The harsh, musky scent associated with that era, which most likely came from adulterated or synthetic versions, has overshadowed the diverse traditional uses of pure patchouli that go back thousands of years as well as the important role it plays in the modern fragrance industry. Retailer Kai D, a purveyor of tools and clothing for artisans, says today’s customers are increasingly looking for small batch products made using tradition-tested recipes and natural ingredients like essential patchouli oil. “There’s a sense of ‘old is the new new’.” Along with tobacco, cedar and other essential oils, patchouli lends its scent and therapeutic qualities to Hudson Made’s Worker’s Soap.

The medicinal benefits of the leaves and the oil extracted from this bushy plant related to mint, sage, and lavender have long been known in Malaysia, China and Japan. Scientifically known as Pogostemon cablin, patchouli grows wild in the high altitude forests of Sumatra and Java but is widely cultivated throughout subtropical Asia. Patchouli has been used to treat a variety of skin and scalp irritations like eczema, chapped skin and dandruff as well as for headaches, muscle spasms, anxiety and depression. It’s an important ingredient in incense, which was used ceremonially and for ritual purification.

In addition to its topical use, patchouli has been utilized in the Far East for its restorative properties. In Ayurvedic texts patchouli is regarded as having a calming and anti-depressant effect and is believed to improve self-confidence, will power and mental clarity—uses which to this day persist in aromatherapy.

Unlike spices from Southeast Asia, which made their way to Europe much earlier via Arab traders, patchouli was not a major import until the late 18th century. As trade with the East expanded there was growing fascination with exotic and imported items like intricate Kashmir shawls. Silks, rugs and woven fabrics arrived in European ports baring a mysterious aroma that came to be a marker of authenticity. That scent also served a highly functional purpose.

Chinese and Indian traders who knew of patchouli’s insect repellant qualities, folded their precious fabrics with crushed patchouli leaves to keep moths away. When French garment manufacturers discovered the source of the exotic aroma, they began importing patchouli and using it to ensure that their own fabrics had the mystique necessary to be valued in the domestic marketplace. Eventually, the many wonderful qualities of the oil were discovered and its use in fragrance gained popularity in the late 1800s.

Grown on small forest plots by farmers who hand-pick and shade-dry the leaves, patchouli is sometimes fermented for several days to break down the cell walls and maximize the yield of oil. The leaves are then usually bundled and transported to distilleries where the oil is extracted by steam distillation. Aceh is one of the areas known to produce oil of a very high quality. Unknown to most of the world, Aceh was thrust into the news spotlight as a result of the devastating 2004 tsunami, when this Indonesian region was almost completely destroyed. Humanitarian efforts continue to help bring back the cultivation and industry of patchouli oil in the area.

Pure patchouli has an aroma somewhat reminiscent of wet earth—rich, sweet and woodsy. Its foresty character provides an excellent base for floral blends using geranium, lavender, rose or jasmine. It also pairs well with other woody oils like cedarwood or sandalwood, and its spiciness can be heightened with the addition of cinnamon or clove. Unlike many other essential oils, it improves with age, losing some of its harshness and developing a fruity wine-like top note.

Patchouli is also an excellent “fixative”—it slows down the evaporation of other more volatile oils, extending the life of their scents. Patchouli’s versatile profile and fixative characteristic make it a highly prized ingredient among today’s high-end perfumeries. Today, you’re just as likely to catch a whiff of patchouli on Fifth Avenue as you were in the head shops of the ‘60s and ‘70s.

Hudson Made: Worker’s Soap	The Working Man’s Dopp Kit	Double Shift Worker’s Soap Collection

An array of Field Apothecary items. (Photo credit: Sharokh Mirzai)

Throughout the world, folk traditions coexisted with the professional study of herbalism. The practice of going into the garden or woods and getting a bit of something to cure whatever ails you continues, but in this country that knowledge has largely faded from the collective memory. Dana and Michael Eudy of Field Apothecary want to bring this particular field of medicine “back to the field.”

Dana and Michael Eudy on their farm in Germantown, NY.

Whether the loss of an herbal healing tradition is a casualty of the Atomic Age or due to the sweetening and blanding of the American diet, the Eudys are actively engaged in resuscitating it here in the Hudson Valley. “There are written references, of course, but there isn’t really a widespread oral tradition. We’re hoping to bring back and hold on to that knowledge,” says Dana.

My daughter and I visited them on their three-acre “pharm” in quaint Germantown, NY, where the couple is growing about 60 varieties of herbs and using them in health-promoting as well as culinary preparations. We sat down to steaming cups of “tulsi” or holy basil tea (made in a French press), and discussed the pair’s philosophy of using plant-based medicines. Thousands of years of trial and error have led to several great herbal traditions, which are accompanied by texts, like the Hindu Ayurveda, listing hundreds of herbs and remedies. Before the advent of modern scientific method, European apothecaries dispensed herbal tinctures and elixirs to physicians and patients. We have those apothecaries toiling away with their mortars and pestles to thank for many of the medicines provided by pharmacists today. In this country, Native Americans added to the European’s store of knowledge, showing the colonists how to use plants such as echinacea and goldenseal and even discovering uses for species brought over accidentally from Europe, like mullein.

