The front hall of the Ag Hall was packed Thursday night, April 7, with more than 100 local food devotees for the latest potluck dinner meeting of Slow Food Martha’s Vineyard.
Meet Your Farmer, as the event was called, was intended to introduce locavores to the men and women who provide what they crave — fresh, locally grown farm products, from beef to beets.
After attendees had stuffed themselves on all manner of delectable homemade offerings from a 20-foot long potluck table, the farmers themselves moved from table to table for five-minute stops to introduce themselves and their specialties personally. The idea was to put a face to a place, and a farm on consumer’s mental map. Some of the farms are out-of-the-way, and easy to miss without specific directions. It was also a clever way to avoid a line of speakers at the microphone, where the pitches might have gotten a bit repetitive and where their natural reticence might have inhibited some of these hard-working souls from describing what they do to keep us in touch with the land around us.
The farmers present were Mitchell Posin and Clarissa Allen (Allen Farm), Emily Palmer (Bakehouse Farm), Jamie Norton (Bayes Norton Farm), John Previant (FARM Institute), Jefferson Munroe (Good Farm), Molly Glasgow (Grey Barn and Farm), Allen Healy and Caitlin Jones (Mermaid Farm and Dairy), Jim Athearn (Morning Glory Farm), Rebecca Gilbert (Native Earth Teaching Farm), and Andrew Woodruff (Whippoorwill Farm).
Cathy Walthers, president of Slow Food MV, announced that Carlo Petrini, the Italian who started Slow Food in 1986, will be the featured guest at the organization’s big mid-summer event in July.
