Talking FACS
Special Edition: Behind the Recipe
Host: Brooke Jenkins-Howard, Extension Specialist, Nutrition Education Program, University of Kentucky
Guests: Channing and Amy Richardson, Forgotten Foods Farms
O:00 Welcome to Talking FACS; what you need to know about family, food, finance and fitness. Hosted by the University of Kentucky Family and Consumer Sciences Extension Program, our educators share research knowledge with individuals, families and communities to improve quality of life.
0:20 Welcome to this special edition of Talking FACS. The Nutrition Education Program at the University of Kentucky publishes a monthly calendar featuring healthy recipes. Behind the Recipe will be featured on Talking FACS, as they chat with the farmers who grow the produce used in each month's recipe. So, here's your host, Brooke, Jenkins-Howard, Extension Specialist for Nutrition Education Programs.
0:46 Brooke Jenkins-Howard: Welcome to Behind the Recipe segment. I'm Brooke, Jenkins-Howard, Extension Specialist with the University of Kentucky Cooperative Extension Program.
Today, we're visiting Forgotten Foods Farm in Carter County, Kentucky. I want to welcome farm owners, Channing and Amy Richardson, here with me. Welcome.
1:04 AMY RICHARDSON: Thank you. CHANNING RICHARDSON: Thanks.
1:07 BROOKE JENKINS-HOWARD:Well, let's get started today. And why don't you share a little bit about your farm and about how you came to farm vegetables here in Carter County.
1:20 CHANNING RICHARDSON: Okay. That’s kind of a long story, but it started with when I was in Graduate School at Oklahoma State. My salary was only for nine months a year. So, in the summer, I didn't get paid. And for a few summers, I had research grants and that sort of thing, to pay our bills. And I had a big garden, being from Appalachia, still carried on my grandparents, you know, gardening tradition. And I got the idea from a friend to sell stuff at farmer's market.
And so, we started out there, actually selling in Stillwater, Oklahoma, selling vegetables. And then, just kind of on the side, to make it through the summers there.
Then we moved back to Kentucky, through a series of events, due to some family health issues.
2:06 BROOKE JENKINS-HOWARD: So, here at Forgotten Foods Farm, you all are certified organic. And can you explain to us why that was so important for you to seek out that certification?
2:19 CHANNING RICHARDSON: Yes. So, we have always grown things organically, and so we just felt that if our practices are all going to meet organic certification requirements, we might as well get certified, get the label and be able to market our product as being actually organic. So, that's kind of why we did it.
We're very concerned about the environment and are the future of our planet– we have kids, and we feel that organic farming is one way that we can kind of offset some of the environmental issues that are there.
2:56 AMY RICHARDSON: And it is a guarantee to our customers in having that label that we do practice; that we're not just saying that, but it's something that is checked on and that we have records to prove that yes, we do actually farm this way.
3:10 BROOKE JENKINS-HOWARD: Today, we're going to be preparing a recipe using some of your local products. Can you tell us a little bit about the things that you grow here on your farm?
3:17 CHANNING RICHARDSON: Sure, we grow a lot of vegetables. We grow probably, like 40 different things. Basically, when people ask, I tell them, “Well, if it's something you grow in your home garden, I grow that. I just grow more of it”.
You know, we grow everything, except green beans, actually. It’s an Appalachian farm. We grow a few– actually, have some green beans for personal consumption, but I don't sell green beans. I've found that the labor in picking the green beans offsets any profits that could ever make. So, we don't grow green beans.
If I had like a one or two row bean harvester, I would plant an acre of green beans and grow. But I don't have a $30,000 bean harvester.
But we grow a lot of tomatoes. That's our main crop, vegetable wise, is tomatoes. We grow about 30 different varieties– every color there is. There is green tomatoes, there's yellow tomatoes, purple and we grow red ones also.
4:13 BROOKE JENKINS-HOWARD: Maybe we can use the several different varieties in our salsa today.
4:17 CHANNING RICHARDSON: Yeah.
4:18 BROOKE JENKINS-HOWARD: That would be pretty.
4:19 CHANNING RICHARDSON: That could be awesome.
4:22 BROOKE JENKINS-HOWARD: So, you have a pretty big operation and you were telling me earlier that you're also looking in to sort of expanding into some other areas and doing some value added products. And you want to share with us a little bit about that?
4:35 CHANNING RICHARDSON: Sure. We currently, under Kentucky's cottage food laws, we do a lot of micro processing, which basically are jams and jellies and canned foods like that, that we sell at farmers markets. We also make maple syrup. That's kind of our big push is maple syrup here on the farm. We tapped about 450 trees this year and we're going to try to expand that up to a few thousand trees in the next couple of years.
And so, we are installing a commercial kitchen, so that we can process these things and then be able to sell it like on the Internet and to other boutique food outlets and that kind of thing. So, that's what's happening this year.
