Orion Magazine Audio Slide Show of the Lexicon of Sustainability

In this beautiful audio slide show, photographer Douglas Gayeton explains the back story regarding the series of images and words now known as the Lexicon of Sustainability. As Gayeton discusses what we talk about when we talk about sustainability, he also elaborates on the relationship between image and quotes in the larger storytelling process and encourages all of us to think more deeply about how we employ language as we conceptualize the future.  As noted on the Lexicon homepage, “Words are the building blocks for new ideas.”   If you’re unfamiliar with Gayeton’s work, check out this great article from the Art of the Rural.  

This slide show is a companion piece to an article, which will appear in the May/June issue of Orion Magazine.

Orion Magazine Audio Slide Show: Lexicon of Sustainability from Orion Magazine on Vimeo.

The Seed and the Story: CAAH and Arkansas Seed Swaps

2011 Russellville Seed Swap. Photo by author

The Seed and the Story is a bi-weekly column exploring folklife, sustainability, oral history, human rights,and community in Yell County, Arkansas.   The column is published in the Post Dispatch and is syndicated in the Courier.  Please remember to support your local paper and independent media!

The Seed and the Story column is just of many features you can find on the Boiled Down Juice.  

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Beginning earlier this month the organization CAAH (Conserving Arkansas’ Agricultural Heritage) began their yearly series of Seed Swaps across the state.  With the motto “One for the cutworm, one for the crow, one to share and one to grow,” the organization seeks to preserve both the agricultural folkways of Arkansas and the seeds themselves, many of which have been in families for generations.

They operate a Seed Bank on campus at the University of Central Arkansas, studying and preserving the genetic diversity of regional seeds and host twelve statewide swaps, providing a space where community members can trade heirloom seeds and gardening knowledge, sharing the wealth with both fellow community members and the CAAH organization.

I’ve had the pleasure of meeting project leader Dr. Brian Campbell and hear him speak about this project and his other work, and I attended the Russellville Swap last year.  Regardless if you’re a master gardener with decades of experience or a person who’s never put a thing in the ground but posses an interest in learning more about growing your own food, CAAH is an excellent resource.

They seek to raise awareness about the problems with crop monoculture, wherein regional heirloom seeds are replaced by hybrids, the seeds patented and owned by major corporations.  As growers shift to these seeds, the regional ones die out, taking with them genetic diversity, regional traditions and a hardiness to local conditions. Just take the example of tomatoes.  There are only few varieties sold in grocery stores but literally hundreds of different heirloom tomatoes you can grow at home, ranging from pink to green to yellow and each with their own unique taste.  Heirloom gardening opens up a whole new world of eating.

Last year when I attended the swap in Russellville there were several people who brought seeds to give away and an even larger group of folks who just wanted to meet other gardeners in the area, many of whom were starting their first plots.  I came home with some okra seed, daffodil bulbs, a hummingbird vine, and French melon seeds, all of which have done well. If you have seeds passed down in your community, donating some to CAAH is an excellent way to make sure they never die out.  But don’t feel like you have to have seeds to swap to attend the event. It’s for everyone, gardener or not.

The event in Russellville will take place on the 25^th of this month at All Saints Episcopal Church from 10:00-1:00.  If you miss the Russellville event, you can make it to the Conway swap on Sunday the 26th 1:30-3:00 at the Faulkner County Library.   You can check out the full list of swaps below.

You can read more about CAAH and learn what’s in their Seed Bank here: www.arkansasagro.wordpress.com.  If you want to read more about last year’s swap and see a few more photos, go here. If you have seeds that have been passed down to you, I’d really love to hear about them!  I don’t know about you, but I can’t wait for spring.  What are you going to be growing?

The Seed and the Story for December 28, 2011: Peas and Greens: New Years Food

Photo of our New Year's Dinner by Rachel Townsend. Greens from the Stifft Station Community Garden in Little Rock.

The Seed and the Story column is published every other week in the Post Dispatch and syndicated in the Sunday edition of the Courier.   Thanks for reading! To keep up with this column online be sure and follow us on Twitter or Facebook.

As we approach 2012, many of will engage in the tradition of ringing in the New Year at midnight, setting resolutions for the coming days, and sitting down to a dinner of traditional foods meant to bring fortune and good luck.  While the items may vary greatly, all around the world people prepare special dishes (what folklorists often call foodways) meant to symbolize opportunity, a prosperous future, and peace in the coming days.  In Spain, for example, many people eat twelve grapes at the stroke of midnight.  In Sweden and Norway rice pudding is served and in Japan its soba noodles.

