Grow Endangered Fruits & Vegetables

Being a champion for food biodiversity is something people can participate wherever their locale....the following is adapted from a message to Slow Food WiSE members and friends in the Milwaukee area.

Slow Food Wisconsin Southeast is encouraging folks in our region to join us in the effort to restore some special foods at risk of being lost. "Eat It to Save It" is the basic idea.... 


By growing endangered foods in your own backyard and by supporting farmers that do, you can help save these foods from extinction.

Recover Forgotten Fruit

The Milwaukee Apple—just one of hundreds of endangered fruits that have disappeared from our plates and has been replaced by fewer than a dozen commercial varieties.  

Last year, our Slow Food WiSE chapter planted the Milwaukee Apple bench grafted trees (along with the varietals Pewaukee, Oneida, Ashmead’s Kernel, Autmun Beauty and one we’ve named the  Stahl-Conrad  Apple after the last tree standing on the original orchard site) in the spring of 2010 at the Historic Stahl Conrad Homestead in Hale’s Corners.  This year, we will be planting more and are especially excited about sharing a couple of trees with Walnut Way!  Join Slow Food WiSE in bringing back the Milwaukee Apple by planting your own bench grafted trees—Tony from Maple Valley Orchards said he will continue taking orders throughout the month of April.  

Description of the Milwaukee Apple: This seedling apple was found under a Duchess tree and then developed by George Jeffrey of Milwaukee, WI.  It appeared in commerce around 1899.  It’s tough but thin skin is greenish yellow and marbled, dotted or blotched with reds. Its yellowish white flesh is tender and juicy, with a pleasant acid flavor good for most uses except as a fresh dessert apple.

                  –Renewing America’s Food Traditions Alliance, Forgotten Fruits of the Great Lakes Region Project

To learn more about Endangered Food of South Eastern Wisconsin, check out Food Biodiversity.

Grow Endangered Vegetables

“300,000 vegetable varieties have become extinct over the last century”

 – Slow Food Foundation for Biodiversity (from FAO reports on Agricultural Biodiversity)

“The US Ark of Taste is a catalog of over 200 delicious foods in danger of extinction. By promoting and eating Ark products we help ensure they remain in production and on our plates.”    For more info: www.slowfoodusa.org   

Consider these Ark of Taste heirlooms for your garden:

Ark of Taste Vegetables that have ties to Wisconsin:

Beaver Dam pepper * seeds recently spotted at Outpost’s Capital Drive location

Amish Paste Tomato

Sheboygan Tomato

Additional Ark of Taste Vegetables that may be well suited for growing in Wisconsin:

Amish Deer Tongue lettuce

Grandpa Admire's lettuce

Speckled lettuce

Tennis Ball lettuce (black seeded)

Early Blood Turnip-rooted beet

Bull Nose Large Bell pepper

Fish pepper

Hinkelhatz Hot pepper

Jimmy Nardello's Sweet Italian Frying pepper

Sheepnose pimiento

German Pink Tomato

Red Fig Tomato

Aunt Molly’s Husk Tomato (ground Cherry)

Valencia Tomato

Lina Cisco’s Bird Egg Bean

True Red Cranberry bean

Hidatsa Shield Figure bean

Yellow Indian Woman Bean

Hutterite Soup bean

Mayflower Bean

Turkey’ Hard Red Winter Wheat

Roy’s Calais flint corn

***Most of these seeds may be sourced through Seed Savers Exchange.***

Be a Biodiversity Champion--Volunteer!
Slow Food WiSE notes an array of opportunities for you to get invloved in restoring our region's food traditions--planting antique apple trees, tabling at events, building a simple website for local farmers (such as local producers of Sorghum Syrup on the Ark of Taste), starting seeds, researching heritage breeds …and so much more!  Please do et us know if you are growing any of these foods or find others that are....contact me at Jcasey@slowfoodwise.org to get involved.