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  • From: "Tradingpost" <tradingpost AT gilanet.com>
  • To: market-farming AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: [Market-farming] Book: Renewing America's Food Traditions
  • Date: Wed, 19 Oct 2005 19:17:00 -0600


from http://www.environment.nau.edu/publications/RAFT.htm

Renewing America's Food Traditions:
Bringing cultural and culinary mainstays from the past into the new
millennium
Edited by Gary Paul Nabhan and Ashley Rood

>From the introduction by Gary Paul Nabhan:

“[These peoples of America are] much inclined
To cultivate the earth and steward the same.
They harvest beans, corn, and squashes,
Melons and rich sloes of Castile,
And grapes in quantity throughout their landscape…
They harvest the red wheat and garden fare
Such as lettuce and cabbage, green beans and peas,
Cilantro, carrots, turnips, garlic,
Onions, artichokes, radishes and cucumbers.
They have pleasing herds of turkeys
In abundance and fowl of Castile, too,
Beside sheep and cattle and goats.”

~Gaspar Pérez de Villagrá, 1598

Where have all these heirloom vegetables and heritage breeds gone? When
Gaspar Pérez de Villagrá wrote about visiting the Pueblos of New Mexico
in 1598, diversity on the farm and on the table was the norm—not the
exception—across most of North America. Today, roughly four hundred years
later, two-thirds of the distinctive seeds and breeds which then fed
America have vanished. One in fifteen wild, edible plant and animal species
on this continent has diminished to the degree that it is now considered at
risk. These declines in diversity bring losses in traditional ecological
and culinary knowledge as well. Consequently, we have suffered declines in
the food rituals which otherwise link communities to place and cultural
heritage.

To reverse such devastating trends and to save and revitalize what remains,
the RAFT Coalition formed in the fall of 2003 to develop and support
strategies for Renewing America’s Food Traditions. The coalition is
dedicated to documenting, celebrating, and safeguarding the unique foods of
North America—not as museum specimens, but as elements of living cultures
and regional cuisines. The coalition members have a proven track record for
providing promotional, technical, and marketing assistance to food
producers’ collectives and micro-enterprises across the country. The RAFT
campaign will explore novel means to support traditional ethnic communities
that are striving to make these foods once again part of their diets,
ceremonies, and local economies. In short, we aim to protect and restore
vitality to the remaining culinary riches unique to this continent, and
support those who are reintegrating them into the diversity of cultures
that are rooted in the American soil.

To advance this work, the Coalition is proud to present to you the Redlist
of America’s Endangered Foods, as well as profiles of America’s Top Ten
Endangered Foods and Top Ten Success Stories of advancing food recovery.
Our hope is that by viewing and studying this diverse inventory, you will
be inspired by these profiles, and encouraged to strengthen efforts to
rescue, maintain, restore or promote these distinctively American
contributions to global cuisine. The Redlist includes the culinary
mainstays of the last three millennia on this continent, both cultivated
and wild. It celebrates the diversity of native and heirloom vegetables and
fruits, heritage livestock breeds, wild roots, herbs and seeds, as well as
fish and shellfish, wild game birds, mammals and reptiles. More than 700
distinctively American foods are now listed, including many from ancient
and indigenous cultures such as Mandan, Arikara, Hidatsa, Seminole,
Iroquois, Cherokee, Sahaptin, Chumash, O’odham, Cocopa, Quechan, Hopi,
Navajo, Santo Domingo, and Taos. Foods from place-based immigrant cultures
are also included, such as Amish, Mennonite, Hutterite, Cajun, Creole,
Hispanic, Connecticut Yankee, Florida Cracker, Pennsylvania Dutch, and
Appalachian Scots-Irish.

American Livestock Breeds Conservancy - www.albc-usa.org
Center for Sustainable Environments - www.environment.nau.edu
Chefs Collaborative - www.chefscollaborative.org
Cultural Conservancy - www.nativeland.org
Native Seeds/SEARCH - www.nativeseeds.org
Seed Savers Exchange - www.seedsavers.org
Slow Food USA - www.slowfoodusa.org
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