You know about heirloom tomatoes tasting better than their mealy, chalky red softball cousins. What about Sibley’s Squash, pictured below, first grown in Marblehead in 1798, known for its ability to store well for the winter? Or the Early Blood Rooted Turnip Beet? Promoted by the Shakers beginning in 1850, they have blood red flesh and are super sweet with cinnamon and clove spice undertones.

If this piques your interest, reserve Wednesday, August 25th, at 6 pm, to join Slow Food Boston, Chefs Collaborative and Farmers Jim & John from Allandale Farm for an evening’s discussion about heirloom varietals and RAFT – ‘Renewing America’s Food Traditions’.  We’ll be touring the farm, learning about growing practices and the need for crop diversity – as well as getting a few tastes to tempt our palates.

RAFT is a program started by Slow Food USA as a spin-off from the ARK of Taste, which recognizes foods that are in danger of extinction due to changing tastes & growing practices. RAFT goes one step further, bringing attention not only to regional foods and heirloom varietals that are hard to find, but also the cultural traditions around food that are being lost.

Chefs Collaborative, a Boston-based network of chefs, is working to get more of the RAFT heirloom varieties into their members kitchens. They’ve created a so-called ‘RAFT Grow-Out’ enticing local farms to grow these special items with the promise that everything they grow will be purchased by local restaurants. A perfect field to table food system!

So what’s in it for you? Well, if farms start growing these amazing beautiful and yummy heirloom varieties, they’ll start selling them at local farmers markets – which means you get a chance to taste and experiment!. You support crop diversity AND get better tasting food.

Space for this evening is limited, so reserve your spot today by logging on to www.slowfoodboston.com.  Cost for the evening is $5, going to the Terra Madre Fund.  What, you ask, is that? Terra Madre Fund Campaign: Locally, Slow Food Boston is raising funds to send representatives from our food communities to Terra Madre, October 2010 in Italy. At the last Terra Madre in 2008, over 7,000 farmers from 153 countries met for four days to discuss sustainable food production & biodiversity, aiming to make farming a viable career option. Farmer Jim from Allandale has been accepted to this prestigious event, and we’re raising money to help with his transportation costs (and those for three others as well.)

Directions:
Allandale Farm is located at 259 Allandale Road in Brookline. More information can be found on their website, www.allandalefarm.com.