Sundance Rivera’s South Carolina wild game holiday hash
- cdavis884
- 2 minutes ago
- 5 min read
By Ford Walpole
When I have the opportunity to write a story about Sundance Rivera of Summerville, I know I am in for a treat. Not only do I get to watch a professionally trained chef work in his commercial-grade home kitchen, but I also am sure to learn about our state’s unique and rich culinary history. And finally, I know I will be fed like royalty and sent home with leftovers.
This year, Sundance prepared wild game hash for his Thanksgiving table. While barbecue pork is enjoyed throughout the South, hash is a side dish unique to South Carolina. “Haslet is an Old English word for viscera,” Rivera explains. “During the 1600s, the visceral meats and organs were utilized to make hash for the Africans. The primal meats, the backstraps and the hams were consumed by the wealthy, but no part of the hog went to waste. The visceral meats — the head, the hooves, the ears and the organs — were used to feed the masses. Hash is a pulverized blend of meats that is cooked in a sauce; the sauce is integral.”
Before long, hash would cross our state’s racial barriers. “We have documentation indicating that during the Civil War, hash was on the menu to feed the Confederate troops, particularly the Edgefield Riflemen and troops across the Savannah River in Augusta,” Sundance says. “This is a distinctly South Carolina food that got its roots here. The focus was to spread protein across as many soldiers and people as you can. After the war, it was served in hash houses, which would become the barbecue houses we have today. Originally, hash was cooked in a cast iron kettle over an open fire.
“Liver from venison, beef or chicken, creates a minerally flavor of richness,” Rivera continues. “The more poundage of liver you add, the more metallic your hash tastes. Most commercial restaurants that sell hash reduce the organ and head meats and use more primal meats, such as shoulders, but if you want to be more traditional, you would add more liver and hock. I go with the marginal amount of liver, and I have even put pepperoni in my hash,” he says.
In preparing the meat, Sundance recommends putting all of the ingredients in a crock pot and allowing it to cook overnight or all day. He adds two cups of apple cider vinegar and one cut of water, so that the meat will express itself. His meat consists of pork shoulder, pork belly, calf liver and beef sirloin. To add a wild game flair, he incorporates miscellaneous cuts of venison, harvested in Colleton County by his friend Gene Butler. On the morning, I visited Sundance’s kitchen, his friend Andy Branton and several fellow hunters had shot four wood ducks in a swamp on Branton’s Ridgeville property, so the waterfowl proved a serendipitous addition to the hash. Wild game “takes out some of the pork flavor, and wild game hash has less oil and fat with denser protein,” Sundance explains.
Besides barbecue, Rivera explains that hash should be served with three staples: rice, crusty bread and butter. Sundance prepared Charleston Gold Rice from Carolina Plantation Rice. He baked homemade bread and produced his own butter. In turn, he soaked his livers in the buttermilk “to relax the flavor and make it more palatable,” he says, adding: “Hash should have structure and be thick enough to sit on top of the rice without going through it.” For this reason, “all three styles of South Carolina hash have potatoes, which helps to create body and bind.”
Different regions of our state prefer their own version of hash. “This is distinctly a S.C. ritual,” Sundance says. “It reminds me of how the Italians have different wines in their villages based on landscapes.” In the Upcountry, hash is redder and darker, from more red, pasty roasted tomatoes or ketchup, and it tends to include more beef. In the midlands, hash is mustard-forward, which was influenced by the Germans who settled that region. “Lowcountry hash is vinegar-forward with more tang. It is made predominately from pork and sometimes a little bit of beef, and it is more acidic from tomatoes. Old timers actually even added deer blood to their hash,” he says.
For his hash, Rivera adds dry mustard seeds, Inglehoffer stone-ground mustard, as well as fancy yellow mustard. With the Midlands hash, he doubles the stone-ground and fancy mustard. Fortunately, upon my visit, Sundance prepared both the Lowcountry hash and the Midlands variety. Despite my regional loyalty, it was fun to go back and forth, continuing to taste both versions to arrive at a conclusion as to which I preferred. Since I love mustard, it was a difficult decision, but I ultimately gave the nod to the Lowcountry hash.
Having grown up in Summerville, Sundance frequently visited barbecue houses such as Duke’s, Kelly’s and Brown’s. “I started experimenting with hash after culinary school because it was still a mystery to me. I wanted to learn more about this dish that I have always heard has brains in it,” he laughs.
Andy Branton adds: “My dad always said hash is like a hot dog: You really don’t want to know what’s in it. Just eat it!”
For Thanksgiving dinner this year, Sundance hosted a crowd of 14 people, including a diverse blend of friends and family. He prepared turkey, ham and pernil, or Puerto Rican shoulder — a tribute to his Puerto Rican grandfather, who inspired Sundance’s love of food. Sides included Lowcountry hash, Puerto Rican rice, mashed potatoes, green beans, cornbread biscuits and homemade bread with homemade butter.
Besides being served amazing food prepared with a passion and attention to detail, guests of Sundance Rivera are certain to be entertained by a character with a cornucopia of experiences and talents: chef, counselor, storyteller, published author, beekeeper, boat captain, entrepreneur, board member for a local charity and soon-to-be realtor.
Rivera reflects on the significance of the unique Palmetto State side dish: “Hash really takes you back to the foodways of our great grandparents. On Thanksgiving, I like to prepare dishes that I inherited from my grandparents and friends. Food is the only story that really survives,” Sundance continues. “When I retell my grandparents’ stories, I might get the facts wrong, but the foods they ate have passed down — that story doesn’t change very much.”
With increased interest and attention to barbecue, Sundance recognizes the need for a proper balance between culinary art and a reverence for S.C.’s deep history of unique cultural cuisine: “With the emergence of festivals such as Holy Smokes, chefs are elevating the barbecue craft, and the chef in me really appreciates that,” Rivera says. “But if we are not careful, it will become so elevated that our hash will lose its distinction. There are some foods that we just don’t want to mess with too much, and I really don’t want to see hash altered very much. Our state’s hash is a special dish, and I don’t ever want our barbecue hash story to change!”
South Carolina Lowcountry Hash
Ingredients:
3-4 lbs. pork shoulder
2 lbs. miscellaneous venison
4 lbs. pork belly
1 lb. calf liver
1 lb. beef sirloin
4 onions
½ bunch of celery
2 tablespoons each of black pepper and salt
5 large potatoes
24 oz. ketchup
1 cup apple cider vinegar
1 cup mustard
½ cup brown sugar
8-10 cups of stock
Instructions:
Cook the meat together in a crock pot with two cups apple cider vinegar and one cup water.
Add the potatoes and vegetables at the same time for this one-pot meal.
Once the ingredients are cooked through and become soft and tender, grind them with a wand blender.
Return blended ingredients to the stove over medium heat.
Add the ingredients that comprise the sauce: apple cider vinegar, mustard, ketchup, etc.
Serve over Carolina Plantation Rice and with homemade crusty bread and homemade butter, and with pickles or pickled okra.
Ford Walpole lives and writes on John’s Island and is the author of many articles on the outdoors. He teaches English at James Island Charter High School and the College of Charleston and may be reached at fordwalpole@gmail.com.