Snakes intertwined, from the engravings created of Albertus Seba’s collections in the late 17th & early 18th century. Seba was an apothecary and naturalist whose immense & renowned Wunderkammer was purchased by Peter the Great after his death in 1736. (Source: Tumblr)

But how are the Eudys managing to keep focused with such a vast store of knowledge, covering thousands of herbs and just as many years of study? Michael explains that at Field Apothecary they concentrate on naturally-occurring plants of the region—nettles, St. Johns wort, mullein, mugwort, chicory, yarrow among them—that are either indigenous or naturalized in the area, as well as plants from the Chinese or Indian pharmacopia that grow easily here. “Nothing too difficult or obscure—we want the plants to be accessible to people,” Michael says.

Michael and Dana suggest that our bodies are more attuned to ingesting healthful components in their whole natural  “package” and will therefore more readily absorb the nutrients. While we’ve been ingesting plants for millennia, the concept of taking medicine and supplements in concentrated pill form has only been with us several decades.

“Nothing too difficult or obscure—we want the plants to be accessible to people.” — Dana and Michael Eudy

We now know that many of the most beneficial phytonutrients in plants have a bitter taste, and Michael says that recent studies have also shown something that Chinese herbalists have known for centuries: it is also important to actually taste bitterness. “When you take a pill its void of any sensory experience. But when we taste bitterness on our tongue something happens physiologically—it sends a message to the brain, which sends messages throughout the body, mainly the pancreas and liver. The salivary glands are stimulated, which is the first form of digestion.” In this way the experience of taste helps pave the way for the medicine to do its work.

Rather than a wholesale rejection of the medical establishment, Michael and Dana see what they do as part of a “healthcare pyramid.” They believe that learning about preventive remedies and how to treat some basic ailments at home will ease an overburdened healthcare system. “When you start holding back just a little bit, your confidence builds really quickly. You don’t feel like this is your only choice—you don’t need to go straight to the top of that pyramid right away.”

Sage is one of the many herbs and botanicals grown at Field Apothecary.

The fact that they are part of a trend that sees itself not as combative, but in partnership with conventional medicine has advantages for doctors and their patients as well. “Our very first class that we did here, ten people came and three of them were doctors!” Dana admits to feeling a bit intimidated, but found that the doctors were there to learn from her. “They want to know more about natural remedies now because their patients—especially those with children—are asking about it.” Natural medicine is recovering from its snake-oil reputation and gaining credibility again.

Getting over the fear of quackery is only part of the task for Dana and Michael. They are also combating the somewhat fusty reputation of modern herbalism, that of an older generation. When Michael and Dana looked at what was available on the market, they were put off by packaging and presentation that was geared to an audience they didn’t identify with. “We are our target audience. We’re young. We are parents. Field Apothecary looks a little bit hipper because that’s what would have made us get into this a lot earlier.”

A fresher visual look is matched by a more open approach to using the healthful herbs in new ways, including as cocktail ingredients, which a recent customer playfully described as “sneaky medicine.” “It’s about introducing the idea of herbs to people where they might not expect it,” says Dana, “then they can go from there.” For the recent Olanafest (a prestigious celebration of food, art and farming at the 250-acre integrated estate of Hudson River School Painter Frederic Edwin Church) Dana and Michael were asked to design a cocktail using as inspiration the surrounding orchards, meadows and woodlands of the historic site.

Local mixologists and chefs are beginning to take notice as well. “We’re always experimenting with ways to get [the herbs] into food.” Their current line-up of products includes infused oils and salts—even soda kits. Plans for a food truck selling their products and serving foods showcasing fresh herbs are in the works.

The “pharm” at Field Apothecary.

Outside, the air rich with the earthy scent of herbs basking in the late summer sun, we strolled through the rows as Dana named the plants and encouraged us to touch and smell them. For me, she filled a bag with clippings of lemon balm, shiso, mint and three types of holy basil. “Our goal is just to get people to walk through the gate—to get them into the garden,” she said.  “One or two things might catch their interest, but then they’ll discover a lot of things on their own. There’s a whole discovery that takes place.” After an afternoon of sipping tea, wandering the grounds and imbibing in Field Apothecary’s heavenly aromas, we couldn’t help but feel infused with herbs ourselves. And while there isn’t an actual gate (Dana and Michael have a open policy with their animal neighbors), I detected a distinct bounce in my step on my way out of the garden.

Check out all of our Field Apothecary products on our Wellness and Kitchen channels.

