Made of Awesome

  
    I've wanted to be a part of a CSA for several years now.  The food is great.  This week (and it's early in the season) we got squash, zucchini, beets, kale, peas, cucumber, bread and killer awesome cookies, and more.  But for me it's only partly about the food.  For me it's just as important to be buying local, organic, responsibly and sustainably grown food.  It's about supporting someone local.  So, I'd have joined a CSA even if the people who were farming were only moderately awesome.

    That's not the case, though... my farmers, Roger and Mary Payne of Miracle Mountain Farms, convince me a little more every week that they're made of awesome.  Here's only one reason.

    When I dropped by the farm today and got my basket o' goodies, Mary asked me would I take some cushaw melon seeds and plant them, and save them, and share them for free?  Please?  Then she gave me a handout all about this unusual melon from Slow Food's Ark of Taste website. 

    So what is Ark of Taste?  According to their website:


     "The Ark of Taste travels the world collecting small-scale quality productions threatened by industrial agriculture, environmental degradation and homogenization.
      The Ark of Taste searches out, catalogues and describes forgotten flavors from all around the planet: products at risk of extinction but surviving, that could be rediscovered and returned to the market."

     Basically, monoculture is destroying our food heritage.  There are four or five varieties of tomatoes in your average supermarket - the ones that have the best shelf life, NOT the ones that taste the best or anything that is prized for any other quality (although, heirloom varieties are finding their way into some supermarkets, thankfully).  So there are strains of long-cherished varieties of plants that are vanishing.  Ark of Taste - and Miracle Mountain Farms - seek to preserve them, share them.  And urge you to grow them.

     The Paynes are all about building community, preserving our heritage, through food and agriculture, and they are doing SO MUCH in that vein.  You should look them up on Facebook, and if you're local, definitely pay them a visit either at their farm or Cookeville Farmer's Market on weekends.  Because they're made of awesome.

   And, by the way, I will be planting some cushaw melons in my little garden this year, along with mostly heirloom varieties of tons of other veggies.  

    I would really like to see more of a Slow Food movement in this area, and I'm willing to spearhead it if there's enough interest.  To that end I'm hoping to 1) Start a little local food newsletter and 2) Maybe eventually open a Slow Food chapter here.  So if you're interested in being a part of that, do drop me a line at dmedtrans@yahoo.com. 

    "Ask not what you can do for your country.  Ask what's for lunch."  -- Orson Welles