LINDSEY McCLAVE: In this episode of The Farmer and The Foodie, we visited a winery in Lexington to talk to Ashley Smith with Black Soil Kentucky.

We also went to the home of Susan Miller, a local farmer.

MAGGIE KEITH: I'm Maggie Keith, and I'm the farmer.

LINDSEY: And I'm Lindsey McClave, and I am the foodie.

In this episode, we learned all about Black Soil Kentucky.

The founder, Ashley Smith, has created this organization to help elevate the profile of black farmers in Kentucky.

And we got to meet two of the farmers that are part of Black Soil.

Allen has a winery outside of Lexington, and Susan Miller is in Stanford, Kentucky, and has a vegetable farm.

I first read about Black Soil Kentucky in a newspaper article, and I was so impressed by Ashley's influence on highlighting farmers and where food was coming from.

She really did see that there was a gap.

So these farmers really know how to farm, but how can we make sure that we're building a platform for them to sell their products?

Thank you for taking the time to do this and being so gracious and introducing us to some incredible farmers.

I'm so excited that you've had the opportunity to visit some of our Black Soil Kentucky farms across the state.

Really hitting these really historic beautiful communities.

So can you tell me about Black Soil Kentucky?

So if mother nature can't see who puts the seed in the ground, then why do we have such enormous disparities in agriculture?

And so, August 25th, 2017, we established Black Soil.

At that time, we referred to it as Black Soil: Our Better Nature.

And it was to reconnect black Kentuckians to their heritage and legacy and agriculture.

And so, we've done that through farm tours, farm to table dinners, we've helped write grants, do education outreach.

And really what it boils down to is what you've seen in your visits and your time bonding and building relationships with the producers.

Them being able to talk about their farm on platforms that otherwise have been unavailable or inaccessible.

And so, just helping open doors, and really helping them celebrate the essence of what they do so well.

And that's caring for us and growing our food, or, in this case here at Silver Springs, that absolute necessity of that good Kentucky wine.

-[laughs] -I love that that's a necessity.

And you're doing an incredible job.

It was so inspiring to read about your story and to have someone speaking up and having a really clear voice about what we've been needing to hear for a long time.

So what are some of the messages you're trying to teach people in our community, but also our next generation?

Well, one, we're really trying to emphasize the black roots of Kentucky agriculture, whether it be hemp, tobacco, equine, or distilling, there have been significant innovations and contributions coming from the formerly and enslaved of Kentucky.

So, first and foremost, when you look at those foundational industries of the state, there's a great way for us to really look at who was tending to the fields, cultivating the crops, versus who was gaining the notoriety for the end result.

And so it helps us really be analytical as we examine the social issues that we face presently here, not only in Lexington, in Kentucky, but abroad globally.

Secondly, we really want to emphasize that the 1.4% of Kentucky black farmers are a tiny yet mighty sector.

So busting open doors through institutional contracts and procurement, we really have helped stabilize and create income and revenue opportunities for farmers and these small business owners who need markets.

And so when we think about eating local year round, we need every type of producer at the table.

And the third message is really that agriculture can serve as a breeding ground for racial reconciliation.

When we say, if mother nature can't see who puts the seed in the ground.

We dig deep into USDA farm census data that shows blistering gaps in equity and opportunity.

And so, by having non-black farmers, such as yourself, see the value in building relationships across not only geographies, but cultural experiences and gendered experiences, we get to see the commonality that everyone has to eat, and that, together, Kentucky farmers can come find the middle ground literally at the table.

So we want to help people embrace that shared history of the contributions and accomplishments through the brutality of enslavement that we so benefit from today throughout our industry, across racial and ethnic backgrounds and demographics.

I'm a little taken back because you had some pretty harsh statistics.

1.7%, you said.

-1.4%.

-1.4%.

I would love to know, one day, as a result of this work, we can move to 2%, we can move to 3%.

But still, that's so limited and focused around a scarcity mindset when we really want to push people to abundance.

There have been tons of times that people have questioned our ability as a collective group of 6 to 10 farmers at a time feeding hundreds of people, compared to a single white farm owner being able to feed hundreds of people without any question.

So, we really want to balance out the reality of what it means to be a farmer, what it looks like to be on a farm, and just really emphasize the industry because it's so vital for all of us.

And you said, abundance is what we're going towards.

So, what does abundance look like?

And what does success look like in this?

Well, success for this business is really opportunities like this; gaining platforms to showcase award-winning Kentucky proud wine gives us a chance to really right a lot of myths.

That black people don't farm, that they don't know anything about farming, that they've not provided substantial contributions to the industry and the economic base that comes from agriculture.

