Edited by James R. Veteto, Gary Paul Nabhan, Regina Fitzsimmons, Kanin Routson & DeJa Walker (2011) Introduction This publication seeks to foster recognition of Appalachia as the region in North America with the highest extant food diversity, and to inspire further documentation, recovery and community use of these foods within the region. It is produced by the Renewing America’s Food Traditions (RAFT) alliance, which brings together food, farming, conservation and culinary organizations and advocates to ensure that the diverse foods and traditions unique to North America remain alive and dynamic. We work to ensure that these foods, sustainably produced and prepared, reach our tables by means that make our communities healthier and our food systems more diverse— ecologically, culturally and structurally. We focus on place-based clusters of foods at risk that we feel we have the capacity to help recover, as we have already shown by assisting grassroots efforts in other regions, as noted on www.raftalliance.org. We urge Todd Elliott all readers, growers and harvesters to respect Native American communities that have traditional management rights at certain fishing, gathering and hunting grounds for some of these “wild” species. We need to support the tribes that have farmers’ rights to some of the vegetable, grain and fruit crops listed here that have long been part of their traditions and remain elements of their food sovereignty efforts. This publication is the outcome of field research and relationships fostered by James Veteto of the Southern Seed Summary of Number of Place-Based Food Legacy, with assistance from Gary Paul Nabhan Crop Varieties Known From Central and and interns of RAFT. It has benefited from funding Southern Appalachia (Upland South) offered by the Cedar Tree and Ceres foundations and anonymous donors. Heritage Heirloom TOTAL = 1,412 (Commercially (Pass-a-long Available Variety) Variety) Co-Editors with James R.Veteto (Bio on P5) FRUITS, NUTS, BERRIES 294 373 Gary Paul Nabhan is RAFT founder and co-founder of Flavors Without Borders. He has been honored for his work in the Apples 280 353 collaborative conservation of food diversity with the Vavilov Medal and a MacArthur Genius Award. A prolific author, his books and Other Fruits 14 9 blogs can be found at http://www.garynabhan.com. He raises hell and (including melon orchard crops in Patagonia, Arizona. & watermelon) Berries 0 11 Regina Fitzsimmons is a graduate from the University of Arizona with a degree in Nonfiction Writing and a minor in agronomy. Formerly a Slow Food USA intern, she now works with the RAFT VEGETABLES 83 610 alliance and Sabores Sin Fronteras in Tucson, Arizona. She cooks and gardens and blogs about successes and flops at http://reginarae.com. Beans 21 464 Kanin Routson is a graduate student at the University of Arizona. Cowpeas, Crowders, 12 25 He researches the genetics and genetic diversity of “heirloom” apples Field Peas and historic apple trees in the US in addition to native species. He has studied the genetic diversity of historic farmstead apple trees growing Tomatoes 23 62 in the US Southwest and has worked both regionally and nationally in Squash/Pumpkin 6 24 heirloom fruit and heritage orchard restoration. Other Vegetables 21 37 DeJa Walker has been an intern with the American Livestock Breeds Conservancy and Renewing America’s Food Traditions, and the president of Slow Food NAU in Flagstaff, where she received a GRAINS 17 33 degree in Environmental Sciences following her time at the University of Gastronomic Sciences (UNSIG) in Italy. She now teaches Corn 16 31 sustainable pastry courses at Johnson and Wales University. She lives, bakes and gardens in the Denver-Boulder area where she continues to Other Grains 1 2 advocate for diverse, fair and just food in her local community. Cover photos by David Cavagnaro except tomatoes by Gary Paul Nabhan, apples courtesy of Ben Watson, and banjo and washboard from Can Stock Photo From Rarity to Community Restoration and Market Recovery 3 Place-Based Foods of Appalachia || Veteto na Ale Apple-achia: by James R. Veteto The Most Diverse Foodshed in the US, Canada and Northern Mexico Let’s just go ahead and say it: People across southern and central Appalachia are crazy about plants and animals. In my lifetime of interacting with Appalachian farmers, gardeners and wildcrafting enthusiasts, I have never ceased to be amazed by their knowledge and love for all things green and growing. Whether they save seeds, graft fruit trees, dig roots and bulbs, can foods, harvest wild plants, hunt game, or raise heritage livestock breeds, it is a truism that older people and a smattering of younger people across the region have immense wildcrafting and agricultural skills. The deep mountain backcountry areas of North Carolina, East Tennessee, southwest Virginia, Kentucky and West Virginia are pockets rich and diverse in food crops within the central/southern Appalachian foodshed. This should come as no surprise: Appalachian people live in one of the world’s most bio-diverse Apples