[gentle music] - Growing up in New Bern, I mean, it was one of those upbringings where, small town, North Carolina, everybody knew everybody.

There's a lot of little instances growing up that were anchored in a plate of food.

I changed the word trade to I'm learning my craft, and that became a whole different perspective now.

Now I started digging deep.

I started learning about what it meant to learn about different cultures.

The one aha moment that was really pertinent to me is that, you know, growing up in Eastern North Carolina, we ate specific food.

That love affair of the water comes from that.

Even right now, you know, I go to the water, I feel a sense of calm, I feel at peace, it feels organic there for me, and I go right back to those roots.

- Yeah, they grow in these beautiful little clusters.

- Oh, look at that.

Oh, wow.

My name is Ricky Moore, and my home is Chapel Hill, North Carolina.

I'm from New Bern, North Carolina, and I'm the chef and owner of Saltbox Seafood Joint in Durham, North Carolina.

In the very beginning, I immediately found who can get me North Carolina seafood in Durham.

The most important thing is that I really paid attention to who I was sourcing from and how they shared my vision.

We are going to meet somebody special.

Look at this.

Oh!

- Heyo!

Finally!

- [Ricky] What's up, buddy?

How are you, how are you?

- So good.

How are you?

- Good to see you.

- I'm stoked to take you out today.

- We finally got that done.

- Finally.

- This is gonna be fun.

- This is Ana Shellem, shellfish queen.

- Oh, I love that.

- All about that life.

- Shellfish queen, I love it.

- All about that life.

- Thank you, Chef.

- [Heather] Thank you for having us.

- I'm excited to take you to the marsh.

- [Heather] So tell us what we're gonna see today.

- We're gonna go get, well, whatever you want.

Clams, oysters, mussels.

If we see a stone crab nest, we're gonna totally get in there, fingers crossed.

- [Ricky] Ten four.

- We're gonna do sea beans.

You asked for those- - Yeah, sea beans.

- For your preparation.

- Sea beans are important because it's gonna be part of the preparation.

We're gonna do this whatever we harvest shellfish pot roast stew thing.

[bright music] [bright music continues] - We're waiting for the tide to go out a little bit more.

Tell us what we're gonna do, Ana.

What's our next step?

- We are gonna start with oysters, 'cause the beds are getting nice and exposed now.

And then we're gonna do some clamming.

The mussels grow up at the base of the marsh grass, so we'll finish with that, and then we'll collect sea beans and whatever else Ricky wants to cook up.

I make these little cluster busters.

Legally, oysters can, when you harvest 'em, have to be three inches.

If we have to bust anything off of an oyster, 'cause we only get singles, that's your size limit.

- Understood.

And you made these.

- [Ana] Yeah.

We try to be as self sustainable and self-sufficient as possible.

- Fantastic, okay.

- That's boat life.

So we're looking for the shape on the top, of course, and shape for cup and size.

[funky music] Let's see.

The tricky thing about the wild is you never... Like, when we land on an area, I never know if they're gonna be... - This cup- - That's pretty!

- My first one?

- Hey!

[laughs] There you go.

So next, I'd hold it by the oyster itself.

- Yeah, okay, yeah.

- And then break the excess off.

- Got it.

- There you go.

- All right.

Save that little fresh cup.

- Right on.

- [Ana] Ooh, is that a little whelk?

Never cooked whelk before.

- [Ricky] Really?

- [Ana] But we have one to play around with.

- [Ricky] Oh, that's awesome.

- [Ana] They're hard to get out of their shell.

- [Ricky] You treat a whelk the same way you treat, like, snails.

- Yes.

So the reason these are whelks and not conch is the conchs are only herbivores, and these guys eat clams and oysters, and they eat meat.

- So they eat shellfish, man, so the meat is just spectacular once it's handled correctly.

- Yeah, exactly.

- You know what I mean?

- I know that that corner's gonna be good, and there might be a nest on the way, so let's walk around.

- Okay.

- That's pretty.

Heather, if you wanna grab that basket, we can work our way around and do some planning.

- Ricky, how many clams have you found?

- [Ricky] One thus far.

One delicious one.

- One delicious.

We're gonna starve.

[all laughing] - [Ricky] Yep.

Right, here we go, all right.

- Oh, man!

That's two!

- I'm on a roll, I'm on a roll.

Come on, Heather, we counting mine, man!

Let's count mine!

Let's say it out loud!

Come on, man!

- It's frustrating, right?

Because it's wild, everything is so- - Yeah.

- Unpredictable.

It can be very unexhilarating.

[laughs] - [Ricky] Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh!

- Heyo!

- Oh, oh!

Look at that genius.

Look at that genius.

- [Heather] They gonna be so good.

- Boom!

So Ana, so we out here getting ready to harvest mussels.

- So they grow at the base of the marsh grass, and they kind of grow like little bloomin' onions.

So you can see, like, this, we'll call it a family here.