Anti-Anxie-Tea Tin	Burnout Resistance	Sage Salt

Lisa Kelsey is a Dutchess County, NY-based art director. Her radio shows “Stirring the Pot” on home cooking, and “Spice: The Final Frontier” on herbs and spices, can be heard on Pawling Public radio. paulingpublicradio.org

Preston Schlebusch is the collaboration of Lisa Preston and Nils Schlebusch who started recording the world through travel photography nearly 16 years ago. Lisa is American born but raised in Mexico and Nils is Franco-German with a dash of Estonian but raised in Spain. So the two are latin at heart!   From their first adventure to Cuba to start their career to their latest trip to Vancouver for a ski story their main joy is stoking the fire of their curiosity for the culture and people they meet on their travels.  Nils loves adventure, Lisa sometimes stresses about weather but they both feel blessed to have chosen a job that gives them the opportunity to look for the beauty in the world.

The essay by Francis Lam (now a judge on Top Chef Masters) extolled the French omelet as the pursuit of perfection.

The French omelet is all about the egg. Perfectly executed, it contains just eggs, a little butter and oil in the pan, salt and pepper (though I prefer white pepper, so there are no black flecks to mar the pale yellow flesh of the finished product). It is smooth, no bumps or bulges of egg curd, the color of butter, and it melts in your mouth.

A French omelet, topped with a tomato garnish.

I recently asked Lam via Twitter (@Francis_Lam) if he still felt the same way about the omelet, as the pinnacle of perfection in the kitchen. His response: “Ain’t nothin’ changed!”

And that’s the beauty of French culinary technique. It doesn’t change, because the results stand the test of time. The same could be said for eggs.

History tells us that wild fowl were domesticated for egg production as far back as 3200 BC. According to the American Egg Board (home of perhaps one of the most catchy slogans ever, “the incredible edible egg”), there is evidence that there were domesticated fowls in North America when Columbus sailed the ocean blue. But, upon a return trip in 1493, he brought with him chickens that became the basis for the stock we know today.

Despite the increase in home chicken-keeping, Americans still get most of our eggs from commercial farms and the stalwart layer, the Single-Comb White Leghorn. U.S. commercial chickens produce about 75 billion eggs a year, or about 10 percent of the world supply.

Single Comb White Leghorns are produce a large share of the white eggs that Americans consume. Breeds such as Barnevelders, Rhode Island Reds, and more produce brown eggs of a range of shades. Araucanas produce blue and green eggs. Image credit: Woodley Wonder Works.

Two-thirds of those eggs are used by consumers, according to the Egg Board, while the rest are used by the foodservice industry and in egg products made by food manufacturers.

There are certainly plenty of other sources of eggs, with more showing up at grocery stores around the country: Duck, quail, ostrich and goose are among the more prevalent newcomers, and most can be used interchangeably with chicken eggs with attention to the portion. According to the American Ostrich Association, an ostrich egg is equivalent to about two dozen chicken eggs—so if you’re cracking one of these five-pounders, plan on company.

A duck egg surrounded by ostrich eggs. Image credit: John Federico.

An easy way to convert recipes is by weight. A chicken yolk weighs around 20 grams, while a white is about 30 grams. Convert accordingly.

That said, non-chicken eggs can be more of a statement on the plate. Pickled hard-boiled quail eggs are a visual delight on a fancy “ladies who lunch” salad. A single sunny-side up goose egg would look gorgeous atop a pan of griddled hash.

A spinach and hard-boiled quail egg salad. Image credit: Tuija Aalto.

As a home cook, I use eggs for so much more than baking. But my favorite use is homemade mayonnaise.

Once you’ve mastered the basics of making your own, you’ll never go back to the jar. The taste is pure and infinitely less sweet than the store-bought variety. (Anytime I taste something sweet that’s supposed to be savory, I immediately suspect corn syrup, which is a no-no in my kitchen.)

In its purest state, basic mayonnaise is the foundation for an endless supply of flavored cold sauces and salad dressings, fish toppings and dips. When I’m making a small batch, I don’t even bother with a food processor. Just a bowl, a whisk, and my imagination.

Making Mayonnaise:

• In a small bowl, separate one egg. Place the yolk in medium bowl, and put the white in a freezer-safe container. (Usually, I put it in a small zipped sandwich bag, label it with the content and the date, and I throw it in the freezer. Whites freeze with no discernible impact on their integrity. You can thaw them and use them as you would a newly separated egg – in meringue, to supplement an omelet, and in recipes. Measure either by portion, if that’s how you froze it, or by weight if you freeze a batch at a time. One white weighs about 30 grams.)
• To the yolk, add a touch of Dijon mustard (start with ¼ teaspoon, and increase to adjust to your tastes), a squirt of lemon (start with ½ teaspoon, adjust accordingly), and a pinch of salt. Whisk together until well combined.
• A typical yolk will absorb between 100-150 grams of fat or oil. I keep my vegetable and olive oils in squeeze bottles, so depending on whether I want a vegetable or an olive oil mayonnaise, they’re within easy reach. (The difference is in taste. When I’m making a garlicky aioli to top croutes or to blend in with a Bouillabaisse, I use extra-virgin olive oil to augment the taste of the Mediterranean; when I’m making a spicy Sriracha-flavored creamy salad dressing, I opt for the neutral palate of vegetable oil.)
• Whisk in the oil slowly, in a steady stream, until the mayonnaise is the consistency you want. If it starts to look greasy or curdled, stop drizzling in the oil and whisk it aggressively until it smooths out. Then keep adding oil to your preferred thickness.
• Taste for seasonings, and whisk in additional salt, lemon juice or mustard as desired. I also add a touch of cayenne pepper, which jumps up the flavor without adding heat. Use with caution.