are temperate zones. Global areas of high agrobiodiversity correlate with high degrees of economic, cultural and geographic marginality—conditions that are no stranger to the highlands of Appalachia. Additionally, most of the world centers of agrobiodiversity are in mountainous areas. Given these abundant factors, southern and central Appalachia has the highest documented levels of agrobiodiversity in the U.S., Canada and northern Mexico. Appalachia is the longest continuously inhabited mountain among the range in the United States, and it has an extensive history of indigenous agriculture by the Cherokee and other American Indian peoples. region’s In southern Appalachia each spring, there is a ritual where thousands of old men in overalls till their brown hillside garden patches. Any visitor to the region can witness this event in mid-March as they 1,412 food wind their way among the country roads, barns and fields. Our research has documented 1,412 distinctly named heirloom food varieties in southern and central Appalachia, making southern/ varieties. central Appalachia the most diverse foodshed of any region yet studied by the Renewing America’s Food Traditions (RAFT) alliance. Heirloom varieties such as the Roughbark Candyroaster Squash—a long, pale orange squash with thick, ridged skin (making it better for storage than regular ‘slick roasters’) that looks like a cross between a banana and hubbard squash—are valued for their use in regionally-important food dishes such as candyroaster butter, bread and pie. As far as we know, the Roughbark Candyroaster was only maintained by one family in Bald Mountain, North Carolina before I collected it and began distributing it among Appalachian seed savers. From Rarity to Community Restoration and Market Recovery 4 || Place-Based Foods of Appalachia The Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians (EBCI) are descendents of the original agriculturalists of the region and are still maintaining a high diversity of Cherokee heirloom food crops. Along with Kevin Welch, EBCI member and founder of The Center for Cherokee Plants, I have documented 128 distinct heirloom varieties still grown by Cherokee gardeners and farmers today. Any local sample of Appalachia’s rich food heritage gives you a glimpse of an extremely biodiverse foodways tradition. And it doesn’t end at heirloom vegetable varieties. Gary Nabhan Jam has playfully dubbed the region ‘Apple-achia,’ and with good es R reason. The RAFT alliance has documented 633 distinct central/ . V southern Appalachian apple varieties. Orchards containing eteto heritage varieties still dot the Appalachian landscape—even I do worry, though, that most of the Appalachian heirloom if they have depreciated from previous generations. Nearly growers and wildcrafters that I have worked with are a part vertical, south-facing orchards such as Moretz’s Mountain of an aging crowd, mostly in their seventies. These elders are Orchard in Watauga County, North Carolina are maintaining maintaining heirloom varieties not only because of how much operations that span over three generations of their families or better tasting and locally-adapted they are, but also because longer. Moretz’s Mountain Orchard contains over 90 heritage they are representative of a milieu of cultural memory. Seeds, eating, cooking and cider apples that come in a wide variety of fruit and nut trees, wild foods and heritage animal breeds are sizes, shapes and colors. Southern Appalachian favorites include often wrapped up in genealogies (many heirloom varieties are standbys such as Virginia Beauty, Winesap and Limbertwig, in named after family ancestors), local histories, barter networks addition to extremely rare family varieties such as Zesty Z, Mud and sensory memories of time spent with loved ones and Hole and Bets Deaton. Apple hunters like Tom Burford, Lee friends. Furthermore, the very acts of heirloom farming and Calhoun, Tom Brown and Ron Joyner are continually scouring wild foods harvesting are concrete everyday resistances, which the ridges and hollers of the region to find old homestead apples provide counter-memories to a modern monoculture that that have been lost to history, and they bring them back into awareness and circulation. Orchardists such as Bill Moretz are using innovative marketing methods like his apple CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) to get cherished heirloom varieties into the hands of newer generation apple aficionados who are eagerly seeking variety and tastes beyond the bland Golden Delicious and Granny Smith’s from supermarket shelves that they grew up eating. What’s more, an incipient cider-making revival is threatening to take the region by storm and create a local micro-industry of Appalachian-made ciders. The same can be said of efforts by Appalachia’s livestock breeders, wild foragers, fishermen and hunters: The ways they seek out, harvest, prepare and process Appalachia’s “endemic” foods are all rooted in a deep, cultural history that remains alive today, although threatened in places by