Hand Them Down to Lift Them Up: An Heirloom Food Forum
Slow Food North Louisiana is excited to host its second heirloom food forum, “Hand Them Down to Lift Them Up,” on Saturday, November 15 from 10 am to 2 pm at The Farm at Cultural Crossroads in Minden, Louisiana.
The program will feature the work of the North Louisiana Seed Preservation Program, a Northeast, LA-based program of the LSU AgCenter created from the passion of two AgCenter horticulture agents, Marcie Wilson and Kerry Heafner, for tracking down heirloom seeds indigenous to North Louisiana and telling their stories to bring them back into production.
One of the program’s great success stories is the Red-n-Sweet watermelon, one of five varieties cultivated at the now-shuttered LSU Research Station in Calhoun, LA. A regular request of local farmers and home growers, the Calhoun watermelon seeds proved a challenge to track down, but with time and lots of talks at local garden clubs, Heafner got his hands on seeds that were suspected to be the Red-n-Sweet.
Tracking Down Our Food History:
LSU AgCenter horticulure agent Kerry Heafner with a Red-n-Sweet watermelon
In writing about his discovery, he caught the attention of two serious watermelon connoisseurs in Virginia - food writer/photographer Joshua “Fitz” Fitzwater and food anthropologist Debra Freeman - and a partnership was born to get the Red-n-Sweet back into production.
Slow Food is excited to welcome Freeman and Fitz to join Heafner at the heirloom food forum to share how they worked together to get the watermelon seed back into seed houses and, with the help of last year’s heirloom food forum featured speaker David Shields, get it added to the Slow Food Ark of Taste.
Connoisseur of Watermelon
Joshua “Fitz” Fitzwater with his Red-n-Sweet watermelon harvest
Following this discussion, there will be a seed-saving demonstration by Marcie Wilson.
The afternoon session will feature a screening of Deb Freeman’s Emmy-nominated 55-minute documentary Finding Edna Lewis about the life and legacy of acclaimed Virginia-born chef Edna Lewis, who introduced many to the joys of seasonal southern cooking and brought it respectability outside the South. The screening will be preceded by an Edna Lewis-inspired lunch prepared by Minden-based Chef Hardette Harris of Us Up North, a James Beard Award nominee and champion of northern Louisiana cuisine.
General Admission to the event is $40/person, Slow Food members pay $35.
Tickets to the food forum are available on the Slow Food North Louisiana website and will be sold in advance only; no sales at the door. The last day to purchase tickets is November 14.
Slow Food North Louisiana is extremely grateful for the sponsors of this event:
