feature
SAVE IT TO EAT IT
The Ark of Taste lists culturally significant, delicious foods at the risk of extinction.
WRITTEN BY LAUREN LASTOWKA
“A cow is not a cow and a carrot is not a carrot,” Megan Larmer tells me. Larmer is the manager of biodiversity programs for Slow Food USA (a network of more than 100,000 members in more than 150 countries that advocates for good, clean, fair food for all). She is chatting with me over Skype one afternoon about the benefits of a diverse food system.
One of the key biodiversity programs Larmer helps run is the Slow Food Ark of Taste. The Ark is an initiative that aims to catalog and promote thousands of plants, animals, and processed products around the globe that are at risk of becoming extinct in a generation or two.
The idea behind the Ark is to raise awareness of these foods and facilitate the cultivation, preparation, sharing, and enjoyment of them. Many of the foods are — or were — only available regionally, or from a handful of producers — foods such as the O’odham pink bean or the Louisiana Mirliton potato. The idea is that by growing and cooking them, we will save them from extinction — producers will raise or grow them if they are in demand; chefs and suppliers will demand them if customers ask for them; customers will ask for them once they discover and taste them.
The foods on this list, in return, offer a rich diversity of flavors and textures, as well as a link to local culture that can’t be found in standard grocery stores.
The Ark is “an alternative to the homogenization of the industrial food system,” Larmer explains.
Supporting diversity
Just how homogenized is our industrial food system? In Conservation of Taste, a publication put out by Slow Food USA that examines 13 foods that have made a resurgence since being on the Ark of Taste, author and food scholar, Gary Nabhan, explains that in the past, nearly 7,000 plant species and 200 animal species were cultivated or raised for food.
“Now,” Nabhan says, “just 103 crop plants and seven livestock species feed the world today in terms of providing the majority of calories and protein consumed in the globalized economy.”
In other words, most of the planet is eating just 1.5 percent of the total cultivable plant species we once ate, and 3.5 percent of the livestock species.
The terrifying thing about these statistics is the lack of food security they represent. Without diversity, it is much more likely that a disease, drought, or weather pattern could wipe out a large percentage of our food supply (just think of the Irish Potato Famine). The more diverse our food supply, the more resilient. Should one crop strain be eliminated, several others still can feed the population.
As Nabhan explains, the reasons for promoting biodiversity range from the large scale of public health to the individual scale of good nutrition. And while we know some of the potential consequences of losing biodiversity, there are many unknowns.
“The analogy we like to use is to think of each of these foods as a string in a very beautiful tapestry,” Larmer explains. “Pull one string and maybe nothing happens or maybe the whole thing comes apart. We don’t know.”
Preserving traditions
The Ark of Taste is “also about preserving cultures and traditions,” Larmer says.
“These foods and the stories they represent,” Larmer says of foods on the Ark, “are part of our cultural heritage. If we lose these flavors and their stories, we put ourselves in a less imaginative and less wonderful place.”
The Ark of Taste is just as much about saving local customs — a particular way of making bread, a style of cheese, a regional candy — as it is about saving a plant species. In addition to everything else that it aims to achieve, the Ark of Taste strives to preserve the wonder and imagination that are part of how we feed ourselves.
Get involved
The easiest way to get involved is just to start being aware of different varieties of foods. The Slow Food USA website lists all of the foods on the Ark, and Local Harvest directory notes which farmers grow specific Ark of Taste products in every region. Linda Elbert, who chairs the California Ark of Taste committee, urges people to explore products on the Ark with wonder and curiosity.
“Eat them, talk about them, grow them!” Elbert says. “Talk to farmers at farmers’ markets — request these items so farmers see there is a demand.”
Nominating a product to be added to the Ark of Taste is another option.
“If you are aware of something — a vegetable, a fruit, some kind of historical family recipe — you should contact your local Slow Food chapter,” Elbert says.
You also may fill out a nomination form on the Slow Food USA website.
Nominating products
Elbert explains that committee members review nominated products to determine whether they will be added. First they evaluate taste.
“We’re not going to put anything on the Ark of Taste that doesn’t taste good,” she explains.
Next, they look at an item’s history, whether it is connected to a particular area, culture, tribe, immigration wave, or time period. Then they determine its method of harvest or production — specifically whether it is sustainable or whether it can be made to be. Finally, committee members look at whether the item is endangered or underappreciated or at risk of becoming either.
Dig in
To become aware of lesser-known products, Larmer suggests collecting oral histories from older family members or community members to learn which foods and food traditions have played an important role in their lives, or in their parents’ or grandparents’ lives. She also suggests visiting local farms or experimenting in the garden. (You can order seeds for many of the products on the Ark of Taste through Seed Savers Exchange.)
Farmers and chefs also can take steps to promote biodiversity. Farmers, of course, can grow the vegetables and raise the animals on the Ark of Taste so that consumers and chefs can purchase them to prepare and eat. Chefs, Larmer says, can give people “a pleasurable, interesting moment to discover these foods, a moment that is engaging and fun.”
