Sorghum Seven Ways: A Timeless Kentucky Meal

By Rona Roberts

Farm to fork. Farm to table. Farm to school. Farm to you — it always starts with farm. A recent meal prepared by Lexington food writer Rona Roberts featured 17 ingredients that started on Kentucky farms. Chief among those ingredients was sorghum, produced from four Kentucky producers and included in seven dishes.

Pepared for a Mercer County Arts Council fundraiser, the meal took place at the Nathanial Burrus house, a historic Mercer County country home less than 30 miles from downtown Lexington; the centerpiece, a fall-apart tender lamb shoulder braised for hours in its own savory juices, came from Four Hills Farm, about seven minutes away from the home.

Click each menu item for recipes, resources and to find out just how sorghum was incorporated in the meal in seven different ways.

On the Menu:

Cocktail: “The Sorghum Colonel” 

Winter Roast Vegetable Salad with Sorghum Bourbon Vinaigrette

Oven Baked Sweet Potato Fries , from Maggie Green’s The Kentucky Fresh Cookbook 

Slow-Braised Mercer County Lamb Shoulder  with Sweet Potato Garnish and Kentucky Pan Sauce

Kentucky Rich and Spicy Cornbread with Sorghum-Lime Drizzle

Fresh Ginger Gingerbread with Sorghum Bourbon Whipped Half Sour Cream

This Timeless Kentucky Meal utilized products from the following Kentucky producers: 

Barr Farms Sorghum, Meade County

Country Rock Sorghum, Woodford County

Elmwood Stock Farm, Scott County

First Fresh Olive Oil, Mason County

Four Hills Farm, Mercer County

Heavenly Homestead, Russell County

JD Country Milk, Logan County

Steve Kay’s Campsie Garlic and Thyme, Fayette County

Oberholtzer Sorghum, Casey County

Paige Prewitt’s Garden Jalapeños, Fayette County

Ruth Hunt Candy, Montgomery County

Jonathan Roberts’s Kubocha Squash, Wayne County

Sav’s Piment, Fayette County

Tallgrass Farm, Mercer County

Townsend Mill Sorghum, Montgomery County

Weisenberger Mill, Woodford County

Woodford Reserve, Woodford County

The following Kentucky Cookbooks were referenced in this meal:

The Kentucky Fresh Cookbook, by Maggie Green

Kentucky Sweets: Bourbon Balls, Spoonbread & Mile High Pie, by Sarah C. Baird

Smoke and Pickles: Recipes and Stories from a New Southern Kitchen, by Chef Edward Lee

Sweet, Sweet Sorghum: Kentucky’s Golden Wonder, by Rona Roberts

Oven Baked Sweet Potato Fries, from Maggie Green’s The Kentucky Fresh Cookbook

Sorghum: What is it and how did it show up seven times in a meal?