environmental and economic changes ranging from farmland loss to climate change. Harvesting wild ramps for family gatherings and festivals, digging Indian cucumber root along the trail during forays into the deep mountains, parboiling so-chan greens in the early spring, hunting wild turkey, keeping Dominiker roosters and hens out back of their houses for frying and eggs, transplanting Jerusalem artichokes or American groundnuts from natural to garden settings and raising Guinea hogs for family barbecues—all are traditional ways of procuring food and filling the belly that remain alive in the Appalachian mountains. Veteto na Ale From Rarity to Community Restoration and Market Recovery From Rarity to Community Restoration and Market Recovery 5 Place-Based Foods of Appalachia || Any local sample of Appalachia’s rich food heritage gives you a glimpse of an extremely biodiverse foodways tradition. characterizes by a society prone to negligence and forgetting. sustainable agriculture movement. Conservation efforts These folks are maintaining these foods because it is healthy through the American Livestock Breeds Conservancy, Center for them to do so (garden therapy), because they think it is the for Cherokee Plants and The Southern Seed Legacy Project right thing to do and because it is a powerful symbolic statement are generating an enormous amount of interest in heirloom of their Appalachian world-view. Caring and cultural memory seeds, wild foods and heritage breeds. Seed companies such in Appalachia nurture what is the greatest agrobiodiversity as Sow True Seed in Asheville, North Carolina, Southern cornucopia in most of North America. Exposure Seed Exchange in Charlottesville, Virginia and The South Carolina Foundation Seed Association in Clemson, Lest we think that the age of these old-time gardeners South Carolina are offering and selling an ever-increasing indicates that they are anachronistic holdovers from an era number of rare Appalachian heirloom seeds. Time-honored gone by, current trends in Appalachia indicate that they may Appalachian varieties such as White Bunch beans and have been ahead of their time. Droves of young people are Ashe County Pimento peppers are being saved from the returning to the land in western North Carolina through the risk of extinction, and returned to a cherished place among the tables and hearts of a new generation of the regions residents. As climate change and variability become ever more threatening realities, farmers and gardeners are diversifying their fields with varieties that have shown an incredible amount of resilience through past fluctuations. In addition to using your buying power to support heirloom Appalachian foodways at farmers’ markets, farm stands and pick-your-own farms throughout the mountains, we ask that you support, donate to and patronize the fine organizations that we have listed above. If we all join together in efforts to support our nation’s most diverse foodshed, the rewards of our effort will not only be delicious, yielding healthy foods and important biodiversity conservation, but you will also feel the satisfaction of knowing that down-home Appalachian foodways and culture will continue to evolve, thrive and inform life in the region for years to come. Cultural and biological diversity is the stuff that healthy and rewarding Appalachian lives are made of. James R. Veteto is Assistant Professor of Anthropology and Director of the Southern Seed Legacy at The University of North Texas. He has written extensively on agricultural diversity, foodways and ethnobotany in the U.S. South. Veteto Venetthetuos iaalssto i ns pweenstt e1r5n Nyeoarrtsh aCsa rao lfianram, werh earned h ew ciludr rfeonotdlys na Ale spends his summers roaming the gardens and hills in search of endangered foodways. From Rarity to Community Restoration and Market Recovery From Rarity to Community Restoration and Market Recovery 6 || Place-Based Foods of Appalachia The Serendipitous Saga of Rescuing the Noble Bean by Bill Best hull turned a brown color and was really tender to eat. My great-aunt said that my grandmother and great-grandfather just let the beans spread out on the ground, but when she and my great-uncle raised it, they would string them to grow up. Any help would be appreciated and any ideas about planting the seeds I have. They are good and dry. Thank you. By the way, we called them the Noble Bean, as that was our last name. My great-grandfather came from Best Walton (Roane County) West Virginia.” Bill Upon finishing her letter, I wondered if she could be talking about the Logan Giant, a well-known bean in Although most of my searches for old-timey beans over the decades West Virginia. But when she sent me photos of the have focused on building relationships with growers still living in beans, I realized that the Noble bean was not the same Appalachia, on Friday, June 27, 2008 I was excited to receive an as the Logan Giant. e-mail from Judy Bennett of Dayton, Oregon about a curious bean. While I receive many daily e-mails and phone calls about heirloom As we