56 animal, vegetable, miracle
members in Italy, Germany, Switzerland, the United States, France, Ja-
pan, and Great Britain. The organization promotes gastronomic culture,
conserves agricultural biodiversity and cultural identities tied to food pro-
duction, and protects traditional foods that are at risk of extinction. Its
Ark of Taste initiatives catalog and publicize forgotten foods—a Greek
fava bean grown only on the island of Santorini, for instance, or the last
indigenous breed of Irish cattle. Less than ten years after its launch, the
Italian Ark has swelled to hold some five hundred products. A commis-
sion in the United States now catalogs uniquely American vegetable and
animal varieties and products that are in danger of extinction, making the
Ark of Taste a worldwide project.
You can’t save the whales by eating whales, but paradoxically, you can
help save rare, domesticated foods by eating them. They’re kept alive by
gardeners who have a taste for them, and farmers who know they’ll be
able to sell them. The consumer becomes a link in this conservation chain
by seeking out the places where heirloom vegetables are sold, taking them
home, whacking them up with knives, and learning to incorporate their
exceptional tastes into personal and family expectations. Many foods
placed on the Ark of Taste have made dramatic recoveries, thanks to the
seed savers and epicurean desperadoes who defy the agents of gene con-
trol, tasting the forbidden fruits, and planting more.
/
If I could only save one of my seed packets from the deluge, the heir-
loom vegetable I’d probably grab is fi ve- color silverbeet. It is not silver
(silverbeet is Australian for Swiss chard), but has broad stems and leaf ribs
vividly colored red, yellow, orange, white, or pink. Each plant has one
stem color, but all five colors persist in a balanced mix in this beloved va-
riety. It was the first seed variety I learned to save, and if in my dotage I
end up in an old- folks’ home where they let me grow one vegetable in the
yard, it will be this one. It starts early, produces for months, looks like a
bouquet when you cut it, and is happily eaten by my kids. They swear the
different colors taste different, and in younger days were known to have
blindfolded color- taste contests. (What kids will do, when deprived of
ready access to M&Ms.) One of the first recipes we invented as a family,