Eggs, lemon juice, and oil: some of the ingredients you’ll need to make your own mayonnaise. Image credit: Katherine Martinelli.

Just a few of the things I use with this base:

• Lemon: Add 1 teaspoon lemon zest and additional lemon juice to thin the mayo. Uses: Creamy lemon salad dressing, sauce for broiled salmon or asparagus or broccoli.
• Lime and Sriracha: Add 1 teaspoon lime zest, lime juice and a squirt of Sriracha, to your taste and consistency. Uses: Amazing zesty and creamy salad dressing, perfect foil for crab cakes or salmon cakes, complements Merguez sausage.
• Garlic: Mince 1 clove garlic and whisk that in at the beginning with the mustard and lemon juice. The perfect aioli. Uses: Dip for raw vegetables, slather on grilled or toasted rustic bread, blend in soups to add depth and creaminess.

As for the humble French omelet, I must admit that most weekends, you’ll find me, like Francis Lam, at the stove, non-stick skillet in hand, in pursuit of the perfect omelet.

If you make your own omelets, try Martha Stewart’s simple instructions. It’s a different animal from the dry, browned version most of us grew up eating or the over-stuffed blob on the plate at most sticky-tabled diners.

Not that there’s anything wrong with that style of omelet. But, once you’ve experienced the ephemeral egg in perhaps its purest, most incredible, edible state, you may never go back.

Use these products from Hudson Made when preparing and serving your next delicious egg-based meal:

Flame-Blackened Wide Serving Spoon	Milk & Honey	Worker’s Apron

Laura Grimmer is a professional cook and sommelier who lives to eat, drink and provide sustenance. She came late to the culinary world, selling her PR firm and enrolling at the French Culinary Institute because of a borderline fixation on master chef Jacques Pépin. She left cooking school a classically trained chef with a deeply seated appreciation for tradition in the kitchen. www.perfectpairnyc.com

Backyard chicken keeping (an extension of the “eat local” urban farming movement to raise livestock or grow your own food to reduce energy costs and carbon emissions) is on the rise, according to Worldwatch Institute, an organization devoted to global sustainability.

In many ways, the chicken has become the mascot of the locavore movement. It’s not the first time the proud poultry has been the standard-bearer for a social shift. In 1928, the Republican National Committee’s advertisement supporting Herbert Hoover’s presidential campaign touted its track record that had “reduced hours and increased earning capacity, silenced discontent and put the proverbial ‘chicken in every pot.’”

1948 stamps commemorating the Centennial of the American Poultry Industry.

But why chickens? BackYard Chickens, one of the go-to online resources for chicken-ry, conducted an informal poll of its subscribers about the various reasons why they have chickens in their back yards.

Perhaps not surprisingly, 92 percent of respondents said it was for the eggs. The second-most popular answer, with 72 percent, was that they were kept for pets (making the 26 percent who said they kept chickens for food seem positively barbaric).  All those answers sound, well, really good. Low carbon footprint. Healthy. Sustainable. Fewer bugs. Natural fertilizer. Why doesn’t everyone have a chicken in their backyard?

“The biggest advantage to keeping your own chickens is that you get to control what goes in to the egg,” says Greg Anderson, program manager of Just Foods’ City Farms initiative. Just Food is the New York-based sustainable food organization committed to connecting communities and local farms with the resources they need to make fresh, locally grown food accessible to all New Yorkers. In addition to invertebrate foods like fruits and vegetables delivered via CSA (Community-Supported Agriculture) programs, Just Food is also in the non-profit chicken business.

A volunteer for Just Food NYC with chickens at the Brook Park Coop in the Bronx. Image credit: Lily Kesselman.

Commercially bought chickens are typically loaded down with chicken feed that contains animal byproducts and antibiotics to keep the animals marginally healthy enough to lay large quantities of eggs. With your own chickens, Anderson says, seeing is believing.

“We get to see the chicken, so we know how healthy that chicken is, and we can work to improve the health of the chicken when necessary,” he says. “We don’t have to use antibiotics or steroids or anything because we’re feeding them fresh foods and giving them a complete diet.”

Plus, you know you’re getting fresher eggs than store-bought, which are usually already two to four weeks old by the time they get to store shelves, Anderson says.

Luckily, there are plenty of excellent sources online to help get you started if you’re interested in talking, er, chicken.

