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Slow Food Tennessee Valley co-founder Sarah Bush picks heirloom tomatoes at Vuck Farm in Riceville.  Élan Young/Hellbender Press

Slow Food ramps up regional food resilience efforts

RICEVILLE — On a hot summer day in late June, Sarah Bush, co-founder of Slow Food Tennessee Valley, slices some varieties of tender heirloom tomatoes freshly picked from tall rows of plants strung up in a giant, covered hoop-style greenhouse before serving them on a cutting board with a bit of farm-fresh chevre and basil.

The tomatoes span hues of yellow, red, green and purple, some a solid color or slightly striped and bearing intriguing names not found in grocery stores: striped Heart, Cherokee evergreen, chocolate stripe and Valencia. The flavor combinations explode into farm-to-table bliss. 

The tomatoes are especially terrific for a reason: Bush, 46, has practiced regenerative farming since she was 28.

Mentored by other small farmers around the country who taught her how to exist and thrive in an economy that favors Big Ag, she now splits her time between Vuck Farm, a biodynamic farm in Riceville owned by her partner TJ Teets, and managing the produce department at Three Rivers Market in Knoxville — Tennessee’s only cooperative grocery.

She also serves on the planning committee for CRAFT (Collaborative Regional Alliance for Farmer Training), which is run by the Southeastern Tennessee chapter of the National Young Farmers Coalition.  

Not a bougie supper club

Founded in 2008, the Tennessee Valley chapter of Slow Food is the only chapter in the state that has remained active since its founding. 

A little more than two decades earlier in 1986, thousands of Italians gathered at the base of the sprawling Piazza di Spagna in the center of Rome to protest the country’s first McDonald’s restaurant. Slow Food’s founder, Italian journalist Carlo Petrini, was among them. Instead of bringing a sign with a slogan, Petrini brought a big bowl of penne pasta to share with the crowd chanting We don’t want fast food. We want Slow Food! Three years later the movement became an official organization and today spans 160 countries.