Here in central Arkansas and much of the south, black eyed peas, greens and pork are the New Year’s staple.  Like any long-standing tradition, there are many regional and family variations.  So I asked readers to tell me about the foods they prepare and the symbolism behind them.  Vicki King noted that she always eats “pork, black-eyed peas and cabbage for wealth, prosperity and good fortune.”  For many the pork is hog jowl, the cheek of a hog which looks and tastes much like thick-cut bacon.  Jerry Crowe says his family always cooks the hog jowl in the oven while Polly Taylor says they always fry theirs.  As for the greens, some serve cabbage while others prepare turnip greens or collards, all of which are meant to symbolize “folding money,” as Polly Taylor noted.   Alongside their greens, many serve cornbread, seen by some to symbolize gold.

Continue reading »

New Year’s Traditions and Resolutions.

A nice photo of black eyed peas soaking from the Tasty Kitchen.

In preparation for this week’s The Seed and the Story column I’d love to hear from you!

Do you do the whole black eyed peas New Year’s meal?  If so, what all do you cook?  Cabbage?  Hog Jowl?

And what about resolutions?  Do you have one?  If so, would you be willing to share?   I love hearing from readers near and far.

Sustainability Means More Than Just Food: Article on the Root Cafe in Arkansas Times.

From the Arkansas Times. Photo by Brian Chilson.

I recently had the opportunity to visit with Root Cafe owners Jack and Corri Bristow Sundell about the origins of their local food cafe, their inspirations, and plans for the future.

A upcoming discussion with the Root owners will air during  Ozarks at Large‘s  series about local businesses in Arkansas and will  explore their thoughts on the importance of eating local, the inspiration behind the cafe, and their plans for the future.  I’ll be posting more about that soon.

I had the opportunity to write this piece for the  Arkansas Times, published yesterday, examining their sustainable business model and the four years of fundraising that led to opening their doors.   Here’s an expert from the article.  To read the whole thing visit Arkansas Times or follow the link below.  You can also pick up printed copies of the Times throughout central Arkansas.

We’d love to hear more about other sustainable business models in your area.  Leave a comment or send us an email!

From the Arkansas Times:

The Root of All Success:  Sustainability Means More than Just Food. 

After four years of planning, the Root Cafe opened in June of this year. The locavore-friendly South Main area restaurant is a great place to get a juicy all-beef burger made with Arkansas-raised beef or a melt-in-your mouth vegan doughnut. But when it comes to sustainability, owners Jack and Corri Bristow Sundell took the concept beyond what’s on the menu.

In addition to using small-scale, local suppliers — all of their meats are sourced locally, and a large percentage of their vegetables and cheeses are grown and produced in the region — they also took a sustainable approach to financing.

In 2007 they started small, raising awareness and money for the cafe long before they ever secured a location. “When we started looking into business research and writing a business plan,” Jack said, “we could see that, for a lot of small businesses, the money they have to repay in loans ends up being one of the things they can’t sustain.”

It took about $30,000 to get the cafe up and running. They took out a $10,000 bank loan, but most of the money was raised prior to opening their doors. Assistance also came via landowner Anita Davis who finished out the interior of the 900-square-foot former Sweden Creme after the lease was signed “and built it to suit a lot of specifications,” Corri said.  

The pair adopted a micro-funding approach and hosted fundraising dinners at locations throughout town, generating interest in — and money for — the eventual storefront. Some of their most successful fund-raising efforts, Jack said, were the canning and food preservation workshops. “Initially we were thinking, well, this is something we’ll have to really get people interested in because no one does canning or food preservation anymore. But it turned out that, once we put the idea out there, there were more people interested than we could accommodate in the classes,” he said

More at http://www.arktimes.com/arkansas/the-root-of-all-success/Content?oid=1944807

The Seed and the Story for Wednesday September 21st: Muscadines!

Earlier this week, we posted about our search for Muscadine-related stories, many of which wound up in this week’s column.  Thanks so much to those who contributed! The Seed and the Story column is published every other week in the central Arkansas Post Dispatch and Courier newspapers.  