The Chicken Whisperer (also known as Andy Schneider) is a nationally known expert on chickens. His “Backyard Poultry with the Chicken Whisperer” program on blogtalkradio is worth a listen if only for the theme song, not to mention the actual content, which covers everything from chicken diseases like bumblefoot to general care and upkeep.

A Silver Laced Wyandotte, a heritage breed chicken. Image credit: Moosicorn Ranch.

For the official word, the American Poultry Association is a good place to start. The APA recognizes more than 460 varieties of chickens (at least the ones that qualify for poultry shows and awards), with exotic names that belie the simple pleasure of a barnyard bird. Names like Barred Rocks (also known as Plymouth Rock, an original American breed) and Araucanas to dark-shelled layers like Barnevelder, Empordanesa, Pendesenca or Welsummers.

There are chickens known as Sex-Links, which are bred so that males and females are different colors from chickhood. This is apparently quite helpful, since no one wants to go home with handful of innocent-looking yellow chicks and in a few weeks realize that they’ll have attitude instead of eggs.

Most chicken-lovers agree that the majority of home farmers rely on a mixed-breed mutt known as an Easter Egger. Also known as Rainbow Layers, these chickens have a blue-egg gene that means the colors of their shells span the color spectrum from blues and greens to pinks and blush.

At left, a Rhode Island Red hen (Image credit: Garrett Heath), at right a black sex link rooster (image credit: Jessica Denet).

For the first-time chicken-keeper, the most important thing to consider is why you want to keep chickens. That should spur what kind of bird you get, as the multitudes of breeds all serve different purposes. Heritage breeds, whose lineage date back prior to the mid 20^th century and are subject to strict APA guidelines, are truly gorgeous, but they aren’t necessarily bred for egg production. You may get one egg a day from a Rhode Island Red or a Leghorn (the most popular commercially used breed), but just one every other day from an “antique” bird.

The Chicken Chick gives great tips about care and specific issues like “Drop in Egg Production: Causes & Solutions” and “5 Tips to Prepare for Chicken Illness, Injury & End of Life Decisions.”

Eggs from heritage breed chickens in a multitude of colors. Image credit: Steven L. Johnson.

At some point, every chicken will stop laying eggs and become a pet… or dinner. While regulations vary depending on the area, in New York City, a backyard chicken must be slaughtered on premises. Yes, that’s right. Either the owner or someone else brought on to the property must do the deed because city policy doesn’t allow for transport of a kept bird to a slaughterhouse.

Gulp.

For Just Foods’ Greg Anderson, it’s part of the circle of life.

“We understand that the animal is something to give us life, so we have to respect that and treat the animal as well as we can during its entire lifetime,” he says, which includes a humane death.

If you’re really interested in chickens, one of the easiest ways to get started is via BackYard Chicken’s primer on going from the chicken to the egg. Or, visit one of Just Foods’ monthly chicken workshops.

“Keeping your own chickens, you know your chickens are not only healthy physically, but they’re also emotionally healthy,” Anderson says. “It’s the interacting with our food that’s the biggest plus.”

Use these products from Hudson Made when preparing your next delicious egg-based meal:

Flour Sifter	Flap Jack	The Trio

Laura Grimmer is a professional cook and sommelier who lives to eat, drink and provide sustenance. She came late to the culinary world, selling her PR firm and enrolling at the French Culinary Institute because of a borderline fixation on master chef Jacques Pépin. She left cooking school a classically trained chef with a deeply seated appreciation for tradition in the kitchen. www.perfectpairnyc.com

Over 40 area farms, including Pine Plains, NY-based Coach Farm, are participating in this year’s Hudson Valley Bounty ‘Taste of’ Dinner. Photo courtesy of Coach Farm.

The Bounty program will be honoring the original group who started the event back in 2008: Lori Seldon, David Robinson, the late Vicki Simons, Dave Colby, Steve Hadcock, Tom Crowell, Betsy Braley, Liz Beals and Joan Kadin. In addition, Hudson Valley Bounty will honor the 13 restaurants, farms and food makers that have participated and supported the event every year since its inception and who will be in attendance again this year: Blue Plate, Local 111, Carlucci-Simons Catering, Stissing House, Micosta, The Berry Farm, Staron’s Farm, Samascott Orchards, Ronnybrook Farm, Holmquest Farm, Feather Ridge Farm, Hudson-Chatham Winery and Chatham Brewing.

At left, a girl sits in a Ronnybrook Farm truck (photo courtesy of Ronnybrook Farm, Ancramdale, NY). At right, vibrant cherries grow on the trees of Samascott Orchards (photo courtesy of Samascott Orchards, Kinderhook, NY). These two farms, among other farms and foodmakers, have taken part in and supported the event each year since it began in 2008.

