-fried chicken, the sassy Food Network personality still prefers her own trademark recipe, which involves dipping seasoned chicken into an egg mixture that’s been liberally doused with hot sauce before dredging and frying it.
“If my crew had brought that chicken out, I’d have had a heart attack because I’d have called it burned,” she said of Momofuku’s “salty” Southern-fried bird.
Deen won’t be making fried chicken at Hill Country on Saturday, but guests Katie Lee and Art Smith will.
A former personal chef for Oprah Winfrey, Smith plans to serve the fried chicken that put his new DC restaurant, Art & Soul, on the culinary map. The bird spends a day in a saltwater brine and then another in a buttermilk bath before being dredged in a mixture of White Lily self-rising flour, cayenne, thyme, onion and garlic powder. Smith then pan-fries the bird in less than an inch of grapeseed oil for six to seven minutes per side before putting it on a rack and finishing it in a 325-degree oven.
“People in New York know what good food tastes like, so it’s important to give people [a true representation of] who we are and what we’re about,” says Smith.
After all, Southern cuisine isn’t new to New Yorkers. Before David Chang, the South’s culinary ambassadors included African-American chefs like Charles Gabriel, whose legendary Harlem eatery Charles’ Southern Fried Chicken is being reborn as Charles’ Pan-Fried Chicken on Oct. 28.
Still, when the South Carolina-bred Lee Bros. moved to the Lower East Side in the early ’90s, they were frustrated that they couldn’t find a single boiled peanut in “the world’s greatest food town.” That prompted the duo to start a mail-order catalog business specializing in Southern staples like stone-ground grits.
Now grits grace the menus of popular newcomers such as Joseph Leonard, Char No. 4 and Dirt Candy. “Grits was considered untouchable on a New York City menu, and nowadays you see it all over the place,” says Matt Lee, who welcomes the trend.
“Chefs of all kinds have discovered Southern food and are considering it the way they consider Japanese food or Spanish food. The ingredients are part of their palate now,” he says.
But despite the willingness of chefs to experiment with Southern techniques and ingredients, stereotypes still abound.
“We eat Southern food on a day-to-day basis, and at the same time we eat healthy food,” says Ted Lee. On Saturday, he and his brother will serve smoked cauliflower and other “Simple Fresh Southern” dishes from their upcoming cookbook.
Or as Deen puts it: “People think I suck on a stick of butter for my afternoon snack — I don’t.”
carla.spartos@nypost.com