We are coming to the end of yet another busy summer. I can see the light at the end of the tunnel of our scheduled events. Last week I was one of a group of chefs called the Colorado Five who were cooking an eight-course Japanese Kaiseki-themed menu to help raise money for charity. This event was held at Knapp Ranch in Edwards and it was the most beautiful table setting I’ve ever had the privilege to be a part of. The FIVE team used Colorado-grown ingredients, Colorado wines and spirits and Colorado themes throughout the ambitious menu inspired by Chef Bryan Redniss of The Rose in Edwards. The previous week, the team was at the Crested Butte Food & Wine Festival. We were raising money for the Crested Butte Center for the Arts by cooking a menu inspired by European ski culture. Swiss and French traditional classics reimagined with — you guested it — Colorado ingredients. In mid-July, I was in Denver with the FIVE cooking at the Colorado Fare party at Slow Food Nations; their motto is “Good, Clean and Fair” food for all. If you aren’t already familiar, Slow Food Nations is an annual festival which takes place in downtown Denver. This year there were 30,000 participants over the week of events.

One of those events was the Slow Food Chefs Summit which was hosted by a panel of experts within the field of responsibly-sourced food. If you have been an avid reader of this #thenewwest column in Spoke+Blossom, it should come as no surprise that I am an avid supporter of the Slow Food Movement and a member of the Slow Food Chef’s Alliance. This panel was important to me as two of the speakers of the panel, Alice Waters and Anthony Myint, were there to promote their work within sustainable agriculture. Alice Waters of Chez Panisse has pioneered local and sustainably-sourced food for over 40 years and created the Edible Schoolyard Project in 1995. The Edible Schoolyard, in a nutshell, is an outline that allows students to farm vegetables for use within the schools, then compost from the school’s cafeteria to help sustain the farm. Anthony Myint of Mission Street Food has been working to push this agenda one step further with the ZeroFoodprint initiative: a program allowing restaurants to analyze their carbon footprint, then offsetting that footprint to carbon neutral through credits used to support community and statewide composting projects.

In July, our restaurants made a commitment to moving towards a carbon neutral model through ZeroFoodprint. However, here in western Colorado, the infrastructure doesn’t yet exist to allow us to do as much as we could be/should be. On one hand, here we are, all of us collectively in a day and age that our convenience store salads are locally sourced. We are able to source local and regional ingredients (more on regional sourcing soon) from the least expensive menu item, our sweet corn ice cream to a $300 per person seven-course Japanese-themed dinner on a mountaintop outside of Vail. On the other hand, our farmers are doing all they can to keep up with the never-ending demand of more food, higher yields and rising costs. Somehow what we’ve all been creating to improve our economies and provide better products to our guests is also taking resources from our soil and is only replenished by our dwindling water supply.

Grand Junction, like most smaller western Colorado communities, currently does not have a commercial community composting facility in place. Composting is the easiest, least expensive and ultimately probably the only way to improve soil health by introducing life (microbes) back into the soil which we farm upon. The ability to increase soil biodiversity allows us to grow better produce and at a lower cost, but it also contributes to lowering greenhouse gas emissions. If 50 restaurants/coffee shops/universities/bars throughout our region were to compost our food waste, we could transform the small farms that support us.

Let’s take that one step further. The five farms we work with the most within the restaurants combined probably total less than 25 acres combined. Meanwhile the small hemp farm down the street is likely 50 acres. I’ve written about CBD in the Western Slope in the past — we are having an absolute boom of hemp farms, all of which rely on soil health and biodiversity. Let’s enlarge that 50 commercial composting accounts into 500 households and add the acreage being converted to hemp to continue to help offset our carbon emissions and improve our air quality in doing so. In other words, let’s take inspiration from the public lands which surround us and do our part to leave no trace before we love our local land to death!

ZeroFoodprint: zerofoodprint.org
Edible schoolyard: edibleschoolyard.org
Slow Food: slowfoodusa.org

Slow Food Nations touched down in Denver for the third year in a row this past weekend (July 19–21), when more than 30,000 passionate chefs, academics, activists, authors, farmers, fishermen, policy makers, and foodies gathered around Larimer Square to learn about and discuss the culinary—and societal—issues affecting us and our planet.

The festival also celebrated the cuisines and cultures that make the world such a delicious, diverse place. The theme was “Where Tradition Meets Innovation,” sparking workshops, panels, tasting events, and countless conversations around everything from the hidden narratives of indigenous peoples to the flavors of coastal Mexican cooking to trends in farming, fermentation, and craft beer. Through it all, Colorado chefs, mixologists, growers, and artisans represented the Centennial State with pride, sharing their skills and products. 5280 was there for it all, so read on for highlights from the weekend.