This year’s tasting dinner will also feature Hudson Valley restaurants and foodmakers including Helsinki Hudson, The Crimson Sparrow, The Cascades, The Old Chatham Country Store, American Glory, Tousey Winery, Brookview Station Winery, Beer Diviner, Jane’s Ice Cream, Sofregit, Serevan, Carolina House, Georgia Ray’s Kitchen, Beth’s Farm Kitchen, Hawthorne Valley Farm Store and For the Love of Pie. New this year, several member restaurants and food makers from the Berkshires will participate in the event. These include The Red Lion Inn, John Andrews Farmhouse Restaurant, Nudel, The Meat Market, Route 7 Grill, Allium, The Old Inn on the Green and H.R. Zeppelin Chocolates.

A dish prepared by Great Barrington, MA-based restaurant and Hudson Valley Bounty ‘Taste of’ Dinner participant, Allium. The dish features veal pastrami from dinner participant Black Queen Angus Farm. At right, Chef Hugh Horner of Helsinki Hudson tends to a smoker.

“This is the culinary event of the season—a ‘must’ for foodies, passionate cooks and gardeners,” says HVB Program Director Kristin Roca. “The evening will highlight the best of our community’s restaurants and chefs making use of the amazing range of fresh, local food available right in our own backyard.” Last year, more than 30 chefs and farmers participated; serving tastes to more than 250 people and enjoying the opportunity to meet other Hudson Valley chefs, farmers and guests in a festive environment.

Celebrated area chefs will be paired with expert farmers to showcase a wide range of food grown and prepared in the Hudson Valley. More than 20 restaurant chefs will prepare dishes alongside tasting tables featuring local winemakers and brewers. Participants will feature ample “tastes” of more than 30 recipes including everything from appetizers and salads to main courses and desserts.

Blueberry cheesecake from longtime dinner participant Local 111 (photo courtesy of Local 111, Philmont, NY).

“The chefs being featured at ‘A Taste of’ offer considerable support to our farmers as the tastemakers of local food and help set the tone educating our region’s consumers about sourcing local ingredients,” said Todd Erling, Executive Director of the Hudson Valley Agribusiness Development Corporation (HVADC). “This event gives our community a chance to sample exceptional cuisine crafted by our region’s best chefs and to experience first-hand the vital connection between farm and table.”

Seared duck breast from John Andrews Farmhouse Restaurant (photo courtesy of John Andrews Farmhouse Restaurant, South Egremont, MA).

Advance purchase of tickets is recommended due to limited space. Tickets are $75 for adults, $50 for HVB members and $25 for children (12 and under) and can be purchased online at hudsonvalleybounty.com or at the door. New this year is a discounted price of $50 for farmers, which can be purchased via phone. For more information, contact Kristin Roca at 518.432.5360.

The mission of Hudson Valley Bounty, a program of the HVADC, is to educate the community about the preservation of local farms through the purchase and use of local and regional sustainable foods and products throughout the entire Hudson Valley. The program also promotes and supports networking connections between local agricultural producers and culinary businesses. For information, visit Hudson Valley Bounty.

Can’t make the Hudson Valley ‘Taste of’ Dinner? Cook up your own locally-inspired dish with the help of Hudson Made.

Deluxe Kitchen Set	Flap Jack	Flame-Blackened Forked Salad Set

Matthew Wexler is the National Style and Travel Editor at EDGE Media Network. More of his musings can be found on his blog, roodeloo.com.

Fig jam preserves. Image credit: Flickr user Eunice.

This being the 1970s, she canned.

I can still see those green beans, their slightly dingy vert color in the quart jars, awaiting their ultimate destiny in a Three-Bean Salad or Green Bean Casserole. (My personal favorite is still made the old-fashioned way, with Cream of Mushroom soup and those crunchy store-bought onions on top.)

It sounds so antiquated, but, as the French say, plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose. The more things change, the more they remain the same.

As more people are looking for healthier and local food sources, food preservation is seeing a resurgence. When you pick up your share from the local CSA (Community Supported Agriculture), who hasn’t been left with bunches of things like kohlrabi? Or those bushels of peaches and red-ripe tomatoes that practically leap into your car at the farmers’ market?

A CSA share with kohlrabi, among other vegetables. Image credit: Flickr user thebittenword.com.

Time-tested techniques like canning, drying and, in an homage to electricity, freezing, are breaking out in kitchens across America, says Sherri Brooks Vinton, one of the emerging doyennes of home food preservation.

“I don’t think everybody just flocked to their canners all of the sudden,” Brooks Vinton says. “It’s part of an organized progression to getting a CSA share or going to their local farmers’ market and wanting to hold on to that.”

Brooks Vinton didn’t start out to be some New Age food devotée. Her journey to eating local began back in 2000, when she and her husband went on a pre-kid cross-country road trip in hopes of eating their way across America. What she found was disappointing.

“I was hoping to enjoy all this local food, but there was none,” she says, reflecting on the styro-food chains that had taken over. As her children came along, the desire to eat healthily became a vocation.

When she was publicizing her first book, The Real Food Revival, in 2005, audiences were just grasping concepts like “organic” or “grass-fed.”

