How to Create Your Own Ark of Taste

How to Create Your Own Ark Display

The Ark of Taste is a list of endangered foods and food traditions that are selected by Slow Food around the world to be documented, preserved, and defended. The SFSC Ark Trunk has the feel of an old-fashioned country pantry of heritage foods in danger of becoming extinct. It is a Trunk because it’s mobile. You may wish to create your own “look” for your local Ark display. Following are some suggestions for creating your display:

  1. Visit the Slow Food USA Ark website to get acquainted with the Ark of Taste—its purpose, its contents, and the process by which an item is voted onto the Ark.
  2. Decide which items from the Ark can be used in a display (i.e., dried, preserved, bottled). Include items from your local area.
  3. Haunt garage sales, E-Bay, etc. for the following
    • Canning jars (for beans, rice, small items)
    • Sturdy suitcases (for transporting Ark supplies)
    • Tinker Toys (for holding seed packets and signage)
    • Packets of seeds (Seed Savers is good resource)
    • Produce boxes (to achieve varying levels on display tables)
    • Baskets for displaying produce (check White Earth Land Recovery for birch bark winnowing baskets, or Native Seed Search)
  4. Locate as many items as you can from the Ark website and store them in canning jars or zip-lock bags, as appropriate. Affix labels or tags to each to identify the item, and create any other desirable signage (e.g., the region where the item is found, uses for the item, etc.).
  5. Collect printed materials, such as:
    • Pamphlets from Native Seed Search and SeedSavers
    • Postcards from American Livestock Breeds Conservancy
    • Seed packets from SeedSavers
    • Ark Reference Binder: Prepare your own 3-ring binder to hold all the material you’ve been able to gather for people to peruse when they’re at your Ark Display. An ultimate goal would be to have one page for each of the items on the Ark of Taste.
  6. Prepare the Ark items for transporting. We wrap each item in shop towels (which you can buy from Costco for about $10-$12 for a bundle of 48) and fit them into the suitcase(s). Print materials also go into the suitcase(s).
  7. Set up the display. There should be 2 volunteers to set up and dismantle the display and stay with the display to answer questions during the event. The volunteers should therefore be knowledgeable in the Ark of Taste.
    • Arrange for 3 long rectangular tables to be at the site.
    • Bring table cloths for the tables. We use colorful ethnic cloths.
    • Arrange for or bring flower displays.
    • Allow sufficient time for setup (at least an hour) and packing up after the event.
    • We use 3 long rectangular tables together for the display. To add some height for some of the items, we use wooden boxes to serve as risers. We cover everything with colorful table cloths.
    • We create holders with Tinker Toys to display seed packets and other signage.
    • Arrange the items artfully. We usually cluster like-items.
  8. Offer tastes of local Ark products in season. Depending on how much will be tasted, 1-2 volunteers (in addition to the Ark Display volunteers) are needed to prepare and offer the food. We usually add a separate table and cloth for tastings, and use the following supplies:
    • Baskets or bowls for fresh fruit and vegetables
    • Cutting boards, knives, dish towels
    • Products to hold the tastes(unbleached baking cups, wooden toothpicks, wooden spoons)
    • Labels and pens to identify what is being sampled
  9. Keep an inventory of your Ark of Taste: Your inventory will be evolving as you discover new items, but here’s a typical Ark display from Slow Food Sonoma County, North:
  • Beans:
  • Bolito, dried
  • White Tepary, dried
  • Santa Maria Pinquito, dried
  • Four Corners Gold, dried
  • Rio Zape, dried
  • Petaluma Gold Rush, dried
  • Marrowfat, dried
  • Beverages:
  • Gravenstein apple juice
  • Hand-crafted root beer
  • Syrups:
  • Traditional sorghum syrup
  • Alaskan birch syrup
  • Traditional cane syrup
  • Grain:
  • Chapolote corn, dried ears
  • Wild rice flour, bag
  • Wild rice, bag
  • Iroquois Tuscarora white corn meal
  • White flint corn, bag
  • Shells:
  • Red Abalone
  • Olympia oysters
  • Goeduck clam
  • Louisiana oysters
  • Miscellaneous:
  • Mesquite meal
  • Chiltepin chile