Senegalese chef Pierre Thiam demonstrated how to cook fonio fritters, based on the African whole grain. Photo by Lucy Beaugard

On fonio, an ancient African whole grain…

“This grain thrives where nothing grows. It’s drought-resistant, gluten-free, and also very nutritious. It’s great for the environment, and it matures in two months—it’s one of the fastest, if not the fastest maturing grain.” —Pierre Thiam, Senegalese chef, social activist, and cookbook author

On food as connection…

“Food is the ultimate commonality. I always ask ‘what did you eat for breakfast?’ It’s an easy question but it’s also revealing. What do you think a homeless person had for breakfast? They might say ‘I didn’t,’ and that speaks volumes.” —Davia Nelson, co-producer of NPR’s the Kitchen Sisters podcast

On edible insects…

“Cattle actually produce more greenhouse gases than all of the cars and trucks and motorcycles on the planet. It’s driving climate change on a large scale. If farmers switched over to raising grasshoppers, they could cut these emissions dramatically.” —David George Gordon, author of The Eat-A-Bug-Cookbook

“I became a bug farmer because we are facing a very uncertain future on how we are going to feed ourselves. It looks pretty likely that with an increasing population and shrinking national resources—particularly land and water—we are not going to be able to raise enough calories. And at the same time, agriculture is one of the biggest contributors to greenhouse gas emissions….Bugs might not save the world, but I think they can be a significant part of how we feed ourselves as we face these challenges.” —Wendy Lu McGill, founder and CEO of Rocky Mountain Micro Ranch

On sustainability…

“Sustainability is bullshit. We need regenerative practices that do something. Do you want a bank account that sustains itself or one that grows?” —Ron Finley, “the Gangsta Gardener,” founder of the Ron Finley Project

“Sustainability [in seafood] is a journey, not a destination.” —Derek Figueroa, president of Seattle Fish Co.

“The important thing as consumers of seafood is to get curious. Ask questions. Where and how is it being caught?” —Paul C. Reilly, chef-owner of Beast & Bottle, Coperta, and Pizzeria Coperta

“Eat all the fish. They’re like vegetables, all with different nutritional attributes.” —Patrick Dunaway, U.S. director of sustainability and chief scientist for Niceland Seafood

“We say we don’t like aquaculture but we’re thinking aquaculture 1.0, not aquaculture 5.0.” —Sheila Bowman, manager of culinary and strategic initiatives for Seafood Watch

On values…

“We need to change what we’ve been taught to value. We value money and diamonds, we don’t value air or the soil. The most important things in life are not your kids. It’s air!” —Ron Finley

“If you eat fast and cheap and easy, you’re eating those values.” —Alice Waters, food activist, author, and Chez Panisse founder

“Every craft brewery has, if not a mission, then a purpose.” —Dr. J. Jackson-Beckham, educator and diversity ambassador for the Brewers Association

“Twenty-six percent of young consumers are more likely to buy from a socially good company than not.” —Ron Tanner, vice president of philanthropy, government, and industry relations for the Specialty Food Association

“It’s a myth that it’s too expensive to do the right thing.” —Katie Wallace, director of social and environmental impact for New Belgium Brewing

“Eat and drink what you like, but know what you are eating and drinking.” —Talia Haykin, founder and CMO/CFO/COO of Haykin Family Cider

On indigenous people in the United States…

“Invisibility is the modern form of bias against Native Americans. They tried to bury us, but they didn’t know that we are seeds.” —Denisa Livingston, food justice organizer of Diné Community Advocacy Alliance, Slow Food International Indigenous Councilor of the Global North, and social entrepreneur

Culinary Institute of Charleston chef instructor Kevin Mitchell (front) and Denver author Adrian Miller (rear) during a demonstration on the culinary stage at Slow Food Nations 2019. Photo courtesy of Woody Roseland / Slow Food USA

On African American foodways…

“Any culture can have its own soul food. It comes from that family connection, passed down to the next generation.” —Kevin Mitchell, chef instructor at the Culinary Institute of Charleston

On inclusion…

“I’m interested in craft beer as a product but also as a tool. Four percent of craft beer drinkers are African American. —Dr. J. Jackson-Beckham

On cultural appropriation in restaurants…

“You have to honor the culture [that cuisine] came from. Intentionally credit those people on your menu. Pay for someone from that community to go to culinary school or pay back in some other way through authentic community involvement. Also, cook that food well and have a genuine love for it and for the culture it came from.” —Kevin Mitchell

A stellar panel on mental health issues in the hospitality industry was led by (from left to right): Alexandra Palmerton (CHOW); Patrick Mulvaney (Mulvaney’s the Building & Loan, I Got Your Back); Zander Tekus (Aspen 7908); John Hinman (Hinman’s Bakery); and Katherine Miller (James Beard Foundation). Photo by Lucy Beaugard

