Seed Peace, Love & Dinner
Is this the most flavorful food in the Roaring Fork Valley? Seed breeder Casey Piscura and chefs C. Barclay Dodge + Joey Scarlett say YES, in a Sept. 25 meal to honor 128 years of Carbondale farming
FLAVOR. BEAUTY. RESILIENCE. As a farmer, seed breeder, and cofounder of Wild Mountain Seeds in Carbondale, Colo., Casey Piscura has dedicated the past decade of his life’s work to figuring out not only what grows best in our high-altitude climate, but how to cultivate the tastiest and prettiest plants in the Roaring Fork Valley.
Local chefs C. Barclay Dodge of Bosq Aspen and Joey Scarlett of The Farmer and Chef will have a literal field day on Sunday, September 25, when they all collaborate on a very special experience at the Aspen Art Museum: The Art of Mountain Farming and the Magic of Seed, a fundraising dinner for nonprofit Seed Peace.
In show-tell-and-eat format, the six-course meal with drink pairings ($125; ticket info at end) will also celebrate 128 years of continual farming on Carbondale’s Sunfire Ranch—the oldest in Pitkin County.
“We look forward to connecting with new folks who are interested in our local foodshed,” Piscura says. He cofounded Seed Peace (with life and business partner Kirsten Keenan) three years ago to “accelerate the transition to regenerative farming and land management in the Roaring Fork Valley through seed saving, hunger relief, education, and innovation.”
Here Piscura shares more about the challenges of farming in the Roaring Fork Valley, what to expect on the plate at Sunday’s event, and why Colorado tomatoes taste so darn delicious.
Amanda Rae: Why host The Art of Mountain Farming and the Magic of Seed at the Aspen Art Museum on September 25?
Casey Piscura: This event is to showcase Seed Peace and my work as a seed breeder, which is based on accelerating the transition to regenerative agriculture and land management, building a base of how to farm, and having resilient seed that understands how to live here. Also, working cooperatively on creating solutions that allow someone who is fired up about being a farmer to have a career that’s equitable. It’s a tough road to hoe, you might say!
The second part of our nonprofit: to bring light to how land management is effectively contributing to climate and climate resilience. It’s food with a story.
What is your perspective on food production as a farmer and seed breeder?
Farmers are more artists than people think. I’m a musician and play music. I enjoy the beauty of a farm. I’ve always looked at farming from an art standpoint—developing new varieties that are both interesting and beautiful. Also, selection for culinary attributes…winter squash that has 10 years of selection for flavor. When my apprentices come for the season for training, I tell them: We’re painting a masterpiece in slow motion.
How is seed breeding different from farming?
When growing seed, we have to let things mature on the plants. We emulate nature: A pepper would ripen all the way to a point where it would fall off the plant. Typically, all peppers eventually will turn red. Oftentimes they’re harvested green because its most economical. It’s risky to [let peppers turn] red, because the sugars are enhanced and that’s when you get predation and loss of yield.
How does this work translate to the plate on September 25?
We have a dish of fully ripe, red shishito peppers. The flavor of a red, ripe shishito will blow your mind!
The winter squash dish: that’s what we call a Desert Spirit Culinary Landrace—the name from the spirit of the Native desert people. We took diverse parentage, where I tried to find every variety of buttercup-, kabocha-type squashes that existed on earth: Native American landrace varieties, old heirlooms, varieties selected by particular seed breeders for flavor. I mixed them all up and allowed them to flower together. What happens is known as hybrid vigor: diverse parents crossing with one another—kind of like how we’re all hybrids [as humans]. Vigor is also associated with the plants’ ability to find better nutrients in the soil.
What else will guests enjoy at the dinner?
We also work on land management and rotational grazing. So, we’ll have a grass-fed beef dish paired with a spaghetti squash that has been selected to be more savory. [Conventional] spaghetti squash has swung to be too sugary. There’s a tendency to breed for production and not the culinary aspect. Our thought is that spaghetti squash is supposed to be more spaghetti-y—not taking over from the sauce that makes the dish.
So, you’ll supply these ingredients to chefs Dodge and Scarlett?
As far as creativity, it’s in their hands. I’m the farming creative side. Barclay and I have been friends through 2Forks Club for seven years or so. Joey and I met through his catering business, The Farmer and Chef, [run with wife, Tiffany Pineda-Scarlett] and their interest in local food. Chef Barclay has his own story—and chef Joey, too.
You’re a passionate tomato breeder: Why are Colorado tomatoes so sweet?
Because it’s so cool at night, there’s sugar enhancement. [In summer] We have sun-drenched days that are almost a little bit too hot. A tomato is a Mediterranean plant. Their happy place, you could lay outside without a jacket on at night and not feel chilly. So, [at night in Colorado] they feel chilly, too. That stress brings out incredible flavors. On our farm we’ve developed at least 10 farm-original varieties: unique flavors, colors, or textures that are either actual inventions—a particular variety that never existed before—or we’ve taste-tested it. We’ll be showcasing unique cherry tomatoes, heirloom tomatoes.
What other vegetables are you cultivating?