Each year, interest and adoption has blossomed, she says, to the point where today it’s commonplace to see demonstrations at farmers’ markets on how to use new or unusual fruits and vegetables.

For newbie fresh foodies, canning is often the gateway drug, and we can thank Napoleon Bonaparte for it.

In 1801, Bonaparte offered a prize to anyone who could come up with a way to preserve food for the French army on the march. Nicolas Appert (1749-1841) was a brewer and confectioner from Champage who discovered that heating food in sealed glass jars for a sustained period of time killed off the microorganisms that caused spoilage.

At left, a portrait of Nicolas Appert. Image credit: anonymous woodcut, circa 1841. At right, an Appert canning jar. Image credit: Jean-Paul Barbier collection, Musée de Châlons en Champagne.

The process he created around 1810 (and for which he won Bonaparte’s prize) is called Appertization, and it’s the basis for commercial canning and the sterilization techniques we use today.

Many home cooks, raised on fears of botulism, shy away from canning. But by following instructions and maintaining good, basic cleanliness, it’s easy and, dare I say, fun.

My first experience canning was after I bought a crate of apricots, those temptingly gorgeous slightly fuzzy ovals, just begging to be caressed. Alas, I discovered that I didn’t really like eating apricots out of hand, but I couldn’t bear to let them go to waste.

A quick search online led me to Ball, the jar company, and the Ball Blue Book of Preserving, which you may recognize from your mother’s or grandmother’s kitchen. It’s a stalwart, but sometimes the recipe scale is just so large, it can seem daunting. The Complete Book of Year-Round Small-Batch Preserving became my second starter guide.

Preserves being heated in Ball jars. Image credit: Flickr user Amie Fedora.

The Fresh Apricot Jam recipe hooked me with its simplicity, and the jewel-like jars of the finished jam made me feel like a food genius.

Still, let’s face it. How many times have you gotten a jar of preserves or stared at your own handiwork on your shelves and not known how to use it all?

Put ‘Em Up, Fruit author Sherri Brooks Vinton.
Image credit: © Chris Bartlett.

Brooks Vinton’s newest book, Put ‘Em Up, Fruit offers a guide and cookbook to not only put up fruit, but also ways to use up the put-up goods.“There’s only so much toast and scones you can eat,” Brooks Vinton says with a laugh.

Put ‘Em Up, Fruit is a terrific resource for using up that surplus jam by turning it into dipping sauces, using it as a base for a pan sauce with meat dishes or creating a flavorful vinaigrette. You name it and Brooks Vinton has come up with a way to use it up.

Starting with fruit and a make-it-yourself hot-water canner, the allure of fresh summer food can last all year long — even when it’s dismally cold and raining in January.

Before you know it, you might move on to canning vegetables, de-hydrating, salting or dry-curing meats and fish.

And don’t even get me started on pickles.

Rooftop Ready Seeds	Pickle Fork	Deluxe Kitchen Set

Laura Grimmer is a professional cook and sommelier who lives to eat, drink and provide sustenance. She came late to the culinary world, selling her PR firm and enrolling at the French Culinary Institute because of a borderline fixation on master chef Jacques Pépin. She left cooking school a classically trained chef with a deeply seated appreciation for tradition in the kitchen. www.perfectpairnyc.com.

When I was a girl growing up in California, whales fascinated me. It was the 1970s, the heyday of Greenpeace and knowing whales existed is inseparably entwined in my mind with the knowledge that these majestic creatures were being hunted to extinction. As soon as I could, I went to work for Greenpeace selling “Save the Whale” bumper stickers door to door. Since then, many species have rebounded and have been snatched from the jaws of oblivion. What does this have to do with your favorite summer tomato? Stick with me.

Most people are aware that the extinction of animals is still a threat throughout the world but according to a study published by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, we have also lost an astounding 75 percent of our plant species since 1900. The advent of industrial agriculture has had a substantial impact. To save on cost and labor, vast single-crop fields are planted in the same place year after year, and genetically identical hybrids have been developed for higher yield and resistance to pests. This efficiency has come at a great cost.

“How to Grow Flowers and Seeds,” a handbook published by Rockford Seed Farms in 1918. At right, a spread with information on the cultivation of tobacco, turnips, and wonderberries.

As large corporations have gained control of seed production, the industrial hybrids have increasingly crowded out many of the local varieties farmers used to grow on their land. A 1903 seed catalog lists 400 varieties of pea — compare that to Burpee (a seed catalog in existence since 1881), which now lists 22. Our grandparents’ tables were laden with a selection of fruits and vegetables they grew themselves or that local farmers had success with, many would have been particular to their region. The U.N. report also reveals a staggering statistic about the lack of diversity in our eating habits: a whopping 60 percent of the calories obtained from plants for human consumption come from just three crops: rice, corn, and wheat.

A tiny seed that produces a quirky variety of tomato may not seem as glamorous as a California condor or grey whale, but we should be every bit as concerned about its disappearance. These seeds that have been passed down for generations are called “heirloom” seeds for a good reason — they are extremely valuable.

