Living Roots!

Field Guide to a Perennial Kitchen

Available at all bookstores and directly from Princeton University Press (Press.princeton.edu/books)

As a food writer, cookbook author, and mom, I’ve come to the humbling conclusion that good food relies on good soil. It takes rich, fertile soil to grow the best-tasting, most nutritious food. What’s more, good soil is a key to addressing our dual crisis of climate change and food insecurity.

The new book, LIVING ROOTS: The Promise of Perennial Foods, is an introduction to the regenerative food movement focused on soil health. The collection of essays, poems, and art shares stories of buffalo prairies, urban orchards, and perennial grains, converting our current monoculture of corn, wheat, rice, and soybeans, to the diverse system of crops that sequester carbon, prevent erosion, and withstand extreme weather (drought and floods). These delicious foods provide a fair income for farmers and support thriving rural communities.

With contributions from scientists, farmers, chefs, poets, and indigenous leaders, this book is a behind the scenes tour of the regenerative farming movement that is putting robust plants at the center of our farms and on our plates

Here, you’ll find my essay about Kernza, a perennial cousin of wheat. Its flour adds a nutty, caramel flavor to baked goods, the whole grain makes wonderful cereal; it’s being brewed into beer and distilled into vodka and whiskey. Rea

d stories of chickens raised with hazelnut bushes; lessons of Palestinian olive trees ; the spiritual roots of Black agrarianism, and poems of place and purpose. If you’re hungry for hope, this collection is a good place to start.

KERNZA SHORTBREAD BARS

Kernza Shortbread Bars

Makes 18 bars

The nutty caramel notes of Kernza shine in these simple shortbread bars. If you use 100% Kernza flour, expect a firmer, denser cookie. You’ll find Kernza flour in specialty markets and on-line (see below for resources).

1 cup butter, room temperature

Pinch salt

2/3 cup maple sugar or light brown sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla

2 cups Kernza flour* (or mix of flours)

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees. Line a an 8 or 9-inch baking pan with parchment paper.

Put the butter, sugar, and vanilla into a large bowl and stir to combine. Work in the flour until the mixture resembles small peas and then gather the dough together with your hands.

Pat the dough into the baking pan, prick the dough with a fork, then score the dough into about 18 squares. Bake until golden brown and the edges begin to pull away from the sides, about 35 to 45 minutes (depending on the pan size). Transfer to a wire rack and cut into the scored squares. Allow the bars to cool slightly before removing from the pan.

*Find Kernza flour in specialty grocery stores and from Perennial Pantry

https://perennial-pantry.com/

Left to right: Editor Liz Carlisle, me, contributor Colin Cureton