continued to exchange e-mails, she decided to beans, her letter was different: send me several hundred of her found beans to see if I might have success in getting any of them to germinate. “I am trying to locate a bean that was grown in West Virginia. My great-grandfather brought the bean with him when he moved to Upon receiving the beans Mrs. Bennett sent me on July Oregon in the late 1890s. He and my grandmother grew it in the 2, 2008, I immediately realized several things: garden here and my grandmother and mother always canned the bean. I just recently got some of the seed from my great-aunt (who 1. At some point, the beans had been dampened had gotten the seed from my grandmother), but the seed has been enough to swell up, and then had dried out again. sitting in her garage for about 12 years. We soaked the seed, it enlarged, and we planted it, but it isn’t coming up. The seed is 2. The eyes of the beans were split and the embryonic brown. (I still have some if I could mail it to you to look at or I could tissue appeared to have dropped out of many, if not take a picture and e-mail it.) most, of the seeds that would make germinating them much more difficult. In fact, I didn’t find any seeds that I From what I remember, it grew really big in the hull (filled it out) thought might germinate. and was picked when the hull was starting to turn a light yellow color. It was canned in the hull, but after pressure cooking it, some 3. I was in for a challenge, so I decided to give it my best try. of the beans would be out of the hull and some would stay in. The Using some greenhouse starting soil, I put most of the bean seeds (about a hundred) in a flat and moistened * It was later determined that the seeds had been sitting in the garage for 17 years and not for 12. From Rarity to Community Restoration and Market Recovery From Rarity to Community Restoration and Market Recovery 7 Place-Based Foods of Appalachia || the soil enough to keep the seeds damp. transplanting them into one of my high I notified Mrs. Bennett of my luck on the I put the flat with the seeds on top of a tunnels. (By that time it was too late to 26th of October and told her that I would bench on a sunny porch so that I could transplant them into a field since they soon be sharing the seeds with her. I sent inspect it several times a day and keep could not possibly produce seeds before five to her and gave one each to John the moisture at the appropriate level. freezing weather.) Coykendall and Lothar Baumann. John Coykendall works with heirloom fruits After three weeks I became more than a On October 5, 2008, I e-mailed Mrs. and vegetables at the Blackberry Farm little concerned, wondering if any of the Bennett the following information: near Maryville, Tennessee and is a noted seeds might sprout. But my wife noticed “One grew really well and three are seed saver. Lothar Baumann is a truck a small amount of green near the middle still struggling. The fifth succumbed to farmer near Berea, Kentucky who is also of the tray. Shortly thereafter, six young damping off. I believe the one that is an heirloom bean collector and grower. I beans broke through the soil, leaving me growing well will produce at least a dozen decided to plant three seeds during the quite relieved. pods of mature beans from the way it summer of 2009, keeping two to try again looks now.” in case all of us should have a crop failure. However, a grasshopper quickly found one of the beans and ate it, and I realized I was a little too optimistic since three The summer of 2009 was good for the that some precautions were in order. I of the remaining four plants succumbed Noble bean. John Coykendall grew his didn’t want to take more chances than to ants and dung beetles, and the one plant indoors and had excellent success. necessary with success almost at hand. healthy plant produced only three pods His one plant produced over 380 seeds, of viable seeds before succumbing half of which he sent to me. Judy Bennett I transplanted the remaining five young itself. By now, the bean was now 12 also had good success with her five seeds, plants into pots and put them in my seeds away from extinction. yielding enough to plant several rows in her greenhouse to develop roots prior to garden in 2010. My three plants, planted in my greenhouse, produced around a I now believe the Noble hundred seeds giving me enough to plant in the field during 2010 and to share with Bean is safe from extinction. Frank Barnett, a fellow heirloom seed saver from Georgetown, Kentucky. Judy Bennett had excellent success with her 2010 crop of Noble beans. In addition to many meals cooked from her crop, she also canned over fifty quarts of beans. Frank Barnett also had good success with his few seeds and now has plenty of seeds for a crop again next year. I planted some of mine on two different occasions and now have enough seeds to feature the Noble bean at the two farmers’ markets I attend and sell seeds on our website to the public in 2012. The Noble bean is what is commonly known in the Southern Appalachians as a “fall” or “October bean.” It is stringless and tender. I believe it is now safe from extinction and I’m glad to have had a part in bringing it back. B ill B est Bill Best has saved seeds for most of his life, having been brought into the custom by his mother. Now, at age 75, he is still collecting Appalachian, heirloom vegetable seeds from people old enough to be his parents. He has over 500 Southern Appalachian heirloom bean varieties and over 50 Southern Appalachian heirloom tomato varieties as well as a few winter squash, cucumber and corn varieties from mgard Best tMheo usanmtaein a Aregar.i c uHletu irse o Criegnintearl lnye farro mBe rtehae , UKpenpteur cCkyr.a bMtroeree cionmfomrmuantiitoyn i nca Hn abyew foouondd C oonu hnitsy ,w NebCs.i t eH aet :c hutrtrpe:n//tlwy wdwir.ehcetisr ltohoem Ssu.ostragi.nable Ir From Rarity to Community Restoration and Market Recovery From Rarity to Community Restoration and Market Recovery 8 || Place-Based Foods of Appalachia I moved to the mountains of Western North Carolina from the Arizona desert about three years ago. My first thought? Look at all these south-facing slopes—they would be great for growing grapes! I’ve developed a passion for grapes over the past 30 years as I’ve visited and worked in vineyards and wineries all over the world. The 600-million-year-old Appalachian Mountains provide us with Muscadines—a hardy, a unique grape-growing environment. We have several conditions stacked against us, but each problem can be remedied with some innovative solutions: The mountains are with residual granite soil— mostly thick, red clay. Granitic soils have two characteristics: They tend to have low pH and a high concentration of aluminum ions. Preserving the Wild Mountain Muscadines of by Chuck Blethen Madison County Both of these conditions ultimately result in the demise of cultivated grapevines. But both of these obstacles have inexpensive solutions: Add lime to the soil to raise the pH, and uck Blethen tehviesr, yin fi tvuer nto, a slesove snu pyeparerss sseese tmhse taol ukmeeinpu tmhi. nOgsn ein t orerdatemr efonrt pH Ch and the aluminum ion. The altitude here (2000 to 4500 feet) is also a concern. Most The 600 million of the local farmers claimed that the weather is too cold or the altitude is too high to grow grapes in this region. Grapes will grow at high altitudes—like the grapes growing in the French, Swiss, Austrian, Italian and German Alps at 5000-8000 feet. year old terrain One vineyard in Argentina is producing fantastic grapes (and wine) at 9800 feet! The secret is to select the right grape to grow in these conditions. makes unique Most of our grapes also struggle from disease. Our frequent foggy mornings favor grapevine outbreaks of downey mildew. grape-growing A grape grower must plant on southeastern and south-facing slopes so that the early morning sun can help quickly dry the wet foliage. Most grapes are susceptible to an enormous array of diseases, so control and prevention is key. This habitat. makes life in the vineyard interesting: Local markets demand natural, organic or bio-dynamically-grown grapes. To satisfy consumer palates and yield healthy crops, a grower must select grapevines that can best resist the various diseases and work to keep the vines healthy, so that they can marshall their natural resistance to ward off infection. From Rarity to Community Restoration and Market Recovery From Rarity to Community Restoration and Market Recovery 9 Place-Based Foods of Appalachia || knew muscadines. They all confirmed that I was not mistaken. This came as huge news to the viticulture world. No one suspected that muscadines could survive the cold weather at these altitudes. It was time to find out: Last year, at the beginning of October, following the first frost, we went to a wild muscadine patch and harvested a gallon of grapes and made a grape-hull pie (to die for!) and we put up 14 half-pints of grape- Muscadines—a hardy, hull preserves—also fantastic. The unripened/bitter hypothesis was thrown out. disease-resistant grape that can be grown naturally, organically or bio-dynamically. Unlike most grapes, you can’t propagate muscadines using On top of all this, weeds in our mountains grow like Jack & the dormant cuttings. So last year I began propagating the wild Beanstalk’s vine. While we have tried most remedies, mulching mountain muscadines using a little-known viticulture technique with chipped wood is the most effective deterrent. called greenwood cuttings. It worked! This spring we sold some of our propagated grapevines to local farmers who wanted to I began my quest for growing suitable grapes by considering only see if they could successfully grow them at their respective those grapes that could tolerate winter temperatures down to altitudes, too. If they survive this coming winter, these farmers -25F, the temperature occasionally experienced here at 4000 plan to start serious acreages of the wild mountain muscadine. feet on some December and January nights. This narrowed- down my options. I learned of just 45 varieties that will do