Do you see this next generation being inspired to take this on, to start farming?

The new generation of farmer has a very purposeful approach.

They are engaged with their community to then empower those around them and bring them in to teach them how to farm and grow their own food.

And then turn around and work with chefs like we do, to then break down, "What do I do with a butternut squash or a lampkin or these collard greens?"

And make it culturally competent.

Yes.

Oh, I love that part.

I'm sure Lindsey would love to hear some of the recipes.

Again, it's so exciting because every recipe then also tells the story of the farm, the chef, and/or that family who's enjoying it.

So, you're still able to cultivate that community through the industry and the sector.

So, at Silver Spring Winery, we got to meet Allen, who is the farmer and owner and winemaker.

And he was just a delight.

He was completely new to the wine making industry, but jumped in head first, purely out of a passion for wine.

Allen, thank you so much for having us out to Silver Springs.

This is just the most gorgeous setting.

You're very welcome.

Thanks for coming out.

I keep thinking of the term terroir since I've been here.

And as you mentioned, the vineyard is such an important aspect of the wine.

So, what has this Kentucky land contributed to the wine that you've been making?

Probably, I think the biggest thing is it used to be a distillery, and when they made bourbon, they just spread out the spent grains and stuff.

And I think that has a lot to do with how the ground is out here now.

So, tell me about this award-winning wine you've crafted.

The one that I won Double Gold with is a traditional method where they make traditional champagne in Europe.

And I just follow the same suit, and that's the Double Gold one.

And the steel wine is just a steel dry white wine.

It's the exact same wine, but it's not double fermented, it's single fermented.

And I won bronze with that one.

And what is the grape in these wines?

It's traminette.

And tell me about the traminette grape.

Why does it do so well here?

Obviously, well enough to get you some awards?

ALLEN CARTER: It grows easily in Kentucky.

You don't get the diseases that you get from other grapes like before from Europe.

You just have to have the right temperature when you making it and keep everything clean.

It has to be really clean.

And I understand Black Soil has played a nice part in helping you further your wine making.

Can you tell me a little bit about what they've done for you?

Ashley, she came out to the farm and we did a couple of events together and it enabled me to get my wine on around Kentucky.

And I really appreciate that.

Well, Allen, I'm very excited to try your wine.

And Maggie has joined us, too.

-Hey.

-Hello, Maggie.

How are you?

Good to see you.

This is so lovely.

Lindsey and I were saying, "We feel like we're on vacation."

ALLEN: Oh, great.

Great.

And I always drink wine on vacation.

So, tell us what you are going to have us try today.

ALLEN: Well, the first one is a steel wine.

It's a steel dry white wine, so traminette.

And I'm just going to go ahead and pour you guys a shot.

LINDSEY: Thank you.

ALLEN: The traminette grape is a citrus-like grape, and you will get the mouth fill of it.

Kind of like the biscuit taste.

Yes, but it's drier.

It's going to taste a little sweet, but like I said, it's only probably 1% of residual sugar left in it.

So, more the fruit notes make you think sweet, but it's not a sweet wine.

ALLEN: Right, exactly.

-Well, cheers.

-Cheers.

Thank you so much for having us.

ALLEN: Thank you guys for coming out.

[inaudible] MAGGIE: Another farmer we talked to was Susan Miller.

Susan knew how to farm.

She had many years of experience, she was very passionate about it, she was a great teacher, and she came to it through flavor as well.

Hey, Susan.

Thank you so much for having us out to your farm.

So tell me about your farm.

Well, I am a third generation farmer.

We have a four and a half acre farm here in Lincoln County.

My favorite thing to grow is tomatoes, and I think it's because whenever my dad was farming, that's the last thing that he was doing before he passed, was tomatoes.

And we've seen that if people are coming to our farmer's market, 95% of the people that come, they want a tomato.

How did you get involved with Black Soil?

So, Black Soil has been wonderful for us, getting to meet other farmers like myself.

I think I'm the only black female in Lincoln County that's doing what I'm doing as far as that, so sometimes it's just nice to reach out and talk to others.

We help each other come pick, come work, come do whatever, as far as that.

MAGGIE: Susan walked us through her high tunnel and taught us how to pick the best green tomato so that we could make some fried green tomatoes.

So, she was really good at figuring out the best way to bring a bunch of vegetables together and have a good feast.

Thank you for having us in your kitchen.

You have the most beautiful home.

It smelled like fresh baked goods when we walked in.

So, what a welcome, warm atmosphere and beautiful sweet potatoes here.

Now, these are from your garden as well, right?

Yes.

And you have a candied sweet potato recipe, I see here.

