Final Reflections

 "Coming out of high school I longed for a way to turn my love of food into a career, but knew that I didn’t want to be confined to a kitchen day and night. I settled on a career in journalism instead, hoping that perhaps I someday could integrate it with my passion for food. That opportunity came two years ago when UNH launched its dual major program in EcoGastronomy. Since then, my involvement with the budding program has had a profound effect on my education and on the way I look at the world, particularly in regards to food, of course, but more generally as well.

I have worked to synthesize my two majors of journalism and EcoGastronomy in such a way that my writing may inspire and empower others to reconsider the food they consume. The effect of such efforts is hardly quantifiable, but I would hope that my writing has helped to connect someone—anyone—with a local producer, or caused them to think more deeply when roaming the produce department. As mentioned before, my involvement with, and understanding of, EcoGastronomy has evolved markedly in time. For a more thorough understanding of just what I mean, I’ve included examples of each stage in this sort of personal-professional development. I began my food writing trajectory as something of an undereducated gourmand, critiquing Seacoast restaurants with plenty of zeal, but few qualifications to do so. From there my food writing took something of a militant turn, and I began churning out moralistic manifestoes on sourcing, preparing, and eating food. It is empowering, of course, to unleash such ideas on the world, even if that world is but a Durham microcosm. I don’t regret these writings, of course, though I now consider them somewhat overzealous and perhaps a tad elitist.

More recently, I’ve sought to connect readers with the artisanal producers and business

owners that, through their dedication to high quality food and responsible practices, are slowly changing the way we eat. Last spring I set out to dispel some commonly held myths about raw milk and shared my findings with the UNH community via The New Hampshire. Last summer, while working with New Hampshire Magazine, I was assigned an article about the state’s dozen or so craft breweries. I visited each, interviewed the brew masters, and sat down to compose a brief history of craft brewing in New Hampshire. When the article was published I began getting feedback from a number of readers who had never realized all the state had to offer. I realized then that my weeks of research and interviews hadn’t merely disappeared into the ether; they had created a link between readers and high-quality, artisan food products. Writing like this may seem more innocuous than my earlier Pollan-esque treatises, but I believe them to be more accessible and less alienating than some of my other work, and thereby I think they are probably more powerful and more effective.

In essence, my experience with the EcoGastronomy dual major has afforded me countless opportunities to become more involved with, and aware of, my food system on both an academic and practical level, an advantageous combination that I believe is far too rare in higher education today. Perhaps most exciting, however, is the fact that our much-needed food revolution – though growing rapidly – is still in its beginning stages, meaning that now more than ever our food system is in need of forward-thinking individuals to build upon the progress made by others. To that I say count me in." 
Matt Benham, UNH graduate Fall 2010

Appreciating the Green Zebra

Tom Wagner aka Tater-Mater

EcoGastronomy was very fortunate to have been contacted by  plant breeder, Tom Wagner.  Tom has been breeding plants, mostly tomatoes and potatoes, for 54 years. He is the founder of Tater-Mater Seeds, and he's introduced some of the most beautiful tomato varieties that have ever been seen -Green Zebra, Schimmeig Stoo, Schimmeig Creg, Banana Legs.  Some of his beautiful potato varieties include  Kern Toro, Regis Summit, and Tom Boy.  Tom was kind enough to share the development of his most famous variety and this blog's namesake:  The Green Zebra.  Ta Da! 

 "The genesis of the Green Zebra goes back to when I first started crossing tomatoes in 1954.  I was raised in a large family that believed in keeping what is now called Heirloom tomatoes.  We had one that my great grandmother brought over from Graben Neudorf, Germany when she immigrated to this country in 1888.  But at that time we all believed that varieties run out, run their course, and new blood was needed.  Crossing Sioux with the German tomato (that is what we called it) was not a bad cross, so I kept going and going.

I had Evergreen from Gleckler’s in the 1950’s and it cracked so badly that I could hardly get a fruit into the kitchen without it splitting wide open in my hands.  To the rescue I got some tomatoes from a greenhouse grower that went on and on about how this variety he had did not crack.  I crossed it with Evergreen and got a hybrid tomato that was boring…a red tomato that cracked!  It was only by selfing (saving the seed) that I was able to find a stable selection that was not only green again, but did not crack.  Hurray!

Step two: I had traveled to Ames, Iowa to visit the tomato collections at the government station.  After a long visit, I walked through hundreds of varieties of tomatoes out in the field being grown for seed increase and found a vine that had green stripes on the un-ripe fruits.  The ripes fruits were red with light yellow stripes.  I picked one tomato and grew out the plants the next year and got some tomatoes with some stripes –not many---but it too, cracked.  I then crossed this striped tomato with a variety from Burgess Seed company that did not crack.  The hybrid was a tomato without stripes and it cracked as well.  You know the story by now; after several years of selfing I was able to find one plant that had no cracked fruit and still had some stripes.

Third event was when I crossed my improved Evergreen tomato with no cracking with a striped tomato with no cracking and …presto!  ..An ordinary red tomato that did not crack.  It took several more years of selfing before I found a prototype of my Green Zebra; green flesh and green stripes with no cracking.  When I increased the seed during summer and winter grow-outs in the greenhouse, I was seeking more tang in the flavor and that stayed with the eventual release of Green Zebra in my initial catalog in 1983 called Tater Mater Seeds.  The rest is history."

If you wish Tom can put you on his newsletter and catalog list. tatermater.proboards.com and tater-mater.blogspot.com

Thanks, Tom!