pro·cras·ti·nate
New Goal: Stop procrastinating
By waiting until the last minute, I’ve had a wonderfully intense week of interviewing 3 passionate chefs, trying their food, and hearing their stories. It is the collection of their stories I now share with you.
But first, I’m just eating the last couple of bites of my research for this article (even though I haven’t finished taking off the weight gained working on my previous article on Nashville’s Bagels). Here’s what I just ate some (or all) of:
¼ Hot Chik’n Salad
⅓ Chickpea Tuna Salad
½ 1 Cliff Burger (aptly named and created by Clifton Hancock)
¼ 7/8 BBQ Jackfruit Sammich
½ each side of turnip greens and green beans
All of which was from The Southern V, a highly original vegan Southern comfort food eatery, where you can also get some great fresh fruit smoothies.
Tiffany and Clifton Hancock, The Southern V
Tiffany and Clifton Hancock were gracious enough to spend an hour with me yesterday on zoom, and Tiffany held their 4-month-old on her lap the entire time. Makes sense, since what they do is all about family. In fact, they began the transition towards a vegan lifestyle after the birth of their 2nd daughter, Norah, when they realized that she was showing intolerance to certain foods that Tiffany was consuming. Shortly after giving up meat, dairy and soy, Tiffany developed a craving for Krispy Kreme doughnuts. Knowing she couldn’t eat one, she developed a vegan doughnut that she and Clifton started selling at farmers markets. But doughnuts alone didn’t satisfy two native Tennesseans’ cravings for the southern food of their childhood. With no options available, Tiffany started to create vegan dishes that resembled her household standards like fried chicken, macaroni and cheese, meatloaf, and other classics. The Hancocks noticed that vegan Southern comfort food was an open lane in a region where many southerners might start to transition to a meatless diet if they could choose food they could relate to.
In seven years, they’ve gone from a place where people could not fathom there being a Southern vegan restaurant in Nashville to becoming a destination for vegan tourism. They lead by example and they teach from experience of having grown up Black in the south. Tiffany says, “race relations were prevalent as a kid. I was pushed to give ten times more effort than the next person…to be noticed…to show that I was worthy.” Clifton describes so well how “being in a marginalized group with preconceived notions always precede you…some may not view you as an individual first.” The Hancocks understand that they cannot control the world in which they exist; however, they can cultivate confidence, knowledge of self, and knowledge of culture within their children by being receptive to the journeys of others. Their motto is “Be the change you want to see.” Wow.