Asian-Inspired “Recipes in a Bottle” from the American South
By Lorrie Baumann
Chinese Southern Belle, based in Smyrna, Georgia, produces Asian-inspired cooking sauces with just a hint of a Southern accent. The three all-natural sauces: My Sweet Hottie, You Saucy Thing and Wild Wild East, work well as condiments as well as cooking bases. “We call them recipes-in-a-bottle because they’re authentic family recipes with fresh ingredients and taste so much better than other pre-made sauces out there,” said Natalie Keng, Owner and Founder of Chinese Southern Belle. The sauces are based on what they eat and cook at home, Keng said.
Her mother and father immigrated to the United States on graduate school scholarships and stayed to pursue professional careers in education and science, respectively – her mother as a public school teacher and her father as a research scientist at Georgia Tech University. In those days, it wasn’t easy for Natalie’s mother Margaret to obtain Chinese food ingredients. “It was before Asian and international supermarkets in Georgia,” Keng says. “We made do with whatever we had in the fridge and local Winn-Dixie grocery. My mom was real creative with her home cooking, using whatever was fresh and seasonal.”
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After teaming up with her mom to teach cooking classes and give Asian supermarket tours, she started Chinese Southern Belle, a small business with a big vision of using food and culture as a gateway: from connecting communities and supporting local farmers to improving access to fresh, healthier food, Chinese Southern Belle wants to “cook and eat together for a better world.” Keng continued, “Asian and Southern food traditions both have very unique and very rich food traditions. Fusing them was real and natural – just who we were. The sauce was the hardest part for everyone to get right in the classes, so we ended up bottling them.” Being inducted into Les Dames d’Escoffier International was a big honor and a way to give back, she said: “We’re still small but support local nonprofit groups whenever possible.”
My Sweet Hottie is a sweet chili peach sauce that can be used as a salad dressing, marinade or dipping sauce. You Saucy Thing is a soy-ginger-Vidalia, a great all-in-one sauce for instant stir-fry, and Wild Wild East is an Asian-style teriyaki barbecue sauce with fresh pineapple. They’re natural, made with fresh ingredients, and contain no MSG or high-fructose corn syrup. The three Asian-inspired chef-quality sauce blends are sold locally in Georgia (Whole Foods and Kroger), through a direct-ship specialty food program with Sysco and online. Gourmet Foods International is the national distributor to the retail trade and Cheney Brothers is the regional distributor for food service. They retail for $8-10 per bottle.