Marc Sheehan has long been interested in the history of food. A graduate of the Culinary Institute of American in Hyde Park, N.Y., the Massachusetts native worked at Blue Hill at Stone Barns, Dan Barber’s farm, restaurant, and hotbed for culinary innovation in upstate New York, before working at Menton, a French-Italian restaurant by Barbara Lynch. Previously, he earned national acclaim at Loyal Nine in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

There he served food based on what people cooked in the region from the Colonial era onward—not what was in cookbooks, which catered to a wealthy audience, but what normal people grew in their gardens. It turned out that they grew a lot of cayenne pepper, coriander and other robust flavors that were toned down by the likes of Fannie Farmer and other purveyors of food for the well-to-do.

Now Sheehan operates Northern Spy, a restaurant in the Boston suburb of Canton, located in a copper rolling mill first opened by Paul Revere. 

Sheehan recently discussed the restaurant, which opened in December of 2020, as well as how the food that his ancestors likely grew up on is different than what you might have thought.