In Little Rock there’s a local food buying organization called the Arkansas Sustainability Network where you can purchase weekly groceries straight from regional, small-scale farmers.  This past week, in addition to our regular eggs and veggies, I purchased some muscadines from Bluebird Hill Berry Farm out of Atkins.  Surprisingly tart with a sweet aftertaste, muscadines are a form of grape native to the  southeastern United States.  They’ve grown wild in this region for at least four hundred years, and since the 1970s they’ve also been grown as a cultivator, used to make juice and wine in Altus wineries such as Weiderkehr and Post.  

Like so many people in the area, my late grandmother, Mary Caroline Caldwell Martin, made jelly from the wild variety she and her family picked in the rocky soil of Harkey’s Valley.   “Musk-kee-dines,” she called them, and her jelly was purported to be some of the best around.  Muscadine picking is alive and well today, and many people continue to make their own jams or jellies, a sweet concoction that takes the edge off the sour taste.  Some of us like to eat them raw, a somewhat involved task that requires  biting through the tough outer skin to get to the sour insides, being careful to avoid biting into the bitter seeds.  Roughly forty percent of the muscadine is skin and seed, but if you’re a fan of their tart flavor, the end product is well worth all the effort.

My grandmother (and grandfather) the queen of muscadine jelly.

My good friend Samantha Dill, an ESL teacher in Danville Schools, said this past week their school-wide fresh fruit and veggie grant provided muscadines as an afterschool snack.  As they nibbled on the antioxidant-loaded fruit, she discussed the various ways people eat and prepare muscadines.  Some of the students, she reported, even saved their seeds to take home and grow.

Inspired by Samantha’s story, I began asking around to see what others had to say about this regional delicacy.  Joanna Corder recalled her mother’s muscadine vine in the backyard of her North Little Rock home that took over an entire clothesline.  Aileen Reed recalled a muscadine hunting trip in south Arkansas that resulted in a bad case of poison ivy.  Dennis Pockrus said that as a child he’d eat so many wild muscadines that his “lips would itch.”   And when it comes to muscadine picking advice, Denise Taylor suggested checking the low branches of trees, being careful to watch out for chiggers, of course.  It’s even been said that in the 1950s-1970s wild muscadine wine could be found at the Chickelah store.

Recent agricultural research reveals the muscadine (including the shell and the seed) to be loaded with nutrients.  Muscadine-derived supplements are popular online and muscadine growers near and far are researching ways to market these health benefits.  They’re typically harvested from August through October, so you’ve still got a little time to pick some wild ones or purchase some of the many varieties of cultivators from area growers.

We’d love to hear your muscadine stories!  Leave a comment here or send us an email via the contact page!  Thanks so much for reading!

Muscadine related links:

Muscadine: Encyclopedia of Arkansas

Muscadine Grape,  California Rare Fruit Growers

Recipe from Muscadine Meringue Pie from The Communal Skillet (suggested  by Jen Erwin of Food Orleans)

Recommended muscadine varieties for home and garden, via U of A Division of Agriculture

Williams Muscadine Vineyard and Farm in Nesmith, South Carolina (more detailed post about this in the near future!)

What muscadine links are we missing?  Let us know!

Let’s Talk About Muscadines.

Purple and gold muscadines from Bluebird Hill Berry Farm out of Atkins, Arkansas

Every other week the Seed and the Story column comes out in the Post Dispatch and the Courier newspapers.  I’m thinking this next column should be an ode to the greatest regional fruit known to humankind, the muscadine.

I’ve eaten my fill of them lately, and I’ve been hearing others talk about them as well, including one friend who teaches at Danville Public Schools, Samantha Dill,  who said the students recently had them for an after-school snack followed by a discussion about the fruit’s various folkways and the variety of different ways to eat their delicious contents.   Isn’t that great?   She’s an excellent teacher!

Here’s what she had to say about it (via comment section): As part of the grant program, teachers and cafeteria must document lessons they incorporate into their classrooms. Every Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday and sometimes Thursday and Friday afternoon, we all all get a beautiful tray. There is a watermelon plant that out groundskeepers have obviously ignored on our playground from the watermelon seeds some fifth graders spit out while enjoying the fruit outside with Mrs. Rose.

I’ve found that a few different farmers that sell them around here in the central Arkansas area, including Bluebird Hill Berry Farm in Atkins, Arkansas.  Right now they have both the gold and purple varieties available.  Typically these are the tame kind as opposed to the wild, gathered kind.  But they’re still quite tasty.

I’d love to hear your muscadine stories!  How do you like to eat them?  Do you make jelly? Eat them raw?  Maybe you do a little fermenting even?  Let’s talk muscadines.  Or mus-cee-dines, as my grandmother said.