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The Southern Table
Preserving Our Roots: My Journey to Save Seeds and Stories
For over four decades, John Coykendall's passion has been preserving the farm heritage of a small community in rural southeastern Louisiana. A Tennessee native and longtime master gardener at Blackberry Farm, Coykendall has become a celebrity in a growing movement that places a premium on farm-to-table cuisine with locally sourced, organic, and heirloom foods and flavors. While his work takes him around the world searching for seeds and the cultural knowledge of how to grow them, what inspires him most is his annual pilgrimage to Louisiana.
Drawn to the Washington Parish area as a college student, Coykendall forged long-lasting friendships with local farmers and gardeners. Over the decades, he has recorded oral histories, recipes, tall tales, agricultural knowledge, and wisdom from generations past in more than eighty illustrated and handwritten journals. At the same time, he has unearthed and safeguarded rare varieties of food crops once grown in the area, then handed them back to the community.
In Preserving Our Roots: My Journey to Save Seeds and Stories, Coykendall shares a wealth of materials collected in his journals, ensuring they are passed on to future generations. Organized by season, the book offers a narrative chronicle of Coykendall's visits to Washington Parish since 1973. He highlights staple crops, agricultural practices, and favorite recipes from the families and friends who have hosted him. Accompanied by a rich selection of drawings, journal pages, and photographs--along with over forty recipes--Preserving Our Roots chronicles Coykendall's passion for recording foods and narratives that capture the rhythms of daily life on farms, in kitchens, and across generations.
Drawn to the Washington Parish area as a college student, Coykendall forged long-lasting friendships with local farmers and gardeners. Over the decades, he has recorded oral histories, recipes, tall tales, agricultural knowledge, and wisdom from generations past in more than eighty illustrated and handwritten journals. At the same time, he has unearthed and safeguarded rare varieties of food crops once grown in the area, then handed them back to the community.
In Preserving Our Roots: My Journey to Save Seeds and Stories, Coykendall shares a wealth of materials collected in his journals, ensuring they are passed on to future generations. Organized by season, the book offers a narrative chronicle of Coykendall's visits to Washington Parish since 1973. He highlights staple crops, agricultural practices, and favorite recipes from the families and friends who have hosted him. Accompanied by a rich selection of drawings, journal pages, and photographs--along with over forty recipes--Preserving Our Roots chronicles Coykendall's passion for recording foods and narratives that capture the rhythms of daily life on farms, in kitchens, and across generations.
- GenresGardeningNonfiction
208 pages, Hardcover
Published October 1, 2020
7 people are currently reading
49 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
November 30, 2020
“In many estimates, more than 94% of the fruits and vegetables we grew just one hundred years ago are extinct or are what is termed functionally extent.”
“Without a secure foundation of diverse varieties of seeds, our food sources are threatened by everything from disease, climate change, natural disaster, and failed stewardship, to global and political instability, and even economic greed.”
This book brings forth an issue that I never realized was an issue. Although I have a love for gardening, seed saving never crossed my mind. Generations before us only had the “farm to table” lifestyle and their survival often solely depended on their crops. Seeds were passed down through families as precious heirlooms. This book brings attention to how the large scale agribusiness has bred genetically engineered crops- developed to allow for a longer shelf life, higher yields of crops that can withstand higher doses of pesticides, and tougher skins and hulls for mechanical processing. This in turn has resulted in fruits and vegetables with less desirable flavor and less nutrients. “The Iowa-based Seed Saver Exchange, is the world’s largest non-profit organization maintaining genetic plant diversity. Safeguarding and sharing seeds with people who will grow them is the best way to ensure their future.”
Like John, I also live in Tennessee and hope to one day visit him at Blackberry farm. This book is full of excellent tips on John’s favorite varieties of plants and the best way to care for them. There is even bonus recipes included! I look forward to teaching my son about gardening and hopefully one day passing down some seeds with some great stories to go along with them. Thanks for writing this book and sharing your lifelong passion.
Remember: Support your local farmers and consider seed saving!
“Without a secure foundation of diverse varieties of seeds, our food sources are threatened by everything from disease, climate change, natural disaster, and failed stewardship, to global and political instability, and even economic greed.”
This book brings forth an issue that I never realized was an issue. Although I have a love for gardening, seed saving never crossed my mind. Generations before us only had the “farm to table” lifestyle and their survival often solely depended on their crops. Seeds were passed down through families as precious heirlooms. This book brings attention to how the large scale agribusiness has bred genetically engineered crops- developed to allow for a longer shelf life, higher yields of crops that can withstand higher doses of pesticides, and tougher skins and hulls for mechanical processing. This in turn has resulted in fruits and vegetables with less desirable flavor and less nutrients. “The Iowa-based Seed Saver Exchange, is the world’s largest non-profit organization maintaining genetic plant diversity. Safeguarding and sharing seeds with people who will grow them is the best way to ensure their future.”
Like John, I also live in Tennessee and hope to one day visit him at Blackberry farm. This book is full of excellent tips on John’s favorite varieties of plants and the best way to care for them. There is even bonus recipes included! I look forward to teaching my son about gardening and hopefully one day passing down some seeds with some great stories to go along with them. Thanks for writing this book and sharing your lifelong passion.
Remember: Support your local farmers and consider seed saving!
March 13, 2020
The beautiful photographs and artwork from the many journals of John Coykendall are absolutely gorgeous. John is the Master Gardener at the famous resort in Walland, Tennessee, Blackberry Farm, and he’s written a great new book, "Preserving Our Roots: My Journey to Save Seeds and Stories." Written with help from Christina Melton, and full color photographs from Sarah Hackenberg, this book will take you back to a simpler time, and help you see how important that time, its stories, and seeds, are to all of us. John has been a seed saver, artist, and lover of people and their stories for almost 70 years! This book contains information about lots of the seeds that John has rescued and preserved, and the stories that go along with them. And not only the stories, but some of the recipes for them. This book is great for old and young, and the recipes might just entice our young new gardeners to grow the old heirloom varieties, when they taste and see how delicious they can be! This book includes recipes like baked cushaw, Beulah Mae Lang’s butter beans, smothered cabbage, chicken and okra stew, coconut pound cake, and braised wild duck with glazed sweet potatoes. It will definitely inspire you to get out in the garden soon and plant some of these old heirloom varieties and save the seeds that are so important to our future. I highly recommend it!
January 13, 2021
Incredible book, I would recommend to anyone who is interested in history, gardening, seed saving, or cooking. Mr. Coykendall is an absolutely captivating story teller and incredible human-being. He presents knowledge through history, telling stories of others that he has met and of a time past.
The stories he tells reminds us of the importance of our ancestors, and how things old are invaluable. The knowledge he has acquired, the seeds, and recipes from friends collected in notebooks reminds why I write everything down.
Thank you Mr. Coykendall for the work you do, and the stories you tell. I hope some day to hear/read more.
The stories he tells reminds us of the importance of our ancestors, and how things old are invaluable. The knowledge he has acquired, the seeds, and recipes from friends collected in notebooks reminds why I write everything down.
Thank you Mr. Coykendall for the work you do, and the stories you tell. I hope some day to hear/read more.
July 5, 2020
Great book! Wonderful knowledge from an expert and it was neat to see inside his journals he has worked on.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews