Slow Food USA

Ark of Taste nominations are reviewed by a committee of food lovers around the country – from home cooks and gardeners to culinary instructors, chefs and market farmers. Committee members hold three-year terms, during which they review nominations and champion U.S. food biodiversity by organizing events, leading Ark food restoration projects, and contributing to Slow Food USA publications and education material.

Chair, Poppy Tooker
Culinary activist, Poppy Tooker founded the New Orleans Slow Food chapter in 1999. She served as a Slow Food International governor and currently chairs the U.S. Slow Food Ark and Presidia Committee. Poppy has been instrumental in reviving endangered local foods such as Creole cream cheese and rice calas. Following Hurricane Katrina she has worked tirelessly to rebuild and restore the historic food ways of New Orleans.

“To me, the Ark of Taste is the heart of the Slow Food movement. The Ark producers are some of our greatest food heroes, both nationally and internationally and it is through our work with the Ark that we identify, honor, and support their efforts.”

Co-Chair, Ben Watson
Ben Watson is a writer and editor specializing in food and agriculture issues, and is the series editor for the Slow Food City Guides, published by Chelsea Green. A member of Slow Food USA and Seed Savers Exchange, Ben is a jury member for the Slow Food Award in Defense of Biodiversity. He is also a founding member and co-leader of the Slow Food Monadnock Region (NH) convivium.

“The Ark of Taste is neither a living history museum nor a static repository of quaint, traditional foods that have had their day. It's more like a temporary vessel for preserving and promoting foods and traditions until more people rediscover and embrace them. Because we focus on foods that not only are important, but delicious, I have confidence that most, if not all, of these now-unfamiliar products will someday find their constituency in the marketplace.“

Arie McFarlen
Arie McFarlen, PhD, is co-owner of a ranch in South Dakota, promoting the preservation of endangered livestock breeds through conservation, breeding, production and marketing. A published author, Arie is well versed in a variety of disciplines including nutrition, theology, organic farming, animal husbandry, sustainable agriculture and cooking. She serves on the Board of Directors of the American Livestock Breeds Conservancy.

“Actively participating in Slow Food USA is a natural complement to our mission of preserving the world’s food supply. It is a joy to be around people who appreciate the time and care that goes into producing natural and artisanal foods and who relish every bite. Representing the Bison Nation on the Ark is a wonderful opportunity for me to connect with food artists and producers, bring them to the public eye, and help them connect with people who are seeking their products.”

Elissa Rubin-Mahon
Elissa Rubin-Mahon’s foraging and gleaning business, Artisan Preserves, specializes in wildcrafted and rare heirloom fruit. She writes for Mushroom: The Journal of Wild Mushrooming and teaches wild mushroom cookery courses. Elissa has developed menus for Slow Food Sonoma County’s Ark Dinner and is a co-creator of the “Ark Trunk,” an exhibition of Ark products featured at Slow Food USA events.

“The Ark is a tool to help bring about the restoration of the traditional American pantry, both indigenous and historic. Several of the foods that have already been boarded onto the Ark—the Olympia oyster, Gravenstein apple, Blenheim apricot, traditionally harvested and parched manoomin, Single-Leaf pinon and the Klondike strawberry—are foods that are fortunately part of my personal history as well.”

Emile DeFelice
Emile owns and operates Caw Caw Creek Pastured Pork in St. Matthews, S.C. He was a recent candidate for South Carolina Commissioner of Agriculture, campaigning for a local food system with the motto "Put Your State On Your Plate." Emile also recently founded the All-Local Farmers Market in Columbia, South Carolina, a year-round rain or shine market that features meat, seafood, dairy and eggs, produce, sweeteners, and flowers.

“The Ark is a way to memorialize and promote plants and animals that are important to our food culture. I joined Slow Food to help establish a parallel local food system in a commodity food world.”

Gay Chanler
Gay Chanler is a retired chef who has worked in the private sector in the US and France, as well as at numerous restaurants and caterers in New England and Washington, D.C. Currently, Gay teaches cooking classes and serves as co-leader of Slow Food Alta Arizona and co-coordinator of the Navajo-Churro Sheep Presidium project.

"I support the mission of Slow Food because it works to uphold principles which are important to me – the protection of food traditions, food sovereignty, biological diversity, and food that is good, clean and fair."

Jennifer Hall
Jennifer Hall works with developers and community food groups to plan and promote sustainable neighborhoods. A key component of her work is strengthening local food systems and solutions, including farmers’ markets, community gardens and school gardens. She advocates that access to food is not solely an issue of losing rural production; it has to incorporate urban solutions. She helps educate the community about sustainability and socially active eating as the founder of a new Slow Food convivium in Spokane, WA.

“Slow Food attracted me as a fun way to continue my education about food. As my relationship with sustainable foods has evolved and I’ve moved to various cities, Slow Food has helped me connect to others in a new place who care about the food we eat – where it comes from and who produces it – and are interested in being active participants in preserving taste and culture. To me, the Ark symbolizes a combination of history and hope. It is a theoretical vehicle to help us recognize and restore some of our edible heritage.“

Leah Caplan
Leah is Chef-Proprietor at The Washington Hotel, Restaurant & Culinary School on Washington Island in Wisconsin. From the island-grown wheat she uses in the buttermilk donuts, brick-oven bread and ale, to the smoked whitefish pizza and the afternoon’s Burbot catch in a delicate saffron broth, every dish at The Washington Hotel features locally and sustainably grown products. Leah also teaches classes a Hotel’s Culinary School on a variety of cuisines, but always focuses on island foods. Through Leah’s innovation, the island’s wheat has also been incorporated into Death’s Door Vodka and other spirits.

“The Ark of Taste and Slow Food are natural extensions of what I'm doing on a hyperlocal level on Washington Island- saving/restoring food and farming to preserve heritage, flavor, rural beauty and lifestyles. There is a world of flavor that I want to experience and learn about through the Ark-Presidia Committee and all the knowledgeable resources connected to it.”

Sara Roahen
Wisconsin native Sara Roahen cooked professionally for several years before becoming a writer on food and restaurants for New Orleans’ Gambit Weekly in 2000. Her book, Gumbo Tales: Finding My Place at the New Orleans Table, will be published by WW. Norton in February 2008. Sara is now based in Philadelphia, PA.

“The Ark gives me hope that American foodways are—and can continue to be—much richer than what is most available, and least expensive, to eat in the majority of American neighborhoods. I view Slow Food USA as a movement to counterbalance the super-processed foods glorified in multi-million-dollar advertising campaigns, the fast-food restaurants that trade nutrition for convenience, and the mediocre supermarket selections of foods trucked in from hundreds of miles away. I proudly view my involvement in the movement as a social/civic duty.”

Robin Schempp
As President and Principal of Right Stuff Enterprises, Robin specializes in creative culinary concept, product, menu and market development. Robin and Right Stuff have also served as incubators for the nurturing and co-creation of several businesses focused on delicious, regional, seasonal and sustainable foods. Robin writes about food and culinary R&D for several publications and regularly teaches and speaks on subjects from varietal honey in cocktails to the process of menu ideation. She is Vice Chair of the Chefs Collaborative and President Emeritus of the Vermont Fresh Network, both which strive to connect chefs with more a more wholesome and sustainable food supply.

“It seems both an obligation and a privilege to align my passion, profession and politic and I find the notion of rescuing, preserving and celebrating endangered cultural, gastronomic treasures infinitely compelling. We too often overlook the culture in agriculture, the flavor in food and the pleasures and connections found in sharing the table. I see social, environmental, economic acts and outcomes as inextricably linked. Eco-gastronomy is Slow Food’s way of positively focusing that interconnectedness. The Ark of Taste is demonstrative of the inherent relationship between a flavorful food culture and a diverse agri-culture.”

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