On mental health in the restaurant industry…

“We need to turn hospitality back onto ourselves. We need to have empathy on the line. If a cook’s not doing well, don’t yell… ask why?” —Patrick Mulvaney, chef-owner of Mulvaney’s the Building & Loan and co-founder of I Got Your Back, a peer support program with online resources to help those facing mental health challenges

On food policy…

“A lot happens at the state level. Civilians and constituents have a lot of power on a local level. There are levers of power to pull.” —Caity Moseman Wadler, executive director of the Heritage Radio Network

On animal welfare…

“They are not factory farms. They are farmed animal factories.” —Carrie Balkcom, executive director for the American Grassfed Association

On farming…

“Farmers are making what they made in the 1970s on a bushel of corn. And the price of a tractor is not the same as it was in the 1970s.” —Stephanie Ohnmacht, co-owner of Whiskey Sisters

“This is the backbone of our country. This is the tradition that feeds us.” —Pete Marczyk, co-owner Marczyk Fine Foods

“Nature has been doing this longer than any of us.” —Meriwether Hardie, chief of staff for Bio-Logical Capital

“Create one true relationship with one farmer. Fall in love with them. Have them in for a drink on a hot day. Buy their great stuff, then buy their crappy stuff and get creative with it.” —Eric Skokan, farmer and chef-owner of Black Cat Farm Table Bistro and Bramble & Hare

“We know what happens when whole generations are disenfranchised from the land.” —Jack Algiere, farm director at Stone Barns Center for Food & Agriculture

“For many generations, the farm was not the main source of income. It was about feeding the family and the community.” —Lynda Prim, senior director of Glynwood’s Farm

“I don’t believe in crutches. Chemicals are crutches. Chemicals keep us from learning things and being innovative.” —Bob Quinn, founder Kamut International and Quinn Farm & Ranch

“Big Ag wants us to be confused.” —Marilyn Noble, food and agriculture writer for New Food Economy

On food labels…

“Companies can pretty much make any claim they want. Free-range, natural, no artificial colors, or flavors; these are idiotic claims that have no standards.” —Urvashi Rangan, chief science advisor to the Grace Communications Foundation

“There are 16 employees who oversee food labels in his country.” —Carrie Balkcom

On climate change…

“Scientists are studying amaranth as an indicator of climate change. It’s a crop of our resilience; it’s been with us all along.” —Lynda Prim

“Climate disasters mean that disenfranchised people will be impacted first.” —Raquel Lane-Arellano, policy manager for the Colorado Immigrant Rights Coalition

This rice pudding with Palisade peaches, strawberries, and crunchy pepitas—made with leftovers from festival events—was an exquisite way to cap off a weekend of camaraderie, collaboration, and calls for change. Photo by Denise Mickelsen

On taking action…

“It’s time to act. With simple daily choices, we can contribute. Choices can be sustainable: Don’t buy pre-washed salad. Don’t drink Coca-Cola. Every once in a while, cook something!” —Paolo di Croce, international secretary of the Slow Food International Board of Directors

“I would like all of you chefs to think about what school lunch can be. What do children love? What would be culturally diverse and simple to make? Let’s make school lunch an academic subject.” —Alice Waters

“Land management and restorative techniques can lower the global temperature, so, as chefs, we have work to do.” —Anthony Myint, co-founder of Mission Chinese Food, Zero Foodprint, the Perennial Farming Initiative and Commonwealth

“I changed food by not changing food. I didn’t go for the new industrial model.” —Paul Willis, farmer and co-founder of Niman Ranch

“Cheap food is not cheap. You’re paying for environmental degradation.” —Carrie Balkcom

How many of you have driven to the Western Slope to buy Paonia cherries or West Elks wines? How many have spent the night at one of our bed and breakfasts or guest ranches, fished the Gunnison, or biked the scenic loop? Maybe you’re a chef who has featured the North Fork Valley’s heritage pork, grass-fed beef, Avalanche cheese, Peak Spirits’ eau de vie, Ela Family Farm peaches, Thistle Whistle Farm vegetables, or purchased Big B’s ciders and juices at Whole Foods?

If you have been to the North Fork Valley or enjoyed its distinctive foods, I’m glad.

Because if the natural gas industry has its way on November 1, a deceptively routine process called a Resource Management Plan will start the industrialization of this special place.

The North Fork Valley, which includes the towns of Paonia, Hotchkiss, and Crawford, is home to the largest concentration of organic farms in the state. It’s also a designated Colorado Creative District and an American Viticulture Area. The region is a checkerboard of private farms and Bureau of Land Management (BLM) parcels laced with a web of irrigation ditches, many of which run through or by BLM land. And almost all the BLM spaces have been targeted for fracking, according to Natasha Leger, interim executive director of Citizens for a Healthy Community, a grassroots organization established in 2009 by residents concerned about the risks of large-scale oil and gas development in the community.

