14 articles in this category
You've tracked down a packet of true Carolina Gold rice seed. The thief of a seller charged you sixty bucks for a few ounces. You're ready to plant—ex...
In 2019, a wheat breeder in Oregon told me he had spent seven years developing a rust-resistant line, only to watch a multinational file a patent on t...
You start with a mission. Bring back the nearly-lost emmer wheat from that one valley. Reintroduce the purple yam that great-grandmothers talk about. ...
You find an heirloom bean. It's almost extinct—a few elders still grow it in a valley, saving seed each year. You want to help. Maybe you're a chef, a...
You've probably tasted the difference. A slice of bread made from Turkey Red wheat, or a bowl of Forbidden rice, and suddenly you get it: flavor that ...
Ten years ago, a chef in Copenhagen spent $14,000 on a single shipment of rare Swedish landrace wheat. He made 120 loaves. Each loaf cost more than a ...
You spent months sourcing that rare Oaxacan maize. Plowed a bed for Cherokee Trail of Tears beans. Planted your great-grandmother's purple-striped squ...
Walk into any upscale grocery and you'll see them: bags of einkorn flour, black barley, emmer. They promise ancient nutrition, deeper flavor, soil reg...
A farmer in Kentucky started planting ’68 White Corn, a heirloom dent corn his great-grandfather grew. initial season: bumper crop. Second season: hal...
In 2018, a chef in Copenhagen paid $300 for a single kilo of heirloom rye — a grain that had not been grown commercially in Denmark for sixty years. T...
Walk into any high-end bakery or farmers' market and you'll see them: bags of einkorn flour, bottles of argan oil from a single cooperative, jars of '...
The ramps came back strong last spring. Then the diggers came back stronger. By May, the patch that had fed your kitchen for three years looked like a...
Heirloom ingredients are having a moment. Red Fife wheat, Mayan cacao, Carolina Gold rice—these names appear on menus and labels as badges of authenti...
The same week a James Beard–nominated baker in Portland debuted a $14 loaf made with Sonora wheat, the farmer who grew that grain was sitting on a loa...