And it's handwritten on what is obviously a few years old piece of paper, which the best recipes come in this format.

So, tell me about this recipe.

This is my husband's mother's recipe, and she makes it every year for Thanksgiving and Christmas and other occasions.

And even though we've all tried to cook like mother, my mother-in-law, we can never do it.

So, is this a special occasion dish or is it an any occasion?

It's any occasion.

But one that always makes you remember -and think about family.

-That's the truth.

So, we're slicing these, and what will happen next?

SUSAN: We will put them on the stove and let them boil for about 20 minutes.

Once they are soft, we will put them in the casserole dish.

My cut, is this a good thickness?

Is this a little too much?

No, it's not, it's not.

So, 20 minutes.

If you weren't going off time, what sort of... Or totally fork tender -or do you want a little give?

-Yeah, fork tender.

So, now, we're going to add our brown sugar over the top of... Two cups of brown sugar.

And this looks like light brown sugar versus- -It is.

-Does it matter?

I don't think it will matter, but I think they said that the light brown sugar worked better as far as flavoring and things like that.

And now, I noticed, so this is the sliced sweet potatoes.

You poured some of the boiling water in with the potatoes.

So, is that just to create sort of like a syrupy- Yes, it will.

Yes, it will.

And then once you get your brown sugar on, you'll add your ground cinnamon.

One teaspoon of ground cinnamon.

Just sort of sprinkle on over top.

Yes, sprinkle over the top.

Now, is this something you would make together with your mother-in-law, or did she usually- She's in her own little world with her sweet potatoes.

[laughs] We'll do a tablespoon of corn starch.

Now, I know you grew up on the farm, you mentioned, with your dad, and then it's handed down from your grandfather as well.

Do you feel like you have a lot of family recipes?

Was cooking as a family, from the farm, something you grew up with in addition to gardening My mother and my grandmother, when they canned, they canned outside.

They did not have the pressure cooker, seriously.

And I can remember my job and my brother's job, because we weren't in school, we would be responsible of cutting the twigs to keep the canner going outside.

They canned outside.

My mother was scared to death- So, over a fire.

-Over a fire.

-Oh, my goodness.

So, it came a long ways.

[laughs] No kidding.

So, special vanilla.

Special vanilla.

And I want to smell this one more time if I could.

Oh my gosh, that's wonderful.

That's so good.

You definitely smell the bourbon, but not like if I were to smell over just a bottle of bourbon.

It's mellow and the vanilla comes through big time.

All right.

And then we'll take the butter, and we'll just slice it over the sweet potatoes.

And then as its cooking, they all boil up and turn over and do different things as far as that.

Swim and have fun in here.

Oh my gosh, this is great.

And so, we're going to cook this at what temperature for about how long would you say?

350 for about 20 to 30 minutes.

So, 20 to 30.

What are you looking for to know it's done?

The juice will be really thick.

Okay.

As a matter of fact, you'll probably have no juice whatsoever when it's done.

It'll reduce down.

It will, yeah.

So, we're going stick this in the oven for about 30 minutes.

I thought we could go ahead and get our green tomatoes prepped before we fry them.

And then I just like to do quarter-inch slices.

What about you?

I'm about the same way.

About the same way.

So, I just take the top off.

Now, one thing I like to do is put them aside, it doesn't have to be very long, but I do like to salt them, to draw out some of that extra moisture.

They're already low moisture because they're underripe.

But I do think that just helps with...

Anything that you're frying, in general, the less moisture, the better.

Personally, when things are fried, I generally lean towards a creamy sauce.

So, I have a buttermilk dressing I mentioned that I thought would be really punched up with some of the fresh herbs.

So, let's go ahead and put these on this platter and that way this will just soak up any extra moisture.

So, then we'll just sprinkle some salt over top, just a light layer but it kind of helps dehydrate them, draw out any extra moisture that might be in there.

So, we'll just set this aside and then, until the sweet potatoes are ready, we'll go ahead and make that buttermilk dressing.

-Alrighty.

-Great.

I tend to be a big fan of buttermilk.

I really love the tanginess of it and I like that you can really control the consistency too.

So, I start with a little bit of a mayonnaise base for this one.

And then, really, I just riff on whatever I've kind of got going at the farmer's market, what's in my veggie drawer that I want to use.

So, we're going to add about a little over, I don't know, three-quarter, half-cup of mayo.

And then we are just going to add a bit of lemon juice.

So, one thing that I love about the green tomato is that sort of acidic bite.

You haven't had all of the sugars develop yet.

And so, I really want to lean into that.

And I think that's one of the things, the creaminess texture of the dressing will counter really nicely, but then we're going to keep this tangy so we add some bright acidic notes from the lemon.