The Uncompahgre field office, which manages more than 900,000 acres of BLM land, has proposed opening 95 percent of the area above and below ground, including split estate leases under organic farms, to oil and gas extraction, Leger says. What does industrialization mean to our farms and vineyards? Drinking water contamination; health problems from methane pollution, ozone smog, and soot; well pads, roads, pipelines, and other infrastructure; heavy truck traffic on our two-lane country highway and subsequent road damage; water source depletion; increased demands on public services like 911 and police; and the plugging and cleanup costs of orphaned wells.

Before she was a butcher, Meredith Leigh was a vegetarian. She was fascinated by plants and loved vegetables—how they grew, the way they tasted right out of the field, how they changed color and texture as they cooked.

But during a trip to Vietnam in 2004—after Leigh had been a vegetarian for nine years and a vegan for two—a woman named Loi served her water buffalo. Aware that Loi had raised and slaughtered the animal herself, the act of eating it became an act of connecting, and Leigh began to consider the idea of ethical meat.

“Eating gained new meaning,” she writes of that experience in The Ethical Meat Handbook: Complete Home Butchery, Charcuterie, and Cooking for the Conscious Omnivore. It was then, she says, “I began my journey into the meaningful consumption of animals.”

Concerned that her previous choice to forego meat had had little effect on the systems by which animals are raised—and virtually no impact on the lives or deaths of those animals—Leigh started to identify with the concept of ethical meat.

Is it possible to grow food in the snow? Susie Sutphin thinks so, and she’s determined to teach other mountain dwellers how it’s done. Sutphin is the founder of the nonprofit Tahoe Food Hub, and has spent the last four years growing a thriving regional food system in a part of California no one associates with farming. Her approach is two-pronged: First, she set up a network of farmers throughout the Sierra foothills and northern Nevada, whose produce (and eggs, and herbs, and, in some cases, juice) she distributes to restaurants, schools, and hospitals in the area. As a nonprofit, the food hub also donates food to local shelters and food banks, and offers free education and hands-on learning programs.

Second, she set up the Sierra Agroecology Center, which aims to teach Tahoe residents how to grow their own food. The center includes a large geodesic greenhouse called the Sierra Growing Dome, where Sutphin and her team grow all sorts of things, all year round. The Growing Dome, designed by Growing Spaces, in Pagosa Springs, Colorado, has been specially engineered to withstand large snow loads and to regulate indoor temperature with no electricity. The Sierra Agroecology Center also features assorted cold frames: garden boxes with toppers that make them resistant to cold and thus extend Tahoe’s tiny, 3-month growing season to a solid 9 months.

So far, only three Sierra Growing Domes have been erected in the area — one at the Tahoe Food Hub site, in Truckee, California, and two at an elementary school in South Lake Tahoe, NV — but Sutphin has high hopes that others will pop up soon. In the meantime, the Sierra Nevada farmers she’s working with are happy that the Tahoe Food Hub spares them a few farmers’ markets a week.

Organic meat and milk differ markedly from their conventionally produced counterparts in measures of certain nutrients, a review of scientific studies reported on Tuesday.

In particular, levels of omega-3 fatty acids, beneficial for lowering the risk of heart disease, were 50 percent higher in the organic versions.

“The fatty acid composition is definitely better,” said Carlo Leifert, a professor of ecological agriculture at Newcastle University in England and the leader of an international team of scientists who performed the review.

The European Commission, the executive body of the European Union, and the Sheepdrove Trust, a British charity that supports organic farming research, paid for the analysis, which cost about $600,000.

However, the question of whether these differences are likely to translate to better health in people who eat organic meat and drink organic milk is sharply disputed.

“We don’t have that answer right now,” said Richard P. Bazinet, a professor of nutritional sciences at the University of Toronto who was not involved with the research. “Based on the composition, it looks like they should be better for us.”

The two new scientific papers, published in The British Journal of Nutrition, are not the result of any new experiments, but instead employ a statistical technique called meta-analysis that attempts to pull robust conclusions out of many disparate studies.

They are certain to further stir a combative debate over whether organic foods are healthier. Some scientists assert that organic and conventional foods are nutritionally indistinguishable, and others find significant benefits to organic. Many people who buy organic food say they do so not for a nutritional advantage, but because of environmental concerns and to avoid pesticides.

The higher levels of omega-3, a type of polyunsaturated fat, arise not from the attributes usually associated with organic food — that the animals are not given antibiotics, hormones or genetically modified feed — but rather from a requirement that animals raised organically spend time outside. Organic milk and beef come from cattle that graze on grass, while most conventional milk and beef come from cows subsisting on grain.

