Ark of Taste


The Ark of Taste is a living catalog of delicious and distinctive foods facing extinction. By identifying and championing these foods, we keep them in production and on our plates.

Agricultural biodiversity and smallscale, family-based food production systems are in danger throughout the world due to industrialization, genetic erosion, changing consumption patterns, climate change, the abandonment of rural areas, migration, and conflict.

The Ark of Taste invites everybody to take action: In some cases, products need to be rediscovered and put back on the table, and producers need to be supported and to have their stories told; in others, such as the case of endangered wild species, it might be better to eat less or none of them in order to preserve them and favor their reproduction.

Slow Food Ark of Taste Fruit and Vegetables That Do Well in Sonoma County (Tested by Small Farmers and School Gardeners)

Beans

Christmas Lima
Hidatsa Shield Figure
Lina Cisco’s Bird Egg
Marrowfat
Petaluma Gold Rush
Pinquitos
Rio Zape

Beets

Early Blood Turnip Rooted

Corn
Stowell’s Evergreen Sweet Corn

Chapalote Corn

Lettuce

Amish Deer Tongue

Grandpa Admires 

Speckled

Tennis Ball

Onions

I’Itoi Onion

Peppers

Beaver Dam
Jimmy Nardello’s Sweet Italian Frying

Sheepnose Pimiento
Wenk’s Yellow Hots

Fish Pepper

Potatoes

Bodega Red Potato

Makah Ozette Potato

Squash

Amish Pie

Sibley

Sugar Hubbard Squash

Tomatoes

Amish Paste
Brandywine, Sudduth Strain

Burbank
Orange Oxheart

Cherokee Purple

Radiator Charlie’s Mortgage Lifter

Djena Lee’s Golden Girl

Red Fig

Valencia

Livingston’s Golden Queen

Apples

Gravenstein Apples

Apricots

Blenheim Apricot

Lemons

Meyer Lemons of California’s Central Coast

Melons

Crane
Moon & Stars Watermelon

Peaches

Fay Alberta Peach

Plums

Elephant Heart Plum

Garlic

Inchelium Red Garlic

Lorz Italian Garlic

Spanish Roja Garlic

The Ark of Taste     Slow Food Ark of Taste USA

Grow Out

Grow Out Leader:  Debbi Crapeau