We’re focusing on crops that thrive in this environment. Ultimately, what can feed us during the longest period of time: beets, carrots, rutabaga, parsnips. We work with Dr. Phil Simon of the University of Wisconsin [recipient of the 2016 National Association of Plant Breeders Lifetime Achievement Award] developing new carrot varieties, colors, and flavors. Peppers, eggplant, watermelons that grow at 6,400 feet [above sea level]—that’s a seed from South Dakota.
We’re trying to create a food supply of things that grow well here to have food [production] in the hunger gap in spring. For example, an onion: We’re looking at how well it can store, then developing an onion that would start producing early in the season. Once you’re eating your last onion from storage last year, you have green onions coming out this year.
Has Wild Mountain Seeds received recognition outside of Colorado?
Our seed is in trials with [chef] Dan Barber’s seed company, Row 7 Seed Company, being taste-tested to showcase flavor in the same echelon as university breeders. They have a cherry tomato of ours called Better Than Candy. They’re blown away.
We’ve shipped seeds from the Roaring Fork Valley into China and all over the United States. We’re trying to build a system of agriculture from the seed to the table. Roaring Fork seed could be known internationally because it’s such a difficult place [to farm]. If it works here, it probably works in most other places.
What surprised you about farming in Carbondale when you started Wild Mountain Seeds?
I was probably a little naïve at how cold it was where I was farming. The cold allowed me this amazing place to train plants. We’re farming in a land agreement with Jason and Alex Sewell—the Sewell family is the last living descendants of Myron Thompson, potato farmer and first homesteader of the Crystal Valley [Colorado]. The ranch is the longest continuously owned piece of land in Pitkin County, 128 years of continuous production.
And you came here to move the land toward regenerative management?
It’s cool to see what we’ve been able to accomplish in 10 years there, both in quality of products, but also when you have a large plot of land—1,200 acres—to see how land management can affect diversity and the environment. What’s been really impressive is how little changes can make all the difference in whether you retain more soil in the ground, whether you can create more carbon sequestration, if there’s more birds, insects around.
Any examples of small shifts that have yielded substantial reward?
When we hay the fields, historically, we have been haying big swaths at once. You can’t get it watered fast enough again. So, we break up. Haying small bits that we can re-wet very fast, we can keep the grass taller and in more of its peak photosynthesis, which ultimately raises the organic matter. We’ve seen changes like getting more little rainfalls that are localized, more clouds that cool the day just enough to keep the plants growing vigorously. More birds! The cottonwoods are regenerating along the creeks.
Wow, so you’re actually changing the microclimate on Sunfire Ranch?
The biggest thing is to see how land management and climate are so obviously [intertwined]. The changes are apparent. The landowners, who have lived there their whole lives, seeing this transformation…that’s been really inspiring
What else is important to understand about the work of Seed Peace?
Seed is like the PhD part of farming. Your work, if you do it well, can benefit all these other farmers. People fall in love with farming but then the reality sets in. How am I gonna own land? This valley doesn’t allow for that. We need other options: cooperative farming and philanthropy coming together to see farming as an art form that we want to support just the same as we support art itself. Ultimately using all community resources: open space programs, conservation, to create cooperative farms where people can make equitable wages—our best reality of growing this movement.
How did you get into farming?
I went to school for agronomy at Virginia Tech. I came at farming from a resiliency standpoint. I fell in love with this valley, chasing rivers and enjoying the mountains. The seed ended up being this essential piece to getting things to be productive in this climate. You catch the seed bug and it opens up this whole other world.
What is your relationship now with local Colorado farmers?
Pretty much every farm in the valley is growing some of our seed. We can only grow certain things one year or every few years, because we don’t have isolation on one farm. We’re trying to strengthen relationships where we can collaborate on seed growing.
What are your fundraising goals?
We’re trying to raise money for building better facilities, to expand and house our seed library and to build state-of-the-art greenhouses that can help with overwintering roots. Also creating isolation cages. For example, we’re trying to develop a new color carrot, but we don’t want it to cross into our orange carrots. We can put them in greenhouses that can cause them to speed up and flower earlier, so they’re not flowering at the same time.
And you’re trying to grow more food for our community?
Exactly. If we have a seed element and this food as an art form, we got the farmers’ markets, we’re looking into many different tranches of revenue that benefits the whole, the more we can serve the community as well as create real sustainability in the profit model of farming.
Where can folks find Wild Mountain Seeds produce and learn more?
We do two farmers’ markets: Carbondale and Basalt. I was in Aspen [Saturday Market], but we were denied entry this year. I think they feel there’s enough nonprofit farms. We’re farming the oldest land in Pitkin County and we can’t get into the farmers’ market in our own county! It’s kind of messed up but at the same time we have plenty of business this year downvalley and we’re happy to get [back] there when we can.
Final thought: What’s your dream about the future of local food?
I would love to have a restaurant focused on the storytelling of vegetable seed in food that’s grown for that restaurant. That would be super cool.
The Art of Mountain Farming and the Magic of Seed: A fundraising dinner for nonprofit Seed Peace