What growers know

This year I have been in circle with elder Michael Chaney, founder of Project Sweetie Pie in North Minneapolis. He has been doing food justice work in this city for decades. This year he is organizing something called The Dozens, a gathering on Broadway Avenue on the Northside, part of a larger vision he holds for a food corridor he calls the Nile of the North.

Earlier this year I volunteered to moderate a panel at his request. Meanwhile, he introduced me to an African immigrant farmer who is doing powerful work on the land. When he made the introduction, he called her a “real” farmer. I sat with that. I am still sitting with it. I have been answering the question it raised mostly through witnessing women.

Lessons from Marshall Avenue

My mother, Theresa Cunningham, had a gift for growing things that I can only describe as ordained. Whatever she planted came up bigger than it had any right to be. More bountiful. More plentiful. Growing up on Marshall Avenue in the Rondo community of Saint Paul, I remember her digging up a third of our backyard and turning it into a garden that fed us, our friends and neighbors. One of the many plants she grew well was tomatoes. At the end of the season, she would blanch them to loosen the skins, peel them, and freeze them in freezer bags so the garden could feed us through the winter. That is preservation. That is saying: we will keep and cherish what the earth gives us today to nourish us tomorrow.

She also kept a book of home remedies in our home. That book is the thing I can point to as the beginning of everything for me as an herbalist. It taught me that healing was already in our kitchen, already in our garden, already in what grew around us. My mother knew that before she ever read it. She just needed the words to confirm what her hands already understood. She was a farmer confined to a city lot. She was demonstrating food sovereignty to me before I even knew what that meant. My father grew up on a farm and also kept a home garden and showed me the same thing as I was growing up. I came from them.

At Elder Chaney’s panel, Dr. Michael Luseni said something that sparked a thought in me: words like agriculture, horticulture and even farmer can feel so far and distant that they keep people away from something that should feel like home. Like kin. Like calling. Those words were designed for institutions. Grower is a word that belongs to anybody with a seed and some dirt to plant it in.

Growing is just what it sounds like. You put something in the soil. You tend it. You learn what it needs. You eat it, or you heal with it, or you share it, or you just let it breathe the air and clean the water and cool that soil. That is growing. And we should all be doing it.

I believe this more deeply every year. With everything technology promises us, with everything we are capable of as human beings, we can still decimate ourselves. We have done it to so many species already. The only thing that interrupts that pattern is intentionality: the intention to stay in relationship with the land, to nurture it, to heal with it.

Sisterhood on the St. Croix

The women in my life keep showing me what that looks like.

Aiyana Sol Machado is a Boricua grower and the board chair of Philadelphia Community Farm, a rural intentional community sitting on Dakota and Ho-Chunk land along the St. Croix River in Osceola, Wisconsin. We have known each other for years, orbiting the same work, showing up in the same rooms. A couple of years ago I started going out to the farm to cook for the crew. No formal arrangement, just the desire to keep building the relationship, and what better way than by feeding people!

I would bring food to supplement what the farm had. I would cook. And they would thank me fifteen, maybe twenty times in between comments about how good the food smelled and tasted while I was standing at that stove and while we broke bread together. Aiyana would hang out in the kitchen while I cooked and we would just talk and vibe about our shared visions. She often says something that I keep thinking about: whoever would have thought that we would be doing this? She says it like she is still surprised. Like the land found her before she even thought to look for it.

I understand that feeling. I run an urban farm. I have a full food forest at home. I grow things. I always have. But when I go out to Philly Farm and walk the land, go into the woods, forage herbs, feel dirt that has never been paved over, something opens up in me that I do not have words for. It is not a thought. It’s not even an emotion exactly. It is recognition. The land knows me. And I know it.

Last time I went out to Philly Farm, I brought Tegan Carr, founder of The Medicine Objective, a Minnesota-based organization working at the intersection of healing justice, decolonization, plant medicine and land-based practice. She walked into that kitchen, wrapped her hair up, and I handed her a knife I had just sharpened. I asked if she cooked. She said yes. I told her we had three salsas to make. She made all three with nothing but a cutting board, a knife and a bowl for each one. She did not ask me a single question about how to do anything; she just moved. Everything she made was rustic and real and tasted fantastic.

That is what happens when two healers get in a kitchen together. Something opens up. No performance. No hierarchy. Just a labor of love and intention through feeding people who tend the earth.

We made tostadas that day. Layers built from the ground up. You put what the land gives you right on top.

Crystal Odin, who runs the flower program at Philly Farm, came through the kitchen too. And I thought about all of it on the drive home. My mother and her garden on Marshall. Aiyana finding herself on a farm she did not see coming. Tegan moving through a kitchen like she had been there before. All of us growers, building on the layers laid down before us.

A practice, not a credential

A grower is not a credential. It is not a job title, a program or an acreage. It is a practice and a relationship. Your grandmother had it. Your great-uncle had it. Somebody in your lineage had their hands in the soil and knew what to do with what sprouted up. They preserved what they knew and what they grew and passed it on.