“It’s not something magical about organic,” said Charles M. Benbrook, an organic industry consultant who is an author of the studies. “It’s about what the animals are being fed.”

Most of the same changes would be observed in conventionally raised animals that also grazed for the majority of their diet, the scientists said.“For once, this is a pretty simple story,” Dr. Benbrook said.

The review of comparisons of organic and conventional milk analyzed all 196 papers the scientists found. Because studies of meat are sparser, they could not look at just one type of meat like beef or pork. Instead, they did one analysis of the 67 papers they found for all types of meat. “Only if you throw them all in one pot can you do a meta-analysis,” Dr. Leifert said.

Two years ago, Dr. Leifert led a similar review for fruits and vegetables that found organic produce had higher levels of some antioxidants and less pesticide residue than conventionally grown crops.

Nutrition experts broadly agree that omega-3 fatty acids in food offer numerous health benefits. When the United States Department of Agriculture revised its dietary guidelines in 2010, it urged people to eat more seafood, which is rich in omega-3.

Omega-3 is much more prevalent in grass than in grain, which is why organic livestock and milk also contain higher levels. “Lo and behold, we altered in some fundamental ways the nutrient intake of these animals and hence the nutrient composition of the products that we derive from those animals,” Dr. Benbrook said.

The new analysis found that levels of another polyunsaturated fat, omega-6, were slightly lower in organic meat and dairy. Omega-3 and omega-6 are essential for the functioning of the human body, which can make neither. But some have argued that a skewing toward omega-6 has become unhealthy.

Centuries ago, people ate roughly equal amounts of the two fatty acids. Today, most Americans eat more than 10 times as much omega-6, which is prevalent in certain vegetable oils and thus also fried foods, as omega-3.

In an email, Dr. Walter C. Willett, the chairman of the nutrition department at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, said the differences between organic and conventional beef were trivial, and the amount of saturated fat in both were high.

“Far greater, and beneficial, differences in fatty acids are seen if poultry and fish replace red meat,” Dr. Willett said.

A shortcoming of the recommendation to eat more fish is that if everyone followed it, the rivers, oceans and lakes would be emptied of fish. Dr. Bazinet of the University of Toronto said perhaps encouraging people to switch to organic meats and milk would be “a way to kind of get at them with the foods they’re already eating.”

Dr. Bazinet said observational studies suggested that adding 200 milligrams a day of omega-3s to an average diet should yield health benefits. Switching to organic beef would add about 50 milligrams. “Eating one grass-fed beef serving per day is not going to do it,” he said.

But if combined with a couple of glasses of organic milk, “it should make a difference,” Dr. Bazinet said. “That would be the hypothesis.”

Scientists are now trying to examine the health question more directly.

Dr. Leifert cited several studies that indicated that infants of mothers who ate organic fruits and vegetables were less likely to contract some diseases. He is also conducting experiments to see if rats fed organic foods are healthier. So far, he said, it appears that crop pesticide residue does have measurable effects on the rats’ hormones.

“We still don’t know whether it kills you, but we do know it has an effect on hormonal balances,” he said. “It’s something that makes you think a little bit.”

ON A FOGGY , cold, damp afternoon last week, I find myself atop Garvin Mesa, three miles north of downtown Paonia. Here at 6,210 feet above sea level, a steady drizzle and bone-chilling wind whips Desert Weyr Farm. Its residents, however, couldn’t seem happier.

“Look at them out here — they’re just hanging out in the rain,” says owner Eugenia “Oogie” McGuire, leading me on a farm tour despite the inclement weather. “This is the shelter for the rams all winter. [They’ll be] lying down with nine inches of snow on their backs, sitting there, chewing their cuds, just perfectly fine. They’re very tough sheep.”

Such harsh conditions are similar to those in Wales, where these native Black Welsh Mountain sheep have been bred for thousands of years on rocky terrain. The rams in this pasture — and ewes and lambs separated by yards of fencing, to prevent breeding outside of specific periods — are jet-black, with thick, coarse wool and delicate bones. They look like horned bricks of charcoal teetering on spindly legs. When McGuire calls out to them — “Ba ba ba, ch ch ch ch ch ch ch ch” — they respond with a few bleats before returning to chomping wet hay.

“They’re extraordinarily calm,” agrees Bob Kennard, AGE, a former shepherd and expert in artisanal mutton production, visiting Desert Weyr from his native Wales. “Our farm is at 1,100 feet — in the UK that’s quite high,” Kennard says. “We get a lot of snow and a lot of bad weather from the Atlantic. The Victorians said that the upland breeds such as these were the best because they had no external fat and good marbling of the meat, which adds to the flavor. We have one of the best breeds in the UK producing mutton here, which is fantastic.”

