Chatham University graduate students tour Athens food infrastructure.
The Ohio University Food Matters student organization hosted a group of graduate students studying in the Food Studies program at Chatham University for a tour of campus and community local food facilities.
The Chatham group began with a tour on Friday, Jan. 16, of Ohio University’s West State Street Research Gardens, where they were able to see how OHIO students are learning about sustainable agricultural methods. They were joined by OHIO students to take a tour of Shagbark Seed and Mill in Athens, an important link in local food infrastructure. Shagbark’s recently certified organic facility processes Ohio-grown, heirloom corn, beans and seeds, and the mill offered the tour goers samples of their popcorn, corn tortilla chips, and a delicious chip dip made from Shagbark organic heirloom black turtle beans. The group ended the evening at Village Bakery, with a discussion of the Athens local food system, led by Lisa Trocchia-Baļķīts, OHIO Food Studies Theme graduate assistant and doctoral student researching the Social Ecology of Food. A light dinner of fresh salad greens and wood fired-pizzas from Della Zona was enjoyed by all.
On Saturday, Jan. 17, the Chatham students had an early call at Snowville Creamery for a tour of the facility, followed by a trip to the Athens Farmers Market. The morning ended with a tour of ACEnet (Appalachian Center for Economic Networks), a local non-profit organization with a community kitchen incubation facility and support networks that are nationally recognized as a successful cooperative model for local food system development. The whirlwind tour ended with a casual lunch at Casa Nueva, a worker-owned restaurant in Athens offering seasonal menus sourced primarily from local farmers and food producers.
Chatham University has one of the few graduate programs in Food Studies in the nation and hosted a OHIO Food Matters club and the Food Studies curricular theme and noted the many opportunities for local food system learning and engagement available to OHIO students. Noting the newly released schedule for the Food for Thought Speaker Series, sponsored by the Food Studies theme, the Chatham students were excited to return on their own to Ohio University April 2 to hear Sandor Katz speak. Katz is author of the New York Times bestseller, Wild Fermentation, and James Beard Award-winner, Art of Fermentation.
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