Local Ark foods
Here in the Reno-Tahoe area, biodiversity is thriving. Farms such as GirlFarm in Reno, Churchill Butte Organics in Stagecoach, Mewaldt Organics in Fallon, and Sunny Day Organic Farms in Stagecoach, all grow products listed on the Ark of Taste. Some you may have heard of, such as Nevada single leaf pinyon (Nevada’s state tree, which bears large, rich, fruity pine nuts), as well as Rhode Island Red, Delaware, and Wyandotte chickens; others may be curiously unfamiliar — such as Red Wattle hogs and Guinea hogs and Aunt Ruby’s German green tomatoes.
Churchill Butte Organics is cultivating Sierra Beauty, Newtown Pippin, Gravenstein, and Spitzenburg apples, as well as American persimmons, American pecans, Moon and Stars watermelons, Jimmy Nardello’s Sweet Italian Frying peppers, Speckled lettuce, Dominique chickens, and Narragansett turkeys. All are on the Ark list.
GirlFarm’s Wendy Baroli is raising quite a few items that are listed on the Ark of Taste. These include Bronze, Midget White, Narragansett, Slate, and Bourbon Red turkeys. She also tends Buckeye and Wyandotte chickens, which are listed on the Ark. She also planted True Red Cranberry beans, Speckled lettuce, Amish Deer Tongue lettuce, Nevada single leaf pinyon, Moon and Stars watermelons, Jacob’s Cattle beans, Radiator Charlie’s Mortgage Lifter tomatoes, Sugar Hubbard squash, Jimmy Nardello’s Sweet Italian Frying peppers, German Pink tomatoes, Sudduth Strain Brandywine tomatoes, Cherokee Purple tomatoes, and Amish Paste tomatoes. She also cultivates animals and produce that are not on the Ark, but are heritage, including Berkshire swine, Jacob sheep, Irish Dexter cattle, Andean maize, and Kiso Red turnips.
Bill and Korena Mewaldt at Mewaldt’s Organics are growing Aunt Ruby’s German green tomatoes, Cherokee Purple tomatoes, Aunt Molly’s ground cherries, and New Mexico Native tomatillos. Rebekah Stetson with Sunny Day Organics is raising Guinea hogs, as well as Delaware and Rhode Island Red chickens. In addition, while not on the list, she has a rare breed of hog called Meishan, which she plans to breed to heritage Ossabaw gilts, which are in the catalog.
Also, while not on the list, the owners of LaFour Ranch in Paradise Valley (near Winnemucca) are raising rare and ancient purebred sheep called British Soay. The sheep are registered with the Rare Breed Survival Trust. Holley Family Farms in Dayton grows Red Wattles and several chickens that are on the list. In addition, Kathy and Ken Lindner of Lindner Bison in Susanville, Calif., tend North American Plains bison, which are on the Ark of Taste. Michael Janik of Michael’s Apples in Reno — who specializes in growing, teaching how to grow, pruning, and selling apples and stone fruits locally — is producing and recommends Newtown Pippin and Spitzenburg apple varieties.
“Newtown Pippin makes fruit almost every year here and keeps in the garage until March,” Janik says. “Spitzenburg was Thomas Jefferson’s favorite eating apple and it tends to be biannual bearing, but worth the wait. I have both in the garage now.”
Janik also is trying out the Harrison Cider apple this year, which together with the Campfield apple makes a “classic American cider.” He propagates several dozen varieties of heirloom apples that are not on the list, too. On that front, he recommends Smokehouse (ripens in October), Black Twig (ripens in November), Grimes Golden (a grandparent of Yellow Delicious), Fuji, and Mutsu. He dissuades Reno-Tahoe residents from growing Ark stone fruits as most have a low chill requirement and will bloom early, freeze, and won’t produce here.
Elbert explains Slow Food’s vision of success for the Ark of Taste project: “an understanding that it’s not just because purple carrots and purple cauliflower are fun, but [because] there is resilience in biodiversity and it is critical to our long-term survival in terms of diseases and pests.” Her ideal vision for the Ark is to “to have this become more mainstream … to see these products in grocery stores and restaurants and markets.”
Larmer takes a more serious outlook.
“For the first time in millennia, it is our fault. It is the fault of human beings,” Larmer says about environmental damage. “The Ark of Taste is our chance to take responsibility for that.”
Perhaps the most significant call to action comes from Gary Nabhan.
“When we conserve food diversity, we are not just saving genes, breeds or species,” he says, “but we are saving taste, culture, and livelihoods.”
Whether your aim is to save the planet or to savor a little bit of tradition, seeking out the diverse array of products on the Ark of Taste may be an adventure worth exploring.
Lauren Duffy Lastowka is a writer and editor interested in sustainability and preventive health. She formerly served as the managing editor of edible San Diego and her writing has appeared in the San Diego Uptown News, and at http://www.Seriouseats.com and http://www.Inc.com For details, visit www.Laurenlastowka.com.
Note: This article originally appeared in edible San Diego.
Resources
Grow your own foods on the Ark of Taste
For a wide variety of vegetable seeds, browse the Italian seed collections at the Rail City Nursery in Sparks ( http://www.Railcitygardencenter.com ) and the Garden Shop Nursery in Reno ( http://www.Gardenshopnursery.com ).
A great source for fruit is the Fruit, Berry, & Nut Inventory from Seed Savers Exchange. For details on the book, visit http://www.Seedsavers.org or http://www.Amazon.com
For local details on the Ark of Taste, visit http://www.Slowfoodlaketahoe.org