- [Ricky] Right, right.

- They grow in these clusters, and some have oysters attached, and if we can't break those off easily, we leave 'em and put 'em back in.

But I like to use a Hori Hori knife, so it doesn't disrupt the bed itself too much.

So we're gonna put right down the side, put it under and push up.

- [Ricky] Like this?

- Yes.

- All right, cool.

Okay, sure.

- And then it'll bring them up to the surface, attaching them to the... Oh, dang, they're excited to see you!

- Okay, okay.

- Once you get in like that, you can use your hands afterwards.

- All right.

Okay, Heather, you count now.

I got 17 now.

- Okay, I see that.

- [laughs] I got 17, okay?

I'm pulling it up like that.

[door squeaks] We do a lobster roll social every year.

Been doing it for the last seven years, I believe.

And it started off as me wanting to serve lobster rolls.

That's it.

I know it's not North Carolina local, it's not, but I like them, so I wanted to serve 'em on the menu.

Now, on that day, I also serve crab grits in the morning.

[upbeat music] [upbeat music continues] The reason why I do it on Thanksgiving is because of the historical context of lobster being offered during Thanksgiving.

What I've studied is that there was no turkeys up there.

There was more seafood.

So that was the other hook, if you will, pardon the pun, the reason why I serve lobster rolls on Thanksgiving, 'cause the center of the plate was seafood.

That's what we call GBD, golden brown and delicious.

- It's been our tradition for a couple of years now.

This is our third year coming.

- They're really good.

If you have a chance to, you should get them.

- It's this wonderful part of this Durham community, it's just a really food centric community.

- [Customer] We drove all the way from Winston.

We left at... What time did we leave, y'all?

- About seven something.

- Almost seven something.

We were up at 6:00 AM.

Yes, we were like, "We're coming, and we're gonna stay the day."

[upbeat music continues] - I was blessed to have a lot of good cooks in the family.

At my grandmother's house, she would prepare for us, me and my brother, would prepare for us, and to come and visit her on the weekends.

She would organize the meal for the entire weekend.

A lot of my upbringing was totally centered around food, but at that time, I didn't connect with that.

[gentle music] Just before getting outta high school, I enlisted in the US Army, and when I joined the military, I joined as a cook.

And you know, a lot of times, people have this perception of military food being, you know, a bunch of slop thrown on a plate.

But that was not my experience.

My experience was developing a skill, developing discipline, learning a trade.

Come to find out, I started to enjoy what it meant to be a cook in a commercial kitchen, in a commercial environment, and I started to research, and I found the Culinary Institute of America.

The school was started by GIs, okay?

And I was a GI.

And that's how I kind of got started professionally.

When I start to chop up these 10 oysters, take the little... - Take the leaves off.

- Yeah, the leaves.

Yes, ma'am, you got it, you got it.

You been doing this- - I'm married to a chef, come on.

- [Ricky] Yeah, you know the skills.

- You know I cook at home all the time.

- You know the skills.

I met Norma in Honolulu, Hawaii, particularly in Schofield Barracks, Hawaii.

Norma and I were both in the military.

I was assigned to the island.

I was walking through the barracks.

She was on duty at the time, and I just saw her and said, "Hello, I like you."

I think it was simple as that.

I believe she started asking about me or something along those lines, and we was kind of back and forth, and all of a sudden, we came together.

This dish right here, Norma, I thought about oysters Rockefeller.

- [Norma] Really?

Behind you.

- You see that?

That's restaurant lingo, "Behind you."

- [Norma] You have to say that.

[Ricky laughs] - Oh, yeah.

Oh, yes.

We had fun.

We were traveling, doing cool stuff out and about, having a good time.

We were going to Michelin star restaurants in our early 20s and 30s.

That was what we did, you know?

We would travel to Paris, we would travel to San Francisco.

She grew up in a family that, you know, food was a big deal, so that was another connection.

We've been married 30 plus years.

Bon appetit.

- [Norma] All right, bon appetit.

- Bon appetity.

- [Norma] You need to cook this more often.

Put that on the Saltbox menu.

- We've always, as a team, always wanted to elevate ourselves, you know?

Not to be better than anybody, but we come from very humble beginnings.

[gentle music] When I won the James Beard Award, it was incredible.

It was a validation.

And I made sure when I was on the stage, I shouted out North Carolina fisherfolk.

I gotta let people know.

That's now my responsibility.

With those sort of platforms, now I move through spaces and make sure that I talk about these things.

Everything that was taught to me, everything that people share with me on what it means to stay the course, that's what that was for me, you know?

Sometimes, it comes when it needs to come, when you're ready for it and ready to receive it and appreciate it.

I had traveled around this planet cooking and learning and studying and that sort of thing, and I came back home and I got awarded for food I grew up eating.

And think about that.

It was such a beautiful thing to say, you know what?

I got awarded for doing something that's indigenous to North Carolina and what I grew up eating.

[gentle music continues]