I got a cup of coffee and a jelly doughnut at Gibson’s Donuts on Memorial Day.
I also got a bowl of “Britton’s Black Bean Soup.” And it was one of the most delicious culinary items I’ve eaten.
This isn’t on the menu. You can’t order this when you order a “maple bacon” doughnut or an apple fritter. This was whipped up by Gibsons’s manager/owner Britton DeWeese as a treat for the employees on the holiday. I was just lucky enough to get some. And, by the way, I am pictured gobbling a doughnut in DeWeese’s great children’s book, The Donut Shop That Never Sleeps.
“It’s a recipe my mom got from a restaurant in the Cayman Islands when I was a kid,” DeWeese says. “I was probably 13, 14, 15. That’s when we were going there in the summers.”
DeWeese liked the soup when he had it at the Cayman restaurant. “I’ve always been a good eater. I’ve always been into cheffing and stuff. I was always in the kitchen with my mom while my brothers were out in the backyard playing football and stuff. So, I’ve always had a spot in my heart for food.”
His mother “liked this black bean soup so much that she begged the chef at this restaurant to give her the recipe. I guess since we were from America and he didn’t have to worry about her stealing his recipe and opening another restaurant he gave it to her and she taught me how to make it.”
DeWeese took the recipe and ran with it. “I’ve tweaked it a little bit.”
The original recipe was very simple, he says. It includes carrots, onion, garlic, broth, and the black beans. “I do vegetable broth. Then I add the black beans. You mash up some of the black beans to kind of thicken it up a little bit. I’ve added jalapeño into my saute mix. And I’ve added corn, and bacon just as, ‘Why not?’ I’ve kind of Southernized it a little bit, you know. And I like to serve it with cornbread.”
The cornbread I had with the soup at Gibson’s tasted like sweet Jiffy cornbread, which I thought was a good touch instead of a blander mix.
The restaurant didn’t serve regular cornbread, DeWeese says. “They served it with this stuff called ‘Cayman cornbread’ that my mom used to make. It’s basically cornbread, but you use half cornmeal and half flour. So, instead of two cups of cornmeal, you do a cup of cornmeal, a cup of flour. And it’s got cinnamon, nutmeg, and allspice in it. So, it eats more like a cake. Like a birthday cake than a cornbread. It’s not as dense as cornbread, and it’s got this island-y flavor ‘cause of the allspice and the nutmeg in it.”
DeWeese has the Cayman cornbread recipe. “When I make it at home, I make the Cayman cornbread. And, dude, it’s so good with that Cayman cornbread. But when I cook it up at work I Southernize it and just get the cornbread they have at the store. ‘Cause I don’t have an oven here. So, I can’t really bake cornbread at work.”
He’s been cooking for years, DeWeese says. He went to culinary school when he “was being a ski bum” in Colorado.
DeWeese also worked in fine dining restaurants. “I was actually a sous chef in a fancy restaurant called Blue Spruce Inn out in Colorado right before I moved back home to run the doughnut shop.
“Every job I’ve ever had since I was 15 years old has been in a restaurant. My first job was running food and bussing tables at Cooker Bar and Grill, where Ruth’s Chris is now. Cause my brother was a bartender. Then I got a job making sandwiches at McAllister’s. And every job I’ve ever had since then has been in a restaurant. So, I know my way around a kitchen.”
He makes the black bean soup “pretty often,” DeWeese says. “I don’t always make this. I cook for my employees probably once every week or two. Probably, realistically, every other week. If we have a slow day or I have some extra employees I’ll cook some. Sometimes I’ll make them tacos. Sometimes I make them chili. You saw my little pot over there. There’s only so many things I can cook in that pot.’
DeWeese likes to make grilled cheese sandwiches and tomato soup. “I’ve got a crock pot. So, I’ll make tomato soup in the crock pot and cook grilled cheeses in that skillet. Like in the wintertime. On a nice cold day if it’s snowing and icy and we’re dead cause it’s like ice on the roads, I’ll cook grilled cheeses and tomato soup or some chili.”
He makes a lot of his black bean soup when he makes it. “Every time I make it there’s not enough. So, I keep upping my recipe every time I make it at work. And I think I finally made enough cause I sent a cup home to my mom and my dad and I gave you a cup and there’s still some out there.”
DeWeese used six cans of black beans for this batch. “The original recipe was like four cans. And I started doing five cans. And now I’m putting six cans. It’s still just a bag of carrots that I chop up. And one onion, one jalapeño, a couple of spoonfuls of — I cheat and I buy the already minced-up garlic. Just cause, again, at work, trying to simplify it a little bit.”
Britton’s Black Bean Soup has become legendary at Gibson’s Donuts. “One of my employee, his request for his last day of work was for me to make that black bean soup for him. And I did. Thats how much my employees like it.”
People who work at Gibson’s Donuts have been known to say, “You haven’t made your black bean soup in a while.”
“It really is one of my favorite things to eat, too. So, if they ask me to make it, I’m like, ‘Alright. Let’s do it.’”