By maintaining a flock of about 60 Black Welsh Mountain sheep and selling their wool, manure, horns, and meat, the 40-acre Desert Weyr Farm is leading the conservation effort of the breed, which is considered rare and endangered in North America. As one of the foremost experts on the species and author of the recently published book, “Much Ado About Mutton,” Kennard has made a maiden voyage to the States to help expand the UK’s “Mutton Renaissance” overseas.

“Our rams have particularly nice temperaments,” McGuire continues, “because we’ve eaten all the bad ones.”

That’s the irony of McGuire’s work to protect Black Mountain Welsh sheep at Desert Weyr for the past 15 years: “We can’t guarantee genetic diversity unless those animals have a job,” she says. “We need consumers to support rare breeds, and the best way to support a rare breed is to eat it.”

Mutton meat is making a comeback in North America, and Desert Weyr is leading the charge. Black Welsh Mountain sheep were first imported from the UK to Maryland in 1973; the founding genetic population consisted of just two rams and nine ewes. In the late-1990s, Desert Weyr, then run by McGuire’s mother, was one in a group of breeders responsible for growing the flock. Today, McGuire maintains a flock of about 60 breeding ewes and three of the eight original bloodlines. There are only about 1,600 Black Welsh Mountain Sheep in North America, and fewer than 10,000 worldwide. Three years ago the McGuires created LambTracker, an open-source software system for shepherds to use to streamline operations.

Following Kennard’s Rocky Mountain sojourn, which concludes with a book signing at the farm on October 31 during the annual end-of-season Celebrate! event with locals wineries …, the Welshman continues to California to speak at the American Livestock Conservancy’s annual conference on rare breeds.

“This year the focus of the meeting is on flavor,” McGuire quips. “Mutton is flavorful!”

Unfortunately, the word ‘mutton’ is often enough to turn off the most adventurous foodies. “There is a psychological barrier to us eating mutton,” declares Kennard, who was in the meat business for more than 25 years in the UK beginning in the late-1980s. In 1990 he turned to organic mutton production, following a decades-long decline. “I couldn’t understand why it was so popular in Victorian times — there was more mutton meat than beef in the UK during the Victorian period. Why did it disappear?”

Of many reasons, World War II tops the list. GIs in Europe and elsewhere were fed with canned mutton — mostly from Australian merino sheep, which have fine wool but sub-prime meat. “Because of food shortages, we ate anything,” Kennard explains. “The quality of our meat sunk. It got into the folklore: Mutton is always going to be tough.”

The Industrial Revolution also swung preferences toward lamb, as the burgeoning population meant more mouths to feed and mutton production simply took too long. (In the UK, mutton are sheep two years of age or older; in fact, Victorian Era eaters preferred mutton at 4 or 5 years old.) For the first time in 6,000 years, sheep were used primarily for meat as opposed to wool, milk, and tallow.

In 2004, the Prince of Wales started a campaign “to try and build back the idea that mutton is a food icon that should be enjoyed,” says Kennard, who works with the UK National Sheep Association and uplands farmers struggling with livestock prices. “We want to create a quality market for older sheep, to bring back this fantastic meat.”

Together, Kennard and McGuire are out to slay misconceptions about mutton, whose flavor is affected by breed, forage, and aging. Black Welsh Mountain sheep — entirely grass-finished at Desert Weyr—are a choice species.

“People think it’s going to be really strong or gamy, but it’s not,” Kennard says. “It’s a completely different meat, like veal to beef.”

Coloradans are onboard. Desert Weyr Farm sells mutton meat — including ribs, ground meat, shanks — and products including a new sweet Italian mutton sausage on the farm by appointment in the winter, at Lizzy’s Market in Paonia, and to select restaurants in Aspen through the new Farm Runners delivery service. Most popular is a smoked kolbasi mutton sausage, served as “baa-twurst” at Revolution Brewing in town.

“A lot of people are like, ‘Oh, mutton, I don’t want that but I really need to eat something,” McGuire says of brewery patrons faced with the limited snack option. “It is hard to get people to try it, but once they do, they like it.”

I witnessed this mutton hesitation firsthand at Taste of the Valley in Carbondale back in September. Megan MacMillan, chef-proprietor of Paonia’s North Fork Foods in Paonia, prepared a dish of mutton kofta meatballs on the demonstration stage. When samples were ready, the audience hesitated. However, approving murmurs soon followed those tentative first bites dipped in Greek tzatziki. Prime mutton meat is rich and flavorful—sort of a cross between beef and lamb with a touch of ranch-raised elk.