The rise of large single-crop fields in modern agriculture has resulted in a fall in the biodiversity of plant species. Image credit: flickr user JSmith Photo.

Throughout most of human history, seed saving helped maintain farms and gardens. With a kind of human-assisted natural selection, the seeds from the best tasting and producing plants were saved and replanted, developing more and more dependable crops each year while weak varieties were bred out. The seeds were open-pollinated. In other words, the plants were pollinated by nature itself: birds, wind, and insects. They were genetically diverse because pollination between individual plants was not controlled. That’s a good thing, because as seeds are planted year after year they adapt to local conditions and become more resistant to pests. Unlike hybrid seeds, under the right conditions these open-pollinated seeds remain true-to-type, meaning they produce the same recognizable product year after year.

These seeds traveled along with the huge diaspora of people as they moved from place to place in search of a better life, or sadly, with those who were forced to relocate. Immigrants often brought seeds with them even if they weren’t farmers because they provided the perfect little cultural package — small, portable, durable — a link back home and a promise of future sustenance.

For variety alone, it would be sad to lose the heirloom seeds that our ancestors labored to pass down throughout the generations. Think of a cheese plate. When you put together a cheese platter, you try to include a variety of textures and flavors, an aged cheese like a Comté, a soft one like the luscious Brillat-Savarin, and an earthy blue Stilton. You wouldn’t want a platter that consisted of only commercially produced cheese like sliced American.

Barry Estabrook, author of “Tomatoland: How Modern Industrial Agriculture Destroyed Our Most Alluring Fruit,” sees great value in growing heirlooms to create independence from corporate seed companies and maintain varieties. More than 100 heirloom tomato varieties are currently being grown and analyzed at the University of Florida in an attempt to breed taste back into industrial tomatoes. “If no one would have saved those seeds, the genes that create those tastes would have been lost,” says Estabrook.

But there are many more reasons why we should be concerned with loss of diversity in the food supply. With the disappearance of these harvested plants, we also lose the culinary traditions associated with them. Collateral endangerment of animals that are a part of their ecosystem is lost as well. There is evidence that those vast fields of genetically identical crops, called monocultures, are a contributing factor of “colony collapse disorder” which is currently plaguing the honeybee. Recent studies have shown the bees are not able to get adequate nutrition from the drastically reduced diversity of plant life available to them. The more genetically diverse our food supply is, the safer it is. Monoculture agriculture leaves entire crops vulnerable to being wiped out. The blight that caused the infamous potato famine was present in other European countries, but it had a much more devastating effect on Ireland because unlike elsewhere, their crops consisted almost entirely of a single variety of potato, the Irish Lumper. Also raising an alarm is the fact that multi-national companies are increasingly monopolizing control of seed — and don’t even get me started on GMOs (genetically modified organisms).

Seedlings beginning to grow in the hoop house at The Hudson Valley Seed Library. Image credit: Hudson Valley Seed Library.

Seed Savers Exchange, a non-profit organization that maintains thousands of heirloom varieties, originated with the simple gift of seeds: Grandpa Ott’s morning glory and a tomato called German Pink. The seeds were brought from Germany by the founder’s great grandfather in the 1870s. Seed Savers Exchange and a rapidly growing number of other seed companies and nonprofits are working to preserve and share America’s endangered heirloom seeds and plants. Many seed saving organizations have a strong regional focus, like The Hudson Valley Seed Library, which sells seeds and starters native to the Northeast and also gives tours and classes on gardening and seed saving.

A collection of Rooftop Ready Seeds.

Even city dwellers are getting in on the action. Zach Pickens of Rooftop Ready Seeds is nurturing plants that will grow well in another challenging climate, urban rooftop gardens. Zach began growing and processing his seeds simply as a way to save money but soon noticed another benefit. “As time went on, I realized some of my crops grew better and better every year… because I was selecting seed from the crops that grew the best in my particular climate — a very unique one, on a roof, in containers, in high wind and extreme sun exposure.” Not all of Pickens’ seeds are classified as heirlooms, but his plants will be the heirlooms of the future, hoping that his seeds will help urban gardens continue to thrive and grow. “The more people that have success in their gardens, the more will replant next year and grow their gardens bigger.”

Yellow and green heirloom squash. Image credit: flickr user Lawrence Farmers Market.

A Google image search of “heirloom squash” yields an eye-dazzling spectrum of colors — carroty orange, sunny yellow, dusky green. Textures and patterns abound from stripes and speckles to snaky or star-shaped. Nature seemingly has no limit to its playful production of form, shaping an endless array of different combinations. The sheer abundance appeals to my artistic sensibility in the same way the many different kinds of seashells delighted me as a child. And like the child I was, as an adult (and a gardener) I want to collect them all. I can plant, harvest, and cook some of these plants, saving seeds from my best producers to replant next year. And when I do, I will be contributing directly to their survival. And that gives me a much better feeling than selling bumper stickers. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.