Tag Archives: Ark of Taste

True Red Cranberry Bean

The True Red Cranberry bean is one of the oldest American bean varieties and is on the Slow Food USA Ark of Taste. It is one of the varieties being grown in the Renewing America’s Food Traditions (RAFT) Grow-out project.

Its geographical location is concentrated around the northeastern region of the US. The Abenaki Indians and woodsmen, who inhabited the area that is now known as Maine, historically used this bean. The True Red Cranberry bean is a rare heirloom that was rediscovered by bean collector, John Withee, after an 11-year search in Steep Falls, Maine. As their name suggests, the mature True Red Cranberry bean is a deep lipstick-red color and looks like a ripe cranberry. The beans are fat and shiny and are mostly used in their dried form.

If you would like to grow the True Red Cranberry Bean, seeds are available from Seed Savers Exchange.

Sibley Squash

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The Sibley Squash, which is also known as Pike’s Peak squash, was obtained from an elderly woman in Van Dinam, Iowa who had grown it for more than fifty years. Hiram Sibley & Company of Rochester, New York introduced it commercially in 1887. It is a Hubbard-type squash with moderately vigorous 12-15 foot vines.

The slate blue teardrop-shaped fruits have very shallow ribs and weigh from 8-10 pounds. Its medium-thick orange flesh is flavorful and sweet. The flesh becomes drier and richer with storage, reaching its peak right after turn of the New Year, perfect for a roasted squash soup during those long winter months.

The Sibley Squash is on the Slow Food USA Ark of Taste, and is being grown in the Rhode Island area Renewing America’s Food Traditions (RAFT) Grow-out project this year. Look for the squash at harvest time in farmers markets and on restaurant menus around the state. If you would like to grow the Sibley Squash yourself, you can purchase seeds at Seed Savers Exchange.

Jimmy Nardello’s Sweet Italian Frying Pepper

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The Jimmy Nardello Sweet Italian Frying Pepper is one of the foods being featured in the Chefs Collaborative/Slow Food USA Foods at Risk/Renewing America’s Food Traditions (RAFT) Grow-out, and is on the Slow Food Ark of Taste.

Mr. Nardello’s pepper was originally from Basilicata, in the south of Italy, and he brought it with him from Italy while immigrating to Connecticut in 1887.

The pepper is sweet and light when eaten raw. It is considered one of the very best frying peppers as its fruity raw flavor becomes perfectly creamy and soft when fried.

Be on the lookout for the Jimmy Nardello Sweet Italian Frying Pepper at local farmers markets and restaurants around Rhode Island at harvest time. And, if you’d like to grow it yourself, you can purchase seeds at Seed Savers Exchange.

Taste Memory: More on Eating it to Save it

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For a quick overview of why the Foods At Risk/Renewing America’s Food Traditions (RAFT) Grow-out project is so important, have a look at this video of Slow Food New Orleans founder and leader, Poppy Tooker, as she tours the Slow Food Nation Victory Garden and talks to farmers and food producers about endangered foods. Among other interesting stories told in the video, a grower of Gravenstein Apples tells Poppy that at the height of their popularity, 9,000 acres were planted in Gravensteins, and now, they are grown on only 700 acres.

Eat It to Save It

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We mentioned in last week’s post that we’re very excited about the collaborative effort of Slow Food USA and Chefs Collaborative’s Renewing America’s Food Traditions (RAFT) grow-out project. This year, the grow-out is taking place only in New England, and it offers we Rhode Islanders (and all New Englanders) a great opportunity to experience the tastes of endangered foods by purchasing them later this year at farmers markets and restaurants that feature these foods, and we are also fortunate because we can grow some of these foods ourselves in our backyard gardens and balcony planters.

Below is a list of RAFT grow-out foods for Rhode Island. If you click on the variety name, it will bring you to a seed source website for that food so that you can grow these heirloom varieties yourself. If you do have a garden, consider planting a plant or two of each variety – or even just a few varieties – and share the seeds with your neighbors. Please do spread the word – the goal for these foods is to repatriate them here in the region in which they originated, and the more individuals who take up the cause by sowing seeds, buying this produce at the farmers market, or requesting that their grocery store carry these foods, the better chance they have for survival.