One thing that- actually, this is one of the secret ingredients in the pimento cheese I make, is a little bit of grated white onion.

-Do you ever grate white onion?

-I haven't.

It's not something that I was doing much of either, but the green onion is brighter and a little bit fresher, obviously, because you're using just those green bits.

But you can see here, you just got this nice almost...

It's going to add a little bit of punchiness there.

So, just grate probably about a teaspoon, maybe closer to a tablespoon, maybe?

These are eyeball it recipes, right?

The best kind.

And then I'm going to grate a garlic clove in there as well.

So, what I'm going to do now, I've just whisked together the onion, the mayo, the garlic, a little bit of salt and pepper, lemon juice.

And now I'm just going to drizzle in the buttermilk.

I'm going to taste it.

Maybe we'll add a little bit of mayo to thicken it up or we'll keep adding a little bit more of this.

But the most important thing we're going to add is our fresh herbs.

Stir these guys in there and have our quick little dressing.

Time to bread our tomatoes.

So, you can see, I think they're glistening.

You can see where the salt has helped pull off some of the moisture from the tomatoes.

So I like to do a double breading here with a cornmeal.

And then my friend, Angelique, actually, taught me that she loves to add Panko as a final step.

And it does make it extra crunchy and yummy.

So, that's what we're going to do today.

So, if you don't mind, with our breading, just to whisk up those eggs for me, and I'm going to season the cornmeal.

So, this I like- you can do whatever with the seasonings, so I do real eyeball, just some garlic powder I like to add, I want a little bit of heat in there, I think cayenne's always a good addition, or anything sort of warm, to a green tomato.

So we're not going to overdo it too much, but we do have a fair amount of cornmeal in here.

So, a little bit of cayenne pepper and a little bit of paprika.

Here we go.

And then, definitely, I think, especially when frying, I really try to be mindful of seasoning every part of the breading, because I think you want each element to have some good flavor in there.

So, we'll do a healthy amount of salt here in our cornmeal base.

And then we'll also go ahead and do some salt and pepper and the Panko breadcrumb.

And you could certainly use any breadcrumbs in here.

I'm always pretty partial to Panko because it does have an airy, I think it is extra crunchy.

Do you ever use Panko?

Yes, I have.

I'm a pretty big fan.

But, certainly, if you had some old bread that you wanted to toast stuff or make use of, by all means.

So, I'm going to season that, too, and won't forget our eggs.

And we've already salted our tomatoes, so we're good there.

And then I'm just going to do a real quick toss of all the breading ingredients in here.

Now, have you made fried green tomatoes a lot?

I know you said you've sold them to chefs a lot, the tomatoes, and you've had them in restaurants quite a bit.

But do you make them at home?

Haven't made a lot, so this'll be a treat.

Well, I hope I do your tomatoes proud...

Yes, indeed.

...because they are some worthy tomatoes.

So, we're going to go ahead and just start with our cornmeal base.

And once we get it coated, go to the egg.

The cornmeal will help the egg stick.

Final crunchy coating.

We'll put them over here and then we'll get everything ready to fry.

So, if you want to help do the cornmeal part, just toss them real well, and then I'll take them over and continue on in the egg.

I always like to drip off any excess egg so you don't get too much clumpiness.

Then I'm frying.

I try to keep a dry hand and a wet hand.

I usually end up messing that up midway very quickly, but it is a helpful hint when you're doing this multi breading process.

So, there's one.

Thank you.

LINDSEY: I'm using grape seed oil here.

I really like that as a frying oil.

It's neutral in flavor.

What do you think?

Do you think that's ready?

I think so.

So I'm going to just add these one at a time.

Love that sound.

Susan, this could not smell more delicious.

It smelled delicious going in and coming out.

Oh my goodness, I cannot wait to dig into this family recipe.

Thank you so much for sharing it with us.

You're so welcome.

And thank you for sharing your green tomatoes.

I think they fried up beautifully.

Oh, they did.

And so, I believe your husband, George, and Maggie have been chatting all things farming out on your porch.

So, shall we take some food out to them -and enjoy?

-Well, you sure can.

Alrighty.

MAGGIE: This looks so good, guys.

I know.

Thank you all so much.

And George, thanks for letting us come and learn from you all.

We really, really appreciate it.

And this is your mother's recipe.

-Is that right, George?

-Yes.

MAGGIE: Oh man.

This is so good.

LINDSEY: The sweet potatoes are wonderful.

Great texture, and I think all the seasonings are really balanced.

And the vanilla, it might be the secret ingredient made at home.

Everything's homegrown.

I love it.