Ancestor Worship
Carol Kramer
Posted: June 19, 2009
PORTSMOUTH, NEW HAMPSHIRE—Make a little room, Green Zebras, Brandywines, Cherokee Purples, and all you 600 other tomato seedlings hogging the garden limelight.
This year, exotic Blonde cucumbers, Sweet Siberian watermelons, Gilfeather turnips, Stowell's Evergreen sweet corn, and 12 other vegetables will be making their appearance on restaurant menus in the Northeast. Or that's what the people behind the 2009 Grow-Out project hope as they've given farmers in the Northeast thousands, maybe tens of thousands, of seeds and introduced them to chefs who have agreed to slip the vegetables onto their menus.
Grow-Out is the brainchild of four groups: Slow Food USA, Chefs Collaborative, RAFT (Renew America's Food Traditions), and the American Livestock Breeds Conservancy.
The sponsors kicked off the pilot project in early March at purposeful receptions that brought together 30 chefs and 27 growers at three restaurants—Black Trumpet Bistro in Portsmouth, New Hampshire; Craigie on Main in Cambridge, Massachusetts; and La Laiterie at Farmstead in Providence, Rhode Island. There were appetizers (homemade sausages, artisanal cheeses, and smoked pork belly), schmoozing—and seeds galore, all of which were donated by Fedco Seeds (www.fedcoseeds.com), Seed Savers Exchange (seedsavers.org), and Old Sturbridge Village (osv.org), which offers historic horticultural programs that include researching, planning, and planting re-created kitchen and flower gardens and offering heirloom gardening programs to the public as well as selling nearly 100 varieties of their own heirloom seeds in their gift shop and online at www.shoposv.org.
Many of the invited chefs already had done business with some of the farmers and all were known for using natural local food as much as possible. "We need to make a path between harvest and plate, and we rely on all of you to help us," Black Trumpet's chef, Evan Mallet, told the Portsmouth gathering.
"Our goals are to raise awareness of the issues surrounding heirloom vegetables, build markets, and with this pilot project develop a template to do similar things throughout the country," says Leigh Belanger, program and communications coordinator for the Boston-based Chefs Collaborative, which connects chefs and sustainable food products. "One of the most important issues is the identification and protection of fruits, vegetables, animal breeds, and wild foods at risk of disappearance."
In the end, which seeds were the most coveted?
"I think squash may be the next cool vegetable," says Belanger, reporting that all of the farmers took home the Boston Marrow squash, which has a 200 year old documented history, and Sibley, or Pike's Peak squash, introduced in 1887. Both are good storage crops, something that chefs appreciate, and Sibley, a slate blue teardrop-shaped fruit with orange flesh, becomes even richer with storage.
But none of the choices was left out. Winningstadt cabbage, Jimmy Nardello's sweet peppers, and one lettuce, the Forellenschluss from Austria, attracted fans as well. Leaving the reception, one young chef said he was looking forward to making turnips "as sexy as heirloom tomatoes."
