Tag: Local Foods

Man teaching outdoors with wood-fired oven and students

World-Class Chef Daniel Humm To Visit Adirondacks for Day of Conversation on Sustainable Agriculture Future in the Region

Written by Isabella Susino on 09/30/2026. Posted in Adirondack Harvest Members, Events & Festivals.

By T.J. Brearton | Contributing Writer

Biodiversity starts on our plates. That’s the philosophy of renowned chef Daniel Humm, a Relais & Châteaux member and UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador for Food Education, and why he’ll be in the Adirondack Park on October 6, 2026.

“Humm is a rock star in the culinary world,” said James Brangan, co-chair of the Champlain-Adirondack Biosphere Network. “We hope his visit will put a spotlight on the agricultural opportunities in the Adirondacks, while highlighting our rich cultural and natural heritage.”

Chef Humm will be part of an exciting, unique event curated by Paul Smith’s College – a food “tasting” at Tucker Farms, followed by a robust panel discussion at Paul Smith’s Visitors Interpretive Center, and finally to a sugarbush forest for a conversation with “Maple Mike” Rechlin and some sweet treats.

Truck filled with harvested potatoes in a field — Harvesting a bumper potato crop at Tucker Farms. Photo by Richard E Tucker.

The event will highlight the dynamism between food service professionals – chefs, bakers, hospitality professionals, other food system stakeholders – and food producers.

“Chefs focus on seasonal, local cooking,” said Robert Dumas, Director of the Paul Smith’s College Institute of Adventure Hospitality and Food. Daniel Humm – one of the best chefs of his generation – is no exception. Humm earned his first Michelin star at age 24, and during the Covid-19 Pandemic, turned his fine-dining Manhattan restaurant, Eleven Madison Park, into a commissary kitchen that prepared more than a million meals for frontline workers and underserved communities. Humm made history when he reopened with a fully plant-based menu, and the restaurant went on to be the first and only plant-based restaurant to earn three Michelin stars. Today, he partners with Magic Farms in Hoosick, NY, where produce is grown exclusively for his seasonal menus.

This seasonal, local cooking, Dumas says, is the key to a more sustainable food system. It’s not about getting tomatoes any time of year, but working with nature and the local environment.

Defining a “sustainable and equitable food system”

The Adirondacks are part of the Champlain-Adirondack Biosphere Reserve, one of only 28 such reserves in the United States.

The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) works closely with the Champlain-Adirondack Biosphere Network (CABN) which covers over seven million acres—including the Lake Champlain watershed, Adirondack Park, and Green Mountain National Forest. Combining a massive protected wilderness with a large human population, the Champlain-Adirondack Biosphere Reserve is a model for balancing nature and communities. At over seven million acres, it’s the largest protected area in the eastern United States, supporting roughly 200 bird species, 58 mammals, 1,400 plants, and thousands of aquatic and terrestrial life forms.

Unlike remote wilderness areas, over 400,000 to 650,000 people live inside the reserve across small towns, villages, and working farms, making it a living laboratory for sustainability. And, sitting within a single day’s drive for roughly 60 million people in the U.S. and Canada, it’s an accessible hub for conservation education. The region, too, holds deep cultural roots for original native stewards, including the Mohawk, Abenaki, and Huron-Wendat nations.

CABN works to connect local communities, agencies, and scientists. It focuses on sustainable development and environmental conservation, and it does so in collaboration with the Champlain Valley National Heritage Partnership, to promote sustainable futures across the shared landscape.

One of the ways to do this is through food.

“Humans relate to their environment through agriculture and food,” said Benjamin Brosseau, Director of Communications at Paul Smiths College.

Or to put it another way – “Everybody eats,” Chef Dumas said with a laugh.

Cooking class with chef and participants in a kitchen — Chef Robert Dumas leading a culinary training at Paul Smiths during the peak of maple season. Photo by Isabella Susino.

Bottom line, our relationship to food is fundamental. And so, an event of this nature truly impacts everyone in the region. Fine-dining in New York City that shifts focus to more sustainable plant-based, local, and seasonal food sources is just one lens. As global food systems endure shocks from a changing climate and geopolitical activity, locality and seasonality are shifting from preference to necessity. It’s a profound opportunity to reconnect with our rich culinary history, and to move forward together – a world-class chef coming together with local expertise at a UNESCO event.

The event: a day of good food, deep conversation, and our Champlain-Adirondack heritage

Chef Humm’s Adirondack tour will begin at Tucker Farms, one of the oldest farms in the region. Started in Gabriels, NY in the mid-1800s, the farm’s high elevation makes it ideal for growing vigorous, top-quality, disease-free seed potatoes. On October 6, 2026, Chef Humm will meet the Tucker family in their historic barn to break bread, with Paul Smiths culinary students and faculty joining in for a “potato-centric” meal.

The afternoon panel discussion, open to the public and taking place from 1-3 PM at the Paul Smiths College Visitor Interpretive Center, will explore the challenges, achievements, and future opportunities of the Champlain-Adirondack Biosphere Network, including details about the Food Futures Lab, the latest in a network of “living laboratories” where people work with nature to conserve biodiversity and advance sustainable development.

That evening, Humm will visit Paul Smiths College’s Sugarbush and the on-campus “Sugarshack” for a tasting of Paul Smith College’s maple syrup. The tour will be hosted by “Maple Mike” Rechlin, a Paul Smith’s lecturer on maple sap and syrup production.

Paul Smiths Sugarbush sign in a snowy forest — Paul Smith’s College manages two demonstration sugarbushes to showcase traditional and modern sap collection systems. Photo by Isabella Susino.

The main course: A conversation with Chef Daniel Humm & the Champlain-Adirondack Biosphere Network

Four panelists will join Humm for the discussion moderated by Dumas: SUNY Potsdam professor and archaeologist Dr. Hadley Kruczek, small-farmer Aaron Caiazza of Kate Mountain Farm, Jim Brangan of CABN, and Cornell Cooperative Extension of Essex County Executive Director Elizabeth Lee.

Aerial view of rural farm with greenhouses and gardens — Aerial view of Kate Mountain Farm capturing the diversity of pastured/forested livestock, vegetable production, sustainable forestry and more. Photo by Kate Mountain Farm.

The conversation will range, with questions abounding. What did our indigenous peoples focus on culinarily? What do our 19th-century communities have to teach us about modern farms, foodways, and the relationships between people and land in the Adirondacks and beyond?

What about today’s small farmers? Or anyone who wants to get growing? Caiazza transformed his family property from timber harvest into livestock and vegetable production. CABN’s “Biosphere in Your Backyard” initiative highlights local projects, people and places supporting sustainable development, and Lee’s role with Cornell Cooperative Extension of Essex County helps identify new agricultural opportunities for the region and potential funding sources for sustainability projects. Humm has spoken at global forums, including the UN Climate Change Conference and Global Citizen Summit, alongside world leaders, advocating for sustainable and equitable food systems, so he’ll be right at home here.

Dumas sees it as a chance for food service professionals to dialog with food producers, chefs, bakers, hospitality professionals, together with agricultural producers, economic development professionals, all mixing with Adirondack community members interested in great food, local agriculture, and a resilient future.

“We’re building upon a partnership that started in 2024 with Humm’s visit,” Brangan said, “where we’ll discuss food systems, biodiversity, and opportunities for collaboration.”

In-person registration for the panel discussion is currently full, but a live stream of the event will also be broadcasted via the Paul Smith’s College YouTube channel.

What is biodiversity and why does it matter?

Biodiversity is the wide variety of all living things on Earth, including animals, plants, fungi, and tiny microorganisms. The word comes from “bio” (life) and “diversity” (variety). It covers everything from tiny bacteria to massive trees and whales, and how they all work together in nature.

The rich mix of life gives us the air we breathe, clean water, and fertile soil for food.

Human activities such as monocropping, deforestation, pollution, and overfishing put intense pressure on Earth’s variety of life.

There is no one solution; there are many. Growing in our relationship to food, understanding the relationship between the land, its animals and plants, and our plates, is one of those ways. It is also perhaps the most delicious.

Children smiling outdoors near a tree with sap collection equipment

Rooted in Learning Program Wraps Another Year, and Starts Looking Toward 2027

Written by Isabella Susino on 09/29/2026. Posted in Ag in the Classroom, Farm to School.

By Tim Rowland | Contributing Writer

Over the past year, elementary students in three Essex County schools have learned to shop at farmers’ markets, watched syrup producers tap maple trees, and eaten vegetables that they have raised themselves in their classroom.

Some have even learned to like beets.

Educating students about the benefits of healthy, locally-grown foods involves many things, and is at times rewarding and at other times challenging — but it is always interesting.

Cornell Cooperative Extension of Essex County‘s Ellie Hoffman and Kate Graziano spent the past school year visiting classrooms in AuSable Valley, Boquet Valley and Ticonderoga school districts as part of a Harvest NY grant-funded program called Rooted in Learning, which was folded into CCE’s Agriculture in the Classroom initiative.

Food is the most fundamental building block of human life, and proper nutrition is essential to learning. Yet important as it is, food is not typically taught in schools, and too often not in homes, either.

Children making smoothies with carrots in classroom — Fourth graders at Ticonderoga Elementary juice root vegetables as part of an Agriculture in the Classroom lesson. Photo by Ellie Hoffman.

Rooted in Learning educatesd students about where their food comes from via local farms and farmers. Frequently it would be a revelation to children to learn that the food that magically appears on a cafeteria tray might be produced just a few miles from their school.

The goal going in, Hoffman said, was to give kids a different way of looking at something they encounter every day without thinking much about it. “We wanted to really highlight that in a new way for them, to make them think about food and where it comes from and the food that grows in this area and how it’s grown,” she said.

Just as important, Graziano added, was reaching the teachers who would carry those lessons forward long after CCE Essex’s educators had moved on to the next classroom. “Learning about agriculture, learning about local food can be just a regular part of the school day,” she said. “It can be incorporated with math, science, language arts — it goes with really everything.”

The program ran on three legs: monthly Agriculture in the Classroom lessons, farm field trips where students visited working farms, and pop-up farmers’ markets held on school grounds. This latter event was a pilot that Hoffman called “a farm field trip in reverse,” with farmers bringing their tents, tables and products to the kids instead of the other way around.

Boquet Valley saw roughly 100 students through the classroom lessons, AuSable Forks about 45, and Ticonderoga about 90. But the markets, open to every elementary grade rather than just the classrooms CCE Essex visited monthly, pushed the program’s real reach closer to 600 students across the three districts.

Children baking together with a metal mixing bowl — Second graders from Boquet Valley Lake View Campus pose with butter made during an Agriculture in the Classroom lesson. Photo by Call of the Loon Productions.

It was the markets that produced the year’s clearest surprise. Graziano recalled a teacher who polled her class before one market and found that nearly all of the students had never been to a farmers market in their lives.

Farmers learned too, as they modified their displays to accommodate a younger audience. It left an impression on kids as well, both by design and by happy coincidence. One market happened to land on the same day as a school field day, meaning farm tables shared space among the bounce houses and relay races. “It created this impression that a market is a fun thing to do alongside the other field day activities,” Hoffman said, “that it was just as exciting and worthwhile.”

Farmers noticed the same thing from the other side of the table. Several returned for a second market after the first, and Hoffman said the format seemed to work because the idea of tabling at a farmers’ market was familiar, even if the audience was unique.

“It was a nice balance between something familiar and something new for the kids, too,” she said, and one that let students meet personable growers like Rachelle Waters of AHA Mushrooms or Dan and Kimmy Rivera of Triple Green Jade Farm on the kids’ own turf.

Other producers found creative ways to become involved. Jenna Mulbury, co-owner of Northern Orchards, supplied multiple varieties of apples for Agriculture in the Classroom lessons, each with different tastes. Kids identified sweet, tart or — picking up on a trend toward more authentic fruit — “applely.”

Man and girl mixing ingredients in a classroom — Dan Rivera of Triple Green Jade Farm helped Boquet Valley students mill their own flour. Photo by Call of the Loon Productions.

Through Agriculture in the Classroom, young students also learned what it was like to grow a crop of microgreens, watching them mature in classroom windows and tasting the finished product. It wasn’t always a success: Radish microgreens proved a little too peppery for young taste buds. But celery and carrot microgreens were better, and broccoli microgreens turned out to be the surprise hit of the school year.

Butternut squash soup was a “meh,” so educators changed tactics, switching to roasted squash cubes dusted with pumpkin pie spice, which won points on smell alone. And a beet-tasting lesson expanded from raw beets alone to include a batch of homemade “ABC juice” — apple, beet and carrot — a nod to the idea that a vegetable a child rejects in one form might win them over in another.

That lesson, Hoffman said, doubles as the year’s biggest takeaway about what actually stands between kids and a healthy diet. It isn’t simply competition from processed food and its marketing budgets — it’s expectation. “There are expectations, both spoken and unspoken, that kids will or will not like certain things,” she said. “And kids absorb that.”

An adult telling a kid, “you probably won’t like this,” can do more to close a child’s mind than the food itself. The moments both educators found most encouraging were the ones where a student tried something anyway, sometimes precisely because a braver classmate had gone first. “It’s kind of like a positive peer pressure,” Graziano said.

Looking to the coming year, CCE will continue to focus on the three C’s: classroom, cafeteria and community. The first two, Graziano said, got plenty of attention this year, through lessons and cafeteria partnerships on local food procurement. The third — what happens once a lesson leaves the classroom and follows a student home — is the piece both educators want to build out next.

That effort starts this fall with take-home packets that include a short recap of each classroom lesson, discussion questions parents can raise over dinner, a coloring sheet and recipes using whatever produce a particular lesson featured. “We want to keep that lesson and those ideas alive at home,” Graziano said.

In this regard, Farm to School will live on beyond the classroom walls, and broaden the perspectives not just of the kids, but families as well. Students might get their parents to try a healthy recipe, implore them to pull over at a farmers’ market or raise a few vegetables in the backyard. It wouldn’t be the first time adults learned a little something from the kids.

Incorporating Locally Produced Foods into School Cafeteria Menus Through Farm to School

Written by Isabella Susino on 06/11/2026. Posted in Ag in the Classroom.

To a student armed with a lunch tray and an appetite, a cafeteria line looks deceptively simple. The food magically appears, with no hint of the legalities, formulas and contracts that get it from the producers to the trays.

Behind the scenes, there’s a lot going on, including work with state and federal agencies and local producers to get children the food they need. It isn’t always easy, and adds nuance to an already complex system.

Person serving food on tray in cafeteria — Sasha Pulsifer, Food Service Helper and Garden Club Lead at Boquet Valley Central School’s Lake View Campus. Photo by Isabella Susino.

“In New York State there are general laws that outline the different procurement thresholds and tiers that all businesses or institutions, schools, state agencies and county governments need to follow to ensure proper procurement,” said Meghan Dohman, North Country Farm to School Procurement Specialist for Cornell Cooperative Extension Harvest New York.

The laws are in place to prevent sweetheart deals, favoritism and conflict of interest, but the process can be very cumbersome. Typically, the laws require schools to have three quotes from prospective local vendors to submit before moving forward with contracts.

North Country school districts participating in the Champlain Valley Educational Services (CVES) scratch-cooking program, which seeks to jettison sugar and ultra-processed foods in favor of whole foods grown closer to home, do have tools that can help.

Districts can, for example, prioritize geographic proximity or special criteria when ordering foods. But there are complexities. Geographically prioritized food must be in a raw state, which eliminates products like tomato sauce, even if it’s healthy tomato sauce. Cafeterias can write in criteria that help local farmers compete, but that just recalibrates the formula; it’s not a sure-fire way to guarantee cafeteria foods will be locally sourced.

“Geographic Preference bids have criteria that favors more localized producers, but there are still times when a statewide producer may have a product that’s cheaper, and even though they’re not hitting all of the criteria, they might still win the bid,” Dohman said.

Cafeteria meal tray with burger, fruit, and veggies — Boquet Valley CSD lunch tray given to a student. Photo by Isabella Susino.

School menus are as much about math as they are about food. Nice as it might be to get every element of a meal from healthy, local sources, federal funding presumes big commodity purchases from corporations that may not be in line with the mission but are necessary to lower the overall cost per meal.

Districts make tactical purchases of cheap products, knowing that it will allow them to work more healthy, local food into their menus and budgets.

“The cafeterias have their own budget line, and they have to be self-sufficient,” Dohman said. “So they’re putting meals together for pennies on the dollar, and a commodity allocation from the government is the only way that they can spend any money on local food and afford the meals they do.”

Along with the federal government, the state has a hand in the process, rewarding districts that obtain 30% of their food from New York — a goal CVES-affiliated districts exceed, said Julie Holbrook, Shared Food Service Director for CVES.

Once all the paperwork is done, cafeterias can focus on putting healthy foods into cafeteria meals.

“There are a lot of ways we can use local ingredients,” Holbrook said. “With the way that we do our program with scratch cooking, it allows us to incorporate local food, and not just fruits and salad bar items — we incorporate things into our recipes like local onions in all our sauces. All those things add up. We have a farmer who just reached out who said, ‘Hey, I’ve got a lot of butternut squash,’ so we have the ability with our ovens to actually bake down a lot of butternut squash, freeze it in sizable portions, and make muffins out of it, or serve it as a hot vegetable.”

Barrett Miller, school lunch manager at CEWW BOCES, whose territory includes four North Country counties, said the process must be focused enough to do long-term meal planning, but also flexible enough to account for what foods are available in-season and the popularity of foods among the kids — which can vary from school to school.

“We always try to listen to and allow the cafeteria staff that’s actually there every day to have their opinion on what they know that the kids are really enjoying, because they’re seeing it there firsthand,” Miller said. “Local food doesn’t do any good if the students don’t want to eat it.”

At the same time, cafeterias are enticing children to try new things, and there are multiple tricks of the trade to encourage them to do so. For example, they might not care much about nutritional values, Holbrook said, but if you suggest that a menu item is “brain food,” they are more apt to try — especially if they have a test coming up.

Person adding mustard to a hamburger on a tray — Lunch service personnel putting mustard on a student’s burger. Photo by Isabella Susino.

“We know that physically, mentally, emotionally, it makes a difference in their days when they have local organic eggs and local organic yogurt for breakfast,” Holbrook said. “They’re going to have a better day, academically, emotionally and physically. So it doesn’t take long before the buy-in comes.”

Cornell Cooperative Extension programs, including the Rooted in Learning program, also help, with hands-on lessons and education that prepare kids to think more deeply about the foods they eat and where these foods come from.

Those programs supplement cafeteria staff that are more aware today of the importance of good food — and feel empowered to do their part in educating students.

To get kids to try something new, little tastes or “bites” will be put on their trays. Even if students are reluctant to eat it, they can smell, touch, observe its color, and basically become more familiar with new things.

Because food directly contributes to educational outcomes, cafeteria staff find their work more rewarding.

“For us food is about more than what’s on the lunch tray,” said Sasha Pulsifer, a cook at Boquet Valley’s Lakeview campus in Westport. “We’re helping students learn that food fuels their bodies and connects them to our community. By serving local products whenever possible, we’re giving kids a chance to experience fresh foods, try new things, and build healthy habits — without pressure.”

Making the buy-in easier is the quality of local foods, Miller said. A carrot that’s just been pulled from a local field is sweeter, crisper and more colorful than those that show up in a box from a continent away. It also matters to students that it was grown a few miles from their school and makes them more curious about their local farms and agriculture.

“Our school lunch program supports learning beyond the classroom,” Pulsifer said. “When students see and taste local foods, they connect lessons from science, geography, and health to real life. Our goal is simple: create confident, curious eaters who feel good about food.”

Rather than an afterthought, the cafeteria becomes a classroom in its own right, inspiring discussion not just of food, but of all the things that food touches.

Spring Foraging in the Adirondacks Brings Bountiful Harvests, If You Know Where to Look

Written by Isabella Susino on 05/14/2026. Posted in Agritourism.

By Tim Rowland | Contributing Writer

Our species has gotten good at strolling through supermarket aisles, ordering off menus and even growing neat rows of peas in raised beds of perfectly fluffed compost. But somewhere, buried deep in our instinctual hardwiring, is a craving to paw around in the forest duff for sustenance, much as our hairy ancestors would have done thousands of millennia before DoorDash, or online foraging apps.

Most people who have developed a relationship with foraging have a natural-food origin story that happened when they were young and blossomed into the careers and kitchens of adult life.

Foragers seek out ramps in the Adirondack High Peaks region. Photo by Joey Goliber.

“I was most certainly born with it; one of my earliest memories is foraging hazelnuts off a bush when I must have been under eight years old,” said Melanie Sawyer, a teacher of foraging, history and wilderness survival. “I remember realizing they were edible and foraging them off a bush on the way to school, and eating them and just really loving it. And then the more I got into the wild areas, the plethora of wild food is just absolutely incredible, but nobody really realizes what they’re walking past every day.”

Sawyer, who lives off-grid in Moriah, said she is “fascinated by the fact that you can find food that doesn’t have chemicals and steroids in it, because I just see processed food as the gateway to so many of the diseases that we suffer from these days.”

Spring foraging in the North Country rolls around each May, and offers a brief but bountiful array of plants that are not only super-nutritious but are something you would be proud to serve to the most discerning of dinner guests.

Responsibility, sustainability and ethics of foraging

Know before you go. Be sure to study up on your local environment, get guidebooks and other sources of factual information before you begin your foraging adventure. Wild edibles vary greatly region to region, season, and native/non-native plants (Baillargeon, Field Mag). Start easy, with wild foods that you’re 100% certain on and never bring anything home unless you’re that sure. Your local trails may have regulations and stipulations on foraging practices, be sure to find out what these are before harvesting.

Leave No Trace. Leave the forest cleaner than when you visited. Just like camping and hiking, following the Leave No Trace principles and holding yourself and others accountable positively impacts our environment. Being respectful of our Forever Wild places in the Adirondacks while foraging creates lasting impact, this also includes bringing another bag for litter or trash, in case you find any.

Respect traditional knowledge and Indigenous stewardship. Overharvesting can be a symptom of skill-based learning, rather than relationship building with our environment. “Collectively, we will ensure that we protect the plant, meet its needs, and help it thrive as it helps us heal. Food as medicine means taking care of plants just as they take care of us,” (North American Traditional Indigenous Food Systems).

Don’t reveal locations of foraging sites. Sharing on social media (yes, even Strava and other geolocational apps) and with others can lead to overcrowding, degradation and destruction of wild places (Baillargeon, Field Mag).

Harvest invasive species. “Invasive wild plant species can be a huge issue, leading to the endangerment or decline of native plants, so harvesting them is a great way to help out your native flora,” said Zoe Baillargeon in her article A Modern Guide to Ethical, Sustainable Foraging.

Harvest a small amount to allow for regeneration. Avoid digging up whole plants, and if you accidentally do – replant them, the seeds or seedlings (Waters, Environment).

Now onto the best part — finding what to forage in the Adirondacks during springtime.

Green leaves growing among brown leaves on forest floor — Ramps in their natural environment before harvesting.

Ramps: wildly grown and herbaceous spring onions, with a garlicky twist

Perhaps Mother Nature planned it this way, but one of the earliest plants to pop from the forest floor is also among the most nutritious. Ramps, with broad edible leaves and a bulb like a small onion, are chock full of vitamins and minerals and are believed to be effective fighters against cancer and heart disease. Research at West Virginia University has confirmed their ability to lower blood pressure.

Hands holding a ramp plant with root bulb, stem and leaf — A whole ramp harvested to show the bulb, stem and leaf.

Pots on stove with water and leaves — A whole ramp harvested to show the bulb, stem and leaf.

Chef Robert Dumas, director of the Institute of Adventure Hospitality and Food at Paul Smith’s College, incorporates ramps into a number of recipes — but the hunting can be just as appealing as the eating.

“I think there’s something really exciting about ephemeral spring greens,” Dumas said. “It’s the whole engagement of going outside and harvesting some food. It’s hard to describe the feeling that you get — it feels very right when you’re doing it, and I would assume that’s because humans fed themselves that way for millions of years.”

Ramps typically grow along rivers, or in low, damp areas, and resemble a broad-leafed spring onion. It’s important to harvest them decisively, either by clipping one of the three green leaves or digging a couple out of a cluster, which, as with dividing flower bulbs, can fuel future growth.

“I try to make it look like no one’s ever been where I picked,” he said. “And do yourself a favor and put clean ramps in your bag as best as you can. When you dig them out of the ground, take a second to kind of run your finger down the outside of it, stripping away any of the excess dirt; you’ll end up with a lot less gritty product once you’re back in the kitchen.”

Like many foraged greens, washing and cooking is important, both from a food-safety standpoint and for palatability. Dumas will throw ramps on a barbecue grill or place them under a broiler for a little char and serve with “green goddess” dressing or a chimichurri.

Person holding a plant in a forest — Robert Dumas exploring nature’s bounty of fresh ramp greens. Photo provided.

Green onions on a grill with a forest background — Robert Dumas exploring nature’s bounty of fresh ramp greens. Photo provided.

Another method is to blanch the leaves — a quick boil in a pot of salted water followed by a plunge in an ice water bath — and using them in your favorite pesto recipe. Because of the intensity of ramps, Dumas cuts them with spinach leaves and prefers pistachios to pine nuts.

For chimichurri, “Once they come off the grill and cool down, give them a nice chop and then add in olive oil, a little bit of some sort of chili to add a little bit of heat, then add salt, pepper and red wine vinegar, and it’s a wonderful condiment to top things like grilled seafoods, grilled poultry, and it’s also really good on roasted potatoes.”

Fiddlehead ferns: the “asparagus” of the northeast forests

Fiddlehead ferns, which are the sprout of an ostrich fern, is another popular foraging target that also grows primarily on riverbanks. Dumas said it’s distinguished by a V-shaped stem and the brown papery layer covering the coil. Again, ethical harvesting is important — just cut a couple out of the bunch as they emerge from the ground.

Boiling green vegetables in a large pot — Wild fiddlehead ferns.

After blanching, the classic preparation is to sauté in butter and serve next to the trout that you’ve just pulled from the same stream. But they are also good pickled, or served in most any you would cook asparagus, which their flavor resembles.

Stinging nettles: a highly nutritious spinach alternative

Dumas’ sneaky-good foraging target is stinging nettles, a plant most people go out of their way to avoid. “Stinging nettles are fantastic — they’re super nutritious and relatively easy to identify,” he said. “You’ve got to take a little bit of precaution in the harvesting of them, but as soon as you blanch them, the sting goes away, and you’re left with an ultra nutritious green that tastes a lot like spinach and is just as fantastic as a sauteed green, chopped up, mixed with ricotta and used as a pasta filling, in soups or omelets.”

Pick them when they’re about a foot high, plus overharvesting of this aggressive weed is not an issue. Dumas likes them so much he has even transplanted them to his own property to have a ready supply.

Stinging nettle by Lucas Negredo Sagarzazu.

Propagation of nutritious and healing plants is an area of increasing public interest, but one that’s been around for a long time. Herbalist Jane Desotelle started in 1978 when her newly minted philosophy degree was proving unpopular with the hiring commercial sector.

Today, Underwood Herbs offers medicinal plants, dried and fresh herbs, oils, wreaths and sachets. She also leads workshops teaching people about the benefits of wild plants.

When she was a girl, Desotelle’s mom would send her into the backyard with a bowl to collect greens for the supper table, so she was open to the idea of wild plants when, during down time at a work-study job in the college library, she stumbled upon books of medieval recipes and potions.

In those pre-internet days, conferences, field guides and time spent walking old pastures translated into a business, selling to a co-op and New England gift shops that were beginning to discover the appeal of local products. That nascent interest has blossomed through the years, as Desotelle is finding plenty of takers for her tours.

“Food is getting more expensive, and people are worrying about what they get in the grocery stores,” she said.

Because of today’s emphasis on pills and chemicals, Desotelle said we’ve largely forgotten the catalog, hundreds of thousands of years old, of human healing experience using plants. Indeed, she said, more doctors are coming around to the “food is medicine” theory that suggests good or bad health is dictated by good or bad food. Our forebears may not have had the whiz-bang drugs of today, but neither did they have today’s range of diseases to treat. “I think a lot of the doctors are coming around to ‘Yeah, it’s all coming down to diet,’” she said.

Running an AirBnB farmstay alongside Ben Wever Farm in Willsboro, Pierre-Luc Gélineau said people without rural upbringings are showing an interest in wild foods — something that has the potential to be incorporated into agritourism. “We’ve had people look for mushrooms or other things, and it’s a big learning experience,” he said. “They don’t realize what’s accessible. And some of the edible or medicinal plants are typically what’s considered to be weeds. So you don’t really have to go to a remote place to find plants that are useful.”

Mushrooms: so many varieties to find in the Adirondacks

Fungi growing on tree bark in forest — Turkey Tail mushrooms can be found between May and December, but are also be found year-round.

Mushrooms, a highly coveted spring delectable, are also a popular topic and people are amazed at how many there are, mainly because they’ve never taken the time to look. “A lot of people who stay here are from urban areas and don’t really have the opportunity to get out in nature that much, so to give them a chance to connect and understand how nature works, to me, means a lot,” Gélineau said. “If (farmers) could help complement their income streams with more demand from that, you are doing a good thing, but you’re also making a living out of it. It’s kind of a win, win.”

For Sawyer, learning — and that there is so much to learn — is part of the magic. George Washington learned it when his troops were starving in a harsh, northeastern winter. The Mohicans were surviving in that same environment, the general discovered, on rock tripe lichen and tree cambium, which could be harvested without expending a lot of energy, and provided basic carbohydrates and starches.

“Those two things were very prevalent, and they must have saved many, many lives,” Sawyer said.

Knowledge such as this has modern applications. Lyme disease, with which modern science has struggled to address, may be treated with Japanese knotweed, which in environmental circles, is a hated invasive. “There is definite link between the chemical makeup of the Japanese knotweed and its efficacy in being able to stop some of the inflammation flare ups associated with Lyme,” said Sawyer, who treats the springtime knotweed spears like asparagus when young and like rhubarb when the shoots get taller.

“I’m fascinated by what nature has to offer, and I am fascinated by the fact that you can find food that doesn’t have chemicals and steroids in it, because I just see processed food in any which shape or form as kind of the gateway to so many of the diseases that we suffer from these days,” Sawyer said. “For me, it’s just fascinating what you can do with nature.”

AuSable Forks Elementary Students Get A Sweet Introduction At The Uihlein Maple Research Forest

Written by Isabella Susino on 04/15/2026. Posted in Ag in the Classroom.

By Tim Rowland | Contributing Writer

Freed of the walled confines of AuSable Forks Elementary School, 19 second graders sprinted up a snowy hill to explore the sugarbush where 6,500 maple trees are tapped each year by Cornell University’s Uihlein Maple Research Forest in Lake Placid.

Rustic buildings with steam rising from the roof — Cornell University Uihlein Maple Research Forest. Photo by Isabella Susino.

The class was there as part of Cornell Cooperative Extension of Essex County’s (CCE Essex) Rooted in Learning program, which explores local farms and foods, increasing students’ awareness of where their food comes from, and how positive food choices will help them lead healthy lives.

Second-grade teacher Liz Donahue said exploration of Adirondack forests also expands the children’s connection to the land and culture.

Thanks to a previous maple tree-tapping demonstration by CCE Essex Community Vitality Resource Educator Ellie Hoffman, the second graders understood the fundamentals of sugaring already. At the Uihlein Forest, they learned that it can be a long way from tree to pancake, with a lot of pipelines and big machinery in between.

“Farm field trips are where Farm to School programs come full circle,” Hoffman said. “Students might learn about agriculture in the classroom through hands-on activities and taste the products of that agriculture in their school cafeterias, but the farm or forest is where they discover how those products got to the cafeteria, and why knowing that matters.”

Director Adam Wild with AuSable Forks second grade students in the sugarbush. Photo by Liz Donahue.

Adam Wild, Director of the Uihlein Maple Research Forest, began by explaining how maple trees are identified in the forest by the color and texture of the bark. Maples were also identifiable by the blue piping affixed to their trunks, but that was cheating.

“These are natural, native forests,” Wild said. “These trees weren’t planted, so maple’s kind of cool in that we’re working in these natural forests in our Adirondack Mountains, and that’s where we get the sap from.”

These maples grow alongside other trees, such as fir and birch, and this diversity is good, he said, because it protects the forest as a whole against attacks from pests or disease that affects one particular species.

Uihlein Research Forest sap tubing. Photo by Adam Wild.

Tree with attached hose and metal fixture — Uihlein Research Forest sap tubing. Photo by Adam Wild.

Thirsting for action, the kids cheered when the sap was clearly visible flowing from the tree through the tubing — 100 miles of it in the Uihlein forest — that would send it to the sugar shack below.

If this tubing looks fragile, though, it’s because it is, and leaks can develop by way of a falling tree or a critter gnawing through the plastic. Wild encouraged the students to consider what animals might do the most damage, and they took turns guessing:

Bears? (They probably would, but they’re still hibernating). Bobcats? (Not so much.) Snake? (Haven’t seen one, but you never know.) Werewolves? (Nice try. Squirrels are the correct answer.

Electronics are used to detect these leaks and pinpoint their locations, saving maple technicians hours of walking and guesswork.

Maple trees are tapped when they are about 40 years old or at least 10 inches in diameter. The weather is an important ingredient in the process, with nights below freezing and gentle warmups during the day being ideal.

Maple syrup buckets hanging on trees in snowy forest — Maple forest with buckets attached to trees in winter. Photo by Matt Barnard.

While a bucket hanging from a tree with a wooden tap might be a picturesque icon of the past, it’s not practical at today’s scale. “You tapped one tree, right? Imagine doing that 6,499 more times,” Wild said. “And imagine having to walk up and down this hill in the snow, carrying all those buckets of sap, would that be fun?”

There was firm and universal consensus that it would not.

Noting that he is a maple tree scientist – at which point a student wanted to know if he’s the “mad” kind – Wild said he’s always involved in research projects.

“I’m investigating and trying to find answers from the trees, so I’m measuring the amount of sap that comes from those trees; measuring the temperature using different probes in the trees; measuring the pressure [of the sap inside the trees]; and soil temperatures [surrounding the trees]. Collecting all this data is to get those answers.”

Those answers will help producers improve their yields.

“We’re a little unique here in that we do research to improve maple production, and then we share that with other maple producers, so they can be better maple producers,” Wild said. “Kind of neat, right?”

The AuSable second graders demonstrated a good classroom knowledge of science, understanding things like DNA and how trees are able to produce oxygen. The Rooted in Learning field trip with CCE Essex showed them how these concepts might be put to practical use.

They also offered up some burning questions for Adam about being a scientist:
● Second grader: “Do you create stuff when you’re a scientist?”
● Adam Wild: “Yes, sometimes.”
● Second Grader: “Like monsters?”
● Adam Wild: “No, no monsters yet. But maybe one day we’ll make a Maple Monster.” (General affirmation among the second graders that a Maple Monster would be a laudatory scientific pursuit.)

Uihlein processes up to 12,000 gallons of sap a day. The sap arrives at the sap house downhill from the forest, where separators create a vacuum effect by separating the sap from the air in the tubing.

Sap separators at Uihlein Maple Research Forest. Photo by Isabella Susino.

The sap then transfers and collects in two enormous tanks, appropriately named Percy and Thomas. Wild watched the flow coming into the holding tanks and noted that it was good, but not as good as it could be. As the day warmed he hoped for an increase in sap volume. A good day will yield 150 gallons of syrup at Uihlein Maple Research Forest.

Percy and Thomas the sap collection tanks. Photo by Isabella Susino.

For the kids, it was a bit mind-bending to think that the droplets they saw seeping from the trees in the forest could add up to the gushers of sap filling Thomas and Percy.

They were also interested to learn about new terms, such as “reverse osmosis,” which has superseded much of the old process of boiling away the excess water. Sap now passes through filters that allow water molecules to flow through, while catching larger molecules of sugar and minerals.

Such sights make an impression, Donahue said, but students may also remember small, random details, like picking up a leaf, that will create a pleasant association with the forest.

“It’s nice for them to just get out and be outside for the day, doing something different,” she said. “Some of these kids may have family connections [to maple production] but some may not even go out on the weekends whatsoever — this lets them see what’s all around them in a different way.”

Tree tapping practice with Trever Sheehan, Technician II at Uihlein Maple Research Forest. Photo by Kim Chamberlain.

After practice tapping trees with a drill and a hammer, the students followed the process to the sugar shack, where a gleaming, stainless steel machine awaited to finish off the concentrating process.

“This machine is called an evaporator,” Wild said. “It’s basically a big, fancy stove, and the maple syrup is cooking down inside there.”

The sap evaporator at Uihlein Maple Research Forest. Photo by Isabella Susino.

The evaporator can make a gallon a minute, and by the end of the season, Wild hopes to have produced 3,000 gallons of syrup. And just to make sure it’s good, he had 19 quality control volunteers at his disposal, willing to give his latest batch a try. It was a sweet way to end an educational morning.

“By supporting schools in bringing kids to a farm for the day, we give students a chance to engage with the places where their food was grown, raised, or produced, and meet the farmers who made it possible,” Hoffman said. “It’s a place-based educational experience that connects the three C’s of Farm to School — classroom, cafeteria, and community — in a memorably adventurous way.”

Kids gather around the POP Club booth's table to assemble apple owls.

Successful summer programming with the Power of Produce Club

Written by Isabella Susino on 11/18/2025. Posted in Farmers' Markets.

POP Club gives kids a chance to engage with local producers and growers within Essex County.

By Ellie Hoffman | Local Food Educator

The Power of Produce Club, Cornell Cooperative Extension of Essex County’s flagship youth program, offers a hands-on opportunity for free activities and a chance to engage with local produce. The program has wrapped up another successful year, expanding its number of locations, participants, and types of featured produce. In total, educators logged 600+ interactions with youth, a 20% increase from the 2024 season.

Essex County is home to nine summer farmers’ markets, and POP Club was proud to make an appearance at all of them. Elizabethtown, Lake Placid, and Saranac Lake Farmers’ Markets all welcomed POP Club back for another consecutive year, while markets that hosted POP Club for the first time included Schroon Lake, Willsboro, Crown Point, Ticonderoga, Keene Valley, and Port Henry. At all markets, POP Club’s mission was to spread excitement for farm fresh produce and expand kids’ knowledge of and access to locally grown foods.

Each week, the POP Club table featured ways to learn about farms and food through hands-on activities, scavenger hunts, and veggie-themed jokes and trivia. After completing an activity, the participating kids received $5 to purchase any local produce item of their choice from a vendor at the market that day.

“My five year old son was thrilled to receive a $5 bill after he completed the activity. It was a nice surprise! He enjoyed buying peaches from a local farm,” said one Schroon Lake Farmers’ Market attendee.

An owl made from apple pieces and chocolate. — Apple owl model for POP Club.

Thanks to produce donated from local growers such as Northern Orchard and Harvest Hill Farm, POP Club was also able to pilot new activities such as sculpting apple critters and carving zucchini boats. The latter proved attractive not just to kids, but to market shoppers of all ages, as kids, parents, and grandparents stopped to try their hands at creating a seaworthy squash. Many adults also came over to hear from CCE Essex’s Master Gardener Volunteers, who teamed up with POP Club on several occasions to give up-to-date and on-the-spot horticulture advice to budding gardeners.

Photo shows kids assembling POP Club owls

A child named Nolan is posing next to his zucchini boat afloat in the tub of water. — Nolan’s zucchini boat is staying afloat!

Tourists and locals alike remarked on the influence that POP Club had on their experience at the market, with one grandparent noting that “[the kids] were so proud of their Farmers Market purchases…the activities at the market were among their favorite things from [our time in Lake Placid].” POP Club’s role in establishing connections between families and farmers was also mentioned.

“[POP Club] always gives my kids a fun activity that gets them to directly interact with merchants at the farmers market,” said one attendee. Another agreed, saying that “[POP Club scavenger hunts] made them go over to vendors they might not have otherwise.” And with the $5 they received from POP Club activities, kids were empowered to participate in the local food network by buying directly from the market vendors.

“We love seeing kids use their POP money to buy blueberries from us. Often, they walk over with their $5 bills in their hands and make the purchase mostly on their own. POP is not only promoting healthy foods, but also life skills for our young people: the future generation of consumers,” said Laura Cook from The Cook Farm

Connecting families to food and farmers is ultimately what POP Club is all about, and we’re proud to work with so many dedicated growers, producers, and community members to make that happen. We’ll be back in 2026 with fresh ideas and ingredients; stay tuned for a schedule in the spring!

For more information on POP Club, and the Farm to School program, please contact Ellie Hoffman at emh257@cornell.edu or 518-962-4810 ext. 405.

Photographs taken by Ellie Hoffman.

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