5:17 BROOKE JENKINS-HOWARD: Sounds great. So, we wanted to also ask you about your farm and how you all incorporate Community Supported Agriculture and why that was important for you all to include that in your business.
5:30 CHANNING RICHARDSON: Yeah. A big part of our farm mission/ideals/goals, whatever you want to call it, is to let people know where their food comes from. I've met adults that don't know that vegetables grow on plants and it just amazes me and makes me sad at the same time.
So, we have our CSA, which is really cool, in that one benefit is I know I've sold it. I hate wasted produce and we unfortunately, have a lot of that. And so, with the CSA, I can kind of plan better and know the product is already sold. And so, it gives me incentive to grow it and not grow in excess or whatever. So, that part's cool from a financial business perspective of it.
But the other cool part is the CSA customers generally really like knowing where their food comes from. If you put something interesting in there, you know, like Purslane, like I get this weed Purslane, they're like, “What is this?” I'm like, “It's awesome to eat”. And so, you have to teach them how to eat these new things and maybe turn them on to vegetables that they otherwise would have never, ever tried.
I mean, our CSA members have pretty much all became our friends. And so, a lot of times, they come out to the farm, sometimes do volunteer stuff, but we have a big dinner in the fall and everyone comes. We put up a big tent and it's just for our CSA folks. And then they hang out, tour the farm and see where all this stuff came from, all year long. And they seem to like that a lot.
7:02 AMY RICHARDSON: Last year, we did an Heirloom Tomatoes Taste Test. So, we actually had like I brought several different varieties. And do you remember how many?
7:10 CHANNING RICHARDSON: Maybe 17.
7:11 AMY RICHARDSON: Yeah, different kinds of tomatoes. And we cook them up and they blind tasted test them as we revealed what they were. And they got to see all the different kinds of heirlooms and how they tasted differently and we talked about why heirloom tomatoes were important to us and why they matters, in terms of like taste and flavor, over shipability and ability to sit on a store shelf; which is where most of the tomatoes in the stores you are getting are. And they seem to really like that as well. I know we did.
7:40 BROOKE JENKINS-HOWARD: Do you all see more people interested in eating locally and knowing where their food comes from?
7:48 CHANNING RICHARDSON: Well, I don't know.
7:50 AMY RICHARDSON: I see more younger people who are interested in that. Like college age students, people who were in their late teens and early 20s and maybe even our age, in their 30s, who seem to become more interested and more invested in knowing where their food is coming from and I think that is an issue that is becoming more and more important as the world changes and as we see different things change with the climate and with the ability to ship and expense and fossil fuels and all of that.
8:19 BROOKE JENKINS-HOWARD: And it just tastes so much better.
8:20 AMY RICHARDSON: Yes, absolutely. Flavor and as you get foodies, or people who absolutely are learning or love to cook or have been cooking their own food, they will absolutely be one of your best marketing tools by word of mouth or being like, “This has more flavor than the store. Here, try this” and they’ll tell everyone and it's wonderful.
8:38 CHANNING RICHARDSON: Yeah, it has been awesome.
8:39 BROOKE JENKINS-HOWARD: Yeah, it is. There is a big food culture movement and it is bringing more interest to local eating. So, that's exciting for you all, I'm sure. And then in our program, we work for the Nutrition Education Program and we're really just focused on trying to get people to eat more fruits and vegetables and eat healthy. And if you can promote a local product that taste so much better, people who may not eaten things before may come around and say, “I really like that because it just takes so much better when it comes from the local farm”.
So, today, we are going to prepare a recipe that we use in our programs. It's called Farmer's Market Salsa and it's really perfect for you all since you grow all these variety of tomatoes. There are tomatoes and the recipe and peppers and I know you all grow that today as well. But it's just a really healthy, wonderful snack that hopefully, we can prepare that together and sample it and see what you all think about that. And then your kids are here. So, the true test will be to see if they like the Farmer’s Market Salsa. I mean, what do you think?
9:42 AMY RICHARDSON: I think one of them will.
9:43 BROOKE JENKINS-HOWARD: Okay.
9:44 AMY RICHARDSON: In fact, I'm pretty sure one of them will eat it. The other one–
9:48 CHANNING RICHARDSON: We'll see. AMY RICHARDSON: We’ll see.
9:49 BROOKE JENKINS-HOWARD: You know, we'll take that as a challenge. Maybe we can get them involved in the preparing of the recipe too. That always helps as well, trying to get kids to eat more vegetables.
9:59 Thank you for listening to Talking FACS. We deliver programs focusing on nutrition, health, resource management, family development and civic engagement. If you enjoy today's podcast, have a question or a show topic idea, leave a ‘Like’ and comment on Facebook @UKFCSExt. Visit us online at fcs.uky.edu or contact your local extension agent for Family and Consumer Sciences. We build strong families. It starts with us.