“We’re selling the experience of the flavors and the story of the animals,” says McGuire, who is experimenting with smoked mutton ham and mutton bacon. She backs all products with a 100 percent satisfaction-or-money-back guarantee. “Some sheep,” she says, “belong on a plate.”

MAKE IT:

Tagine of Mutton and Chickpeas

“Mutton is one of the prime meats, and it is one of the most expensive meats,” says Eugenia “Oogie” McGuire of Desert Weyr Farm in Paonia. “Veal is a baby cow or steer, and a well-aged steak is an older animal. They’re both good, but slightly different. That’s the difference between lamb and good mutton.” This recipe, excerpted from “Much Ado About Mutton” by UK expert Bob Kennard, uses a fail-safe method to prepare the flavorful meat rich in vitamins, minerals, and omega fatty acids: slow cooking.

Serves 6-8

2 1/4 pounds diced mutton
4 Tbsp. olive oil
2 onions, finely chopped
6 garlic cloves, crushed
1 tsp. ground coriander
1 tsp. ground cumin
1 tsp. ground paprika
1/2 tsp. ground ginger
1/2 tsp. ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp. chili powder
1 Tbsp. all-purpose flour
28 oz. canned, diced tomatoes
1 cup water
14 oz. chickpeas, drained
1/3 cup raisins
Salt and pepper
Mint or coriander, to garnish

Heat oven to 325°F.

In a large, heavy casserole set over medium flame, heat oil. Add onions and cook until softened, about 5 minutes. Add garlic and spices and cook, stirring, until fragrant, about a minute. Add mutton, sprinkle in flour, and stir until coated with spiced mixture. Cook gently until lightly browned, 10-15 minutes. Add tomatoes and water, mix well, and bring to a simmer.

Cover casserole dish, transfer to preheated oven, and bake about 1¾ hours.

Remove dish from oven. Stir in chickpeas and raisins and cook another 30 minutes or until meat is tender. Add salt and pepper to taste.

Serve hot, garnished with herbs, over buttered couscous or mashed potatoes.

The fact that even the World Health Organization has put it down in black and white that a correlation does exist between red meat consumption—and, even more so, processed meat consumption—and some forms of cancer confirms what many scientists, doctors and epidemiologists have been saying for a long time. But though the new report isn’t exactly a bolt from the blue, as of today there can be no going back, no longer any rethinks or changes in tack or splits in the scientific community. Red meat is likely carcinogenic, processed meat (frankfurters, sausages canned meat etc.) is carcinogenic.

This is a simplification and is it really enough? Obviously not, as the WHO itself is at pains to point out: the fact is that it’s all a matter of quantities. So we have to be careful how we tread here, since cheap scaremongering would be pointless as well as stupid.

Many world organizations, Slow Food included, haven’t theorized the need to reduce meat consumption for years now for nothing. They have done so for the sake of human health but also of that of the natural resources used (or rather overused) to produce meat. This goes arm in arm with the quality of the meat that ends up on our tables: quality in terms of food safety and of impact on the environment.

The production of meat for a world that is growing exponentially and in which consumption is escalating is evidently driving the pursuit of quick-fire solutions and shortcuts to swift, standardized, mechanized forms of production. Hence farms with hundreds or even thousands of head of livestock (I’m referring to cattle obviously as, in the case of poultry, the figure would easily run into tens of thousands) in which cramped conditions and confined space demand the massive use of antibiotics to prevent diseases from breaking out; in which horns, beaks and tails have to be amputated to stop animals from harming each other; in which there is far too much excrement for it to be used as manure (partly because there are no fields to fertilize as the animals live locked up in cages and barns, as small as possible to optimize space); in which feed is rich in fat to favor rapid, constant growth. All this is a consequence of a wrong way of eating meat.

We need to reduce our consumption and diversify our diets by returning to types of vegetable protein that can easily and effectively replace that from animals. We also need to give preference to the food products least subject to huge supplements of additives, preservatives, sweeteners and coloring agents, substances which, often unbeknown to us or as a result of our own carelessness or neglect, are to all intents and purposes part and parcel of our diets.

In this sense we have to get it into our heads that choosing what to put on the table is no laughing matter, indeed that it affects not only the quality of our own lives but more besides. From this point of view, the WHO study may actually have a strong impact on people, who at long last are hearing the highest public health authority stating its case on a consumer product as widespread and popular as meat.

Consuming less meat is good for our health, it’s good for the environment and it’s good for animals. Hysteria about the fact would only lead us in the wrong direction again, causing us to miss out on a huge opportunity to teach ourselves to eat and, more generally, to consume better. The study published this week offers us yet another chance to stress how sobriety, diversification and awareness are the lights that can guide us to a more mature, informed and respectful approach to food. Otherwise, it’ll just turn out to be the umpteenth storm in a teacup.