You can have and be that too. Even in a pot on the porch. Even in a window pot. Even in a small square of yard that you decide to stop ignoring.

This work, the farming or growing, the feeding, the healing and the teaching, is happening right now in our communities. At Frogtown Farm in Saint Paul. At Philadelphia Community Farm on the St. Croix. At Project Sweetie Pie on the Northside. At Healthy Roots Institute all over this state. It is being held by people who did not wait for permission or a budget to start growing. If what you are reading moves you, find us. Bring your hands. Bring your resources. Bring your hunger to be in relationship with the land and each other.

What are you growing?

Tostada Formula

The tostada comes from Mexico. Indigenous people in Mesoamerica have been nixtamalizing corn, pressing it into tortillas and building meals on top for thousands of years. This is their food. We did not invent it. We were invited in by it. Make it with that knowledge.

A tostada is a formula, not a fixed recipe. The structure is always the same: a crisped tortilla base, something underneath to anchor the toppings, a build of protein, vegetables and texture, and salsa to finish. What goes in each layer is yours to decide. Use what the season gives you, what your garden grew, what is in your refrigerator, who you are feeding, and what their bodies need. Below is what we made at Philly Farm that day. Use it as a guide, not a rule.

Serves 6 to 8

Layer 1: The base

Any corn tortilla works. Blue corn or an ancestral mix honors where this food comes from. Flour tortillas are softer and will not crisp the same way.

• 12 corn tortillas, 6-inch (blue corn or ancestral mix preferred)
• Oil for crisping (avocado, olive or any neutral oil)
• Salt

Brush both sides of each tortilla lightly with oil. Crisp in a cast iron skillet over medium heat, 2 minutes per side, until firm and golden with some char on the edges. Or bake at 400 degrees for 8 to 10 minutes, flipping once. Salt while still hot. The tortilla should be crispy and hold its toppings without bending.

Layer 2: The anchor

This is what holds everything together and gives the tostada its body. Use any bean that mashes well: black, pinto, red, kidney. Use mashed avocado or guacamole for something lighter. Use seasoned ground meat, shredded chicken or pulled pork if you want to build it that way. A seasoned lentil puree or mashed sweet potato works too. There is no wrong answer here. Choose based on who you are feeding.

• Bean option: 2 cups cooked black beans (or one 15 oz can, drained and rinsed), 3 cloves garlic minced, 1/2 teaspoon cumin, olive oil, salt
• Avocado option: 2 ripe avocados mashed with lime juice, salt and a little garlic
• Meat option: 1 pound ground turkey, chicken or beef seasoned with cumin, chili powder, garlic and salt; or 2 cups shredded chicken or pulled pork

For beans: warm with garlic and cumin in a little oil until fragrant, about 3 minutes. Mash roughly, leaving some whole. You want texture, not paste. For meat: cook through and season well. Keep everything warm until ready to build.

Layer 3: The build

Use what the season gives you. The build should have something crunchy, something fresh and something that adds color. At Philly Farm, we worked with what the farm had that day. At home, use what your garden grew or what looks good at the market.

• Shredded cabbage, purple or green (or a quick slaw if you have time)
• Roasted corn, cut from the cob if fresh or thawed from frozen
• Sliced radishes, pickled onions or whatever adds crunch and brightness
• Crumbled cotija or queso fresco (optional; omit or substitute plant-based if needed)
• Fresh cilantro
• Lime wedges

Layer 4: Tegan’s three salsas

You only need one salsa. But if you have the time, make all three. They each do something different, and together they cover every part of the palate. Tegan made all three with nothing but a sharp knife, a cutting board and a bowl for each. No heat. No blender. Just good ingredients and confident hands.

Corn salsa
2 cups fresh or roasted corn kernels, cut from the cob; 1/2 red onion, finely diced; 1 jalapeno, seeded and minced; handful of cilantro, chopped; juice of 1 lime; salt to taste. Combine everything in a bowl. Taste and adjust. Rest a few minutes before serving.

Pineapple salsa
2 cups fresh pineapple, finely diced; 1/2 red onion, finely diced; 1 serrano pepper, seeded and minced (leave seeds in for heat); handful of cilantro, chopped; juice of 1 lime; salt to taste. Combine in a bowl. The sweetness of the pineapple does the work. Keep it simple.

Fresh tomato salsa
4 ripe tomatoes, diced small; 1/2 white onion, minced; 1 jalapeno, seeded and minced; handful of cilantro, chopped; juice of 1 lime; salt to taste. Combine in a bowl. Rest 15 minutes before serving so the tomatoes release their juice. Use the ripest tomatoes you can find. If you grew them yourself, even better.

To assemble

Spread your anchor layer generously on each crisp tortilla. Build on top with whatever you chose for layer three. Put all three salsas on the table and let people choose. Finish with cheese if you are using it, fresh cilantro and a hard squeeze of lime.

Use what your garden gives you. Preserve what you cannot use today. Pass it on.

Chef Lachelle Cunningham is a chef, herbalist, and environmental justice writer who believes the pot, the land, and the