well I have now planted the first two rows of wild mountain in this environment. Two years ago we began planting a few of muscadines in our vineyard. Each row is 200 feet long. Ours these varieties in test plots around Madison County. will be the first (albeit small) commercial vineyard of wild mountain muscadines in North Carolina. If all goes as planned, Along our journey many told us they wished they could grow we will have brought to the forefront a native grape in Madison muscadines here in the mountains—after all, the muscadine is the County that is perfect for the mountains—a high-altitude, official state grape! Some of our mountain neighbors had tried cold-hardy, disease-resistant grape that can be grown naturally, to grow a few of the hot weather, domestic varieties from the organically or bio-dynamically. The potential for a wide range Piedmont and Coastal areas, only to have them die from the cold of value-added products is exciting—juice, wine, preserves, pies, weather. Muscadines are hot weather grapes...or so we assumed. table fruit, raisins, balsamic vinegar (for long term thinkers) and other value-added products. What’s more, muscadines have 40 We were told by a few long-standing, local families that they times the amount of resveritrol as other red grapes, so they may used to pick muscadines in the woods and along the river when be a good source in the future for “medicinal foods” that help they were kids. At first we questioned the accuracy of that humans reduce their stress levels! assertion. We wondered if they were mistaken—perhaps they didn’t know a muscadine from any of the 28 varieties of wild We are now on our way to preserving an old wild grape variety grapes that thrive here. that our ancestors knew and used. And we have demonstrated their continuing viability in the Appalachian Mountains. They But as luck would have it, one day we found a local farmer are clearly not an obsolete or anachronistic variety from the who was willing to take us to a patch of grapes he insisted past, but a culinary treasure to enrich our future. were muscadines. Sure enough, they were the real-deal, growing wild, here in the mountains! I reported this to our local extension office and they thought I was crazy. They assured me Chuck Blethen is a vigneron from Madison County, North that “muscadines don’t grow in the mountains.” Carolina, where he propagates and grows cold-hardy, wild mountain muscadines. He is the author of “The Wine I took several photographs of the leaves, fruit, canes and Etiquette Guide” and is a frequent cruise ship lecturer on tendrils and e-mailed them to some friends in the industry who Jeannie Blethen wSItlaionlwye brFeeolcoaadtue dsUe t SooAfp t ihctose. i brH ewe D oarenkld ewg haitithse wsw aiiflted TJ meearonruann iMet awainedr rmee suienslce Tactoderidnin ebosy,. From Rarity to Community Restoration and Market Recovery From Rarity to Community Restoration and Market Recovery 10 || Place-Based Foods of Appalachia Nancy Hall, Respected Elder Boards the Ark by Doug Elliott There is a woman who some know as Yanna Fishman who has been collecting, propagating, growing and preserving different varieties of sweet potatoes for decades in Rutherford County, North Carolina. Others know her as the Sweet Potato Queen. I know her as my sweet wife. In the winter of 2010, some friends from Renewing America’s Food Traditions (RAFT) and Slow Food USA encouraged Yanna to nominate an heirloom sweet potato to the Ark of Taste. Of the forty-some varieties of sweet potatoes that she raises, one immediately came to her mind: Nancy Hall. As Yanna recalls, “Over 20 years ago I acquired the Nancy Hall sweet potato from an elderly couple. While not the most productive of my varieties, it has a rich golden color, firm texture and delicious flavor. Nancy Hall is one of the varieties most sought after by our traditional rural neighbors, who fondly remember it from their childhood as the favorite of their parents and grandparents.” Nancy Hall seemed to be a perfect candidate for the Ark of Taste. Yanna became inspired to research and write the history of this heirloom potato. The earliest record she found was in an 1895 Texas Agricultural Experiment Station publication. It was the main variety available in the South, where it became quite popular through the 30s and 40s. In 1939, a festival called the Nancy Hall Jubilee celebrated this sweet potato in Paris, Tennessee. The most commonly-held origin story for the Nancy Hall variety comes from an 1896 letter written by Mr. A.J. Aldrich of Orlando, Florida, who claimed this distinctive sweet potato came from seeds accidentally mixed into a packet of flower seeds planted by a Miss Nancy Hall in Florida. Another origin story comes from Nantsy Marsenich, who was born in Gleason, Tennesee in 1930. She claimed that her grandfather, R.A. Nants, along with a man named Hall, discovered and named the variety. Nants, of course, became Nancy. Todd Elliott From Rarity to Community Restoration and Market Recovery From Rarity to Community Restoration and Market Recovery