Ever heard of Purple Ribbon Sugarcane or the Carolina African peanut? We hadn’t either. And how could we? There are loads of delicious staple produce and grain that were once essential to eating in the South that are now extinct—or severely endangered. That’s why professor David S. Shields is trying to revive the best-tasting produce and grains from Southern history and bring them back to life (and our dinner tables). We spoke to Shields to learn more about his new book Southern Provisions, food in the Lowcountry, and how exactly he’s resurrecting extinct ingredients.

Tell me a little bit about the work you did for Southern Provisions.
Take the Bradford watermelon as an example. The melon was one of the greatest-tasting melons of the antebellum period and it was rediscovered three years ago.

What happened to it?
When Civil War ended, the South was left in economic disarray. Instead of going back to the old plantation system and cotton, it went into truck farming, providing fruits and veggies for the northern markets. These watermelons created a sensation in New York, Philadelphia, and Boston. The farmers in the South couldn’t grow them fast enough. The Bradford watermelon has this rind that is rather tender, so they didn’t ship well. They would crush if you stacked them more than two deep. So, the farmers figured they had to breed this melon with another melon. The new melon didn’t taste as good; flavor, which was the premium for the Bradford, was supplanted by shippability. By the 1890s, the abundance of watermelon fields became vulnerable to disease. And, all of a sudden, a disease-resistant watermelon became first priority. Then shippability at number two, then taste. For me, Glenn Roberts [founder of Anson Mills], and other people in our network of restoring ingredients, it’s taste.

Some of the grains you research are extinct. Can they be revived?
There are a couple of ways that we can do things. We can de-extinct things genetically. For example, there are all of these offspring [sugar]canes that were bred from the original. So, you get a genetic fingerprint and then back-breed what’s available into the old cane.

What about the non-genetic way?
Most things are preserved somewhere. Maybe it’s been mislabeled and people don’t realize what they’ve got. One of our most recent discoveries was wheat called Purple Straw. It was mid-19th century wheat that was bred in the 1840s and 1850s for resistance to pests afflicting the fields back then. While researching, I noticed that Purple Straw Wheat was not from the 19th century. It was actually ancient wheat that survived. And I realized that it’s the original Southern whiskey wheat. It’s also the very first biscuit wheat.

If things are extinct, how do you know what’s worth reviving?
There’s no Wayback Machine that’ll take you back. But you do have testimonials. For example, there are these hyper-aromatic strawberries we’re working on. Preserve makers used to describe opening a jar lid and a cloud of perfume that caused every head in the room to snap in your direction.

Will these ingredients ever be widely available?
Some of these old plants have to use pre-industrial agriculture farming methods. It’s definitely more expensive.

Any ingredients in the works at the moment?
Chestnuts. There was a whole set of chestnut foodways not just in the South but also in the Northeast, Midwest, anywhere they grew. There were chestnut grits, chesnut-fed hogs and venison, and chestnut skillet breads. So, we’ve done the research—getting the recipes, etc. So far we’ve made chestnut skillet bread and barbecued a chestnut-fed hog. We worked with a chinquapin, a dwarfed cousin of the chestnut, too. We handed some over to Travis Milton [chef at Comfort in Richmond, who recently left to open his own restaurant] and he made a salt-rising bread and mortadella using venison instead of pork and chinquapins instead of pistachios. But it’s very difficult to get the burr off of the nut—it cost us $125 a pound to do it. If that’s going to be viable, we’ll have to figure out a way for that to work.

Have other chefs taken to this project?
This is the way the culinary world works. If you bring back a taste that is splendid and people taste it, they’ll find a way to use it. But it’s important to note that we’re not into re-enactor cuisine. What we’re interested in is the greatest: the best corn, the best rice. Big Jones in Chicago works with us; in Charleston, Husk. Then there’s The Shack Restaurant in Staunton Virginia, Comfort in Richmond, some of Ashley Christensen’s restaurants in North Carolina.

How would you define Southern cuisine?
Southern cuisine is a cuisine that has corn or rice as its central grain instead of wheat and barley. The hog is its principle meat, rather than beef. It combines European, African, and Native American ingredients and attitudes to create a distinctive, local taste that has both a refined city cuisine and a down-home country style.

If you look at what was sold in the Charleston in the 19th and 20th centuries, a lot of it came from Cuba, and Cuba was importing a lot of Carolina gold rice. So, I view Southern cuisine as an expansive thing with global dimensions: Why are all of these seafood recipes from the south made with Worcestershire sauce? What was the fascination with curry? It happens if you go to a Southern Garden, too. You see Chinese crape myrtle trees and gardenias from South Africa. Now, nobody thinks twice about it—they’re Southern.