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

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.

Bradford Watermelons today. Photo: Facebook/Watermelons for Water

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.

Author David S. Shields and his new book Southern Provisions. Photo: University of Chicago Press

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.

The very first biscuits ever made used Purple Straw, an ancient wheat, said Shields. Photo: Jesse David Green

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.

Chestnut varietals are among the ingredients Shields and others are reviving. Photo: Christina Holmes

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.

An illustration from Southern Provisions depicting the Lowcountry. Photo: University of Chicago Press

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.