Some of the most interesting things growing in the ground might not be familiar farmers’ market staples…yet. They may not even have names.
On August 30, the Variety Showcase will take place at Glynwood Center for Regional Food and Farming in Cold Spring to celebrate exactly these lesser-known varietals of the food world. The Culinary Breeding Network event, now in its 12th year, brings together plant breeders, farmers, chefs, bakers, seed growers, and curious eaters for an afternoon devoted to a deceptively simple question: What should the future of our food taste like?
Taking place on Glynwood’s working farm, the showcase pairs chefs with organic plant breeders and farmers to create dishes around specific cultivars and experimental breeding lines. Guests can taste new and emerging varieties of vegetables, grains, and fruits while meeting the people responsible for developing, growing, and cooking them.
It’s a rare opportunity to quite literally taste the future—and to encounter plant breeding outside the laboratory or seed catalog, a window into just how much thought goes into the varieties that eventually land on our plates. Flavor is central, but so are the qualities increasingly important to farmers and eaters alike: climate resilience, nutrition, biodiversity, cultural heritage, culinary versatility, and seed sovereignty.
“When breeders, farmers, and chefs collaborate, flavor becomes a driver of biodiversity, and everyone at the table gets to be part of that,” says Lane Selman of the Culinary Breeding Network. That collaboration is at the heart of the Culinary Breeding Network’s year-round work. Rather than treating plant breeding as something that happens far upstream from the kitchen, the organization brings breeders into conversation with the farmers growing their varieties and the chefs cooking with them. A tomato, pepper, grain, or squash can be considered not only for how well it performs in the field, but how it tastes, behaves in the kitchen, and resonates with the people who ultimately eat it.
Since launching in 2014, the roving annual Variety Showcase has popped up in food communities across the country, from Portland, Oregon, and New York City to Oʻahu, Hawaiʻi. Each edition takes its cues from the place it lands, bringing together local stakeholders while building connections across the broader seed-to-table world.
A great example: At the 2015 Variety Showcase, the folks behind Oregon-based distiller Stone Barn Brandyworks first learned of the variety of Haskap berries and the grower that they later used to make their award-winning haskap liqueur. “Those kinds of connections are really at the heart of the event: bringing together the people who develop new varieties with the people who can put them into production, markets, and kitchens,” Selman says. “That aligns closely with both Glynwood’s and CBN’s missions of strengthening regional food systems.”
The Showcase’s influence doesn’t end when the tasting tables are cleared—at its best, the event is a jumping off point that sparks conversations and collaborations that bridge every juncture of the supply chain, fostering a thriving, intertwined ecosystem. “Variety Showcase captures everything we care about at Glynwood—connecting the people who grow and cultivate our food with the people who cook and eat it,” says June Russell, Glynwood’s Director of Regional Food Programs. “It’s a celebration of what a food system can be.”
Indeed a celebration, the event is part tasting, part agricultural experiment, and part very good excuse to spend a late-summer afternoon on a bucolic Hudson Valley farm. For anyone accustomed to choosing between a few familiar varieties at the grocery store, the Showcase offers a glimpse at just how expansive—and delicious—our agricultural future could be. Visitors flock from as far as the West Coast and as close as the next town over for this one-day only event.
The Variety Showcase takes place Sunday, August 30, from 3 to 7pm at Glynwood Center for Regional Food and Farming in Cold Spring. Tickets are offered on a sliding scale, with no one turned away because of cost. Bus transportation is also available from New York City. Tickets and additional information are available online.
