Category Archives: RAFT

RAFT Heirloom Harvest Dinner – Foxboro Bound!

From Slow Food Boston:

Location: Tastings Wine Bar & Bistro, Foxboro, MA
Cost: $60
When: Thursday, 10/07/2010 6:30PM

Details:
October brings the real first tastes of fall — and of winter! We’re talking squash (like the Boston Marrow) and root veggies (like the Gilfeather Turnip) and items from the Allium family (Wethersfield Onions, anyone?) Wait, wait. Never heard of them? Maybe that’s because they’ve been classified as ‘endangered’ and entered into the listings of Slow Food USA’s RAFT Program.

As we continue our RAFT Heirloom Harvest Dinner Series, you’ll actually get the chance to taste all of these lovely veggies, and more! Your next opportunity comes Thursday, October 7th at 6:30pm down in Foxboro. (Don’t worry, the Patriots aren’t in town, so traffic is no excuse to miss out!)

Chef Matthew Maue at Tastings Wine Bar & Bistro is planning a major to-do for you: a reception with passed apps and then a four course dinner (hmm heirloom lettuce salad with country ham, braised short ribs, squash mousse!) This is the time to indulge in the late harvest, so definitely plan to join us for this scrumptious meal.

Cost for the evening is $60 with wine pairing available for and extra $15. As usual, we do require preregistration and payment.

**Since this will be a pre-planned set menu, please be sure to alert us of any food allergies or intolerances ahead of time. Thanks!**

Directions:
Tastings Wine Bar & Bistro is located at 201 Patriot Place in Foxboro, directly across from CBS Scene. More information and directions can be found on their website.

Heirloom Harvest Week, October 12 through 18

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We hope that you can join us in celebrating the agricultural bounty of New England and the RAFT Grow-Out project during the RAFT Grow-out Heirloom Harvest Week. It starts this upcoming Monday, October 12th and runs through October 18th in Providence and Newport-area restaurants.

Heirloom Harvest Week is a celebration of New England’s agricultural heritage, biodiversity and farmer-chef connections. From October 12th through 18th, Grow-Out participant restaurants will have one or more items on their menu highlighting and honoring locally grown, heirloom vegetables from the project.

Stop by to eat delicious food while supporting your local restaurants and farms and celebrating New England’s agricultural heritage.

Participating Restaurants:
22 Bowens, Newport, RI
Boat House Restaurant, Tiverton, RI
Castle Hill Inn and Resort, Newport, RI
Chez Pascal, Providence, RI
DeWolf Tavern, Bristol, RI
Gracie’s, Providence, RI
Julian’s, Providence, RI
La Laiterie at Farmstead, Providence, RI
Local 121, Providence, RI
New Rivers, Providence, RI
Nicks on Broadway, Providence, RI
Tastings Wine Bar & Bistro, Foxboro, MA
The Mooring Seafood Kitchen and Bar, Newport, RI
The Smokehouse Café, Newport, RI
Trio, Narragansett, RI
Waterman Grille, Providence, RI

Here at Slow Food RI, we’re all very excited about the RAFT Grow-out project and the reintroduction of our region’s place-based foods. The Heirloom Harvest Week is a great way to try out some of those foods, and, who knows – perhaps persuade you to include them in your seed order, or to request seed starts from your local nursery next year?

Long Pie Pumpkin

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The Long Pie Pumpkin is one of the Renewing America’s Food Traditions (RAFT) Grow-out varieties. It’s thought that the Long Pie Pumpkin originally came from the Isle of St. George in the Azores and was brought to Nantucket in 1832 on a whaling ship, where it was known as the Nantucket Pumpkin.

Farmers shared the seeds until it migrating north to Maine, and eventually became the favorite pie pumpkin of growers in Androscoggin County, Maine. Among heirloom enthusiasts, it is considered the best pumpkin for pie today. Which has us looking forward to its appearance on participating restaurant menus this fall.

Long Pie Pumpkins are long and thin, like overgrown orange zucchinis. They average 3 – 6 lbs, and often are not ready at harvest, for they are picked when the spot in contact with the ground is orange, but mature to a full‐orange in storage over several weeks or months. They are not ready to eat until fully orange.

Forellenschluss Lettuce

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For those of you still interested in growing some of the Renewing America’s Food Traditions (RAFT) Grow-out varieties in your own garden, it isn’t too late to start Forellenschluss lettuce from seed.

Forellenschluss means “speckled like a trout” in German, which describes this tasty butterhead lettuce aptly. The thick, light green leaves have maroon speckles. Traceable to 1660 in Holland, this lettuce traveled through Germany until in 1790 it was first brought to Ontario, Canada, and then on to the US.

Forellenschluss has juicy, thick leaves and has been said to taste similar to watercress. It is mild flavored,and has a loose‐leaf romaine–type head.

Also good to know is that Forellenschluss lettuce holds well in summer heat.

In a mere 55 days, you could be enjoying your very own speckled-like-a-trout lettuce with over 340 years of history. Now that makes for some interesting dinner conversation, doesn’t it?

Seeds are available at Seeds of Change, though seedpacks have also been spotted in Providence-area Whole Foods stores.

Marfax Bean

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According to the Fedco Seeds website, the Marfax Bean is ideally suited to cooler climates as it matures in 86 days, and is a delicious brown baking or soup bean.

It has been a New England favorite for generations, so if you have any stories of or recipes for Marfax Beans, please do share.

The Marfax Bean is one of the Renewing America’s Food Traditions Grow-out varieties, so be on the look out for it this fall in restaurants and in farmers markets.

Slow Food RI welcomes City Farm to the RAFT Grow-out

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Slow Food Rhode Island is happy to have Southside Community Land Trust’s City Farm joining in the Renewing America’s Food Traditions (RAFT) Grow-out project.

City Farm is the original garden that launched Southside Community Land Trust. It was founded on an abandoned lot that had been used as a chop shop for stolen cars. In 1981, neighbors in this area joined together to form community gardens that evolved into Southside Community Land Trust, and now City Farm provides a space for children and adults alike to learn about sustainable growing practices.

City Farm hosts a summer children’s garden program, youth internships, fieldtrips, apprenticeships and public workshops in urban agriculture. Neighborhood children spend time at City Farm learning about gardening first-hand, including activities like feeding the hens, helping to weed, learning the names of plants, and picking and eating edible flowers, sweet cherry tomatoes, and delicious raspberries.

City Farm is a 3/4 acre farm that supplies local farmers markets, groceries, restaurants, coffee shops and food pantries such as the Amos House, Food Not Bombs and the RI Food Bank, and this season. They will add True Red Cranberry Beans and Boothby’s Blonde Cucumber, two of the RAFT Grow-out varieties, to their list of crops this summer.

Stowell’s Sweet Corn

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Imagine corn seed spurring one to look more closely at who one considers a friend?

The original strain of Stowell’s Sweet Corn was bred by Nathaniel Newman Stowell. Stowell was born May 16, 1793 in New Ipswich, Massachusetts. After years of refining the strain, Nathaniel sold two ears of seed for $4.00 to a friend who agreed to use it only for his private use. His “friend” then turned around and sold the seed for $20,000 and it was introduced to the seed trade in 1848. Could this friend not have split the profit? Or at the very least, paid him back the $4.00?

In any case, after 151 years, his variety is still the leading white variety for home gardens and market growers. Ears grow 8-9″ long and have 14-20 rows of kernels, 1-2 ears per stalk, and will be yours to eat in just 80-100 days should you plant them in your own garden. If you would like to purchase seed, it is available at Seed Savers Exchange.

Otherwise, please be on the lookout for Stowell’s Sweet Corn at farmers markets and restaurants around Rhode Island at harvest time.