RAFT Grow-out Varieties:

Early blood turnip-rooted beet
Jimmy Nardello’s sweet pepper
Sibley’s Pikes Peak squash
Boston Marrow Squash
Long Pie pumpkin
True Red Cranberry beans
Marfax bean
Gilfeather turnip
Winningstadt cabbage
Boothby’s blonde cucumber
Student parsnip
Wethersfield onion
Trophy tomato
Siberian Sweet watermelon
Stowell’s Evergreen sweet corn

There are an enormous assortment of foods that originated in New England – everything from fruit and nut trees, to chickens, to shellfish, as well as other vegetables – that are endangered. For the full list, please visit Slow Food USA’s website to download a pdf on New England’s Place-based Foods at Risk with more information on the RAFT project.

Also, to read a wonderful article on the Ark of Taste – created by Slow Food to raise awareness about these endangered foods and to keep them in production, therefore promoting biodiversity – and to learn where the title for today’s post originated, please take a look at the FLYP website.

As winter slowly begins to wind down, we’ll be posting more and more information on the RAFT project and the stories behind the foods. Once the growing season is upon us, we’ll provide information on the farmers’ efforts in growing the foods, and then, at harvest time, we’ll let you know where to find these heirloom varieties – at farmers markets and on restaurant menus, and with your help, maybe even in grocery stores. We’re looking forward to seeing the cycle unfold, and hope you’ll join us in our efforts to restore these foods in Rhode Island.

Renewing America’s Food Traditions, the Local Food Forum, and information on nominating a food producer to receive $10,000.

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Here at Slow Food Rhode Island, we’re busy planning our events schedule for the early part of 2009, and will keep you updated on those details here and by email (be sure to sign up to be included in the Slow Food RI email by joining us at Slow Food USA!).

Meanwhile, there are a lot of exciting things going on. We want to remind you that the fifth annual Local Food Forum is next Wednesday, February 4 at Andrews Dining Hall on the Brown University Campus. You can still register for the event through Sunday, February 1, and admission is free. It’s a great opportunity to listen to and discuss plans for our local food system.

Slow Food Rhode Island is very excited to help Slow Food USA and Chefs Collaborative promote the Foods at Risk/Renewing America’s Food Traditions (RAFT) grow-out project. The RAFT grow-out project seeks to help reintroduce endangered foods to their native regions. Rhode Island chefs and farmers will be working together on this project, with chefs featuring the endangered foods from the grow-out on their menus this fall. We’ll keep you posted about those events, and, in addition to selecting one or two foods to champion here in Rhode Island, we will also be posting the stories of Rhode Island’s own endangered foods here on the Slow Food Rhode Island blog, and will be doing community outreach to promote the growing of these foods by individual gardeners in addition to farmers. We think this is a very important project to help restore these foods to our region, fostering biodiversity as it does, and we hope to one day see these foods available not solely at the Farmers Market, but also at grocery stores and other retail outlets.

If you would like to read more about the RAFT project, please take a look at the Slow Food USA website, or the Chefs Collaborative website. If you’d like to purchase seeds to grow some of the endangered RAFT, or Ark of Taste, varieties, the Seed Savers Exchange website is the place to go. In addition to featuring background on individual foods, we will be posting a list of RAFT foods so that it’s easy for you to track them down on the Seed Savers Exchange site.

Finally, if you know a farmer, business leader, or thought leader who is working to promote local food systems, The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) has announced the first annual Growing Green awards to honor the work of a Food Producer, a Business Leader and a Thought Leader in the sustainable agriculture world. The organization will highlight extraordinary contributions that include innovation within an ecologically-integrated food system, advancement of sustainable food production, climate stewardship, water stewardship, the preservation of farmland, and social responsibility. We think this is a great opportunity to honor an individual who is making changes in our community in a unique area such as protecting biodiversity or leading a school garden program.

The following three categories are eligible to apply:

Food Producer: Farmers or other food producers, including aquaculture, who employ
innovative techniques to sustain agriculture, the natural environment, workers and
community; (this category includes a $10,000 award)

Business Leader: Entrepreneurs who effectively use the marketplace to promote sustainable food systems, develop infrastructure that enables producers to be more sustainable, or advance sustainable innovations anywhere along the supply chain from farm to fork;

Thought Leader: Visionaries who advance sustainability as it relates to food through creative research, public education, and outreach.

The deadline is next Friday, February 6, so you’ll want to get on this quickly. For information on the nomination process, please visit NRDC’s website at: http://www.nrdc.org/growinggreen/

Please visit the blog again soon as we will be starting to post the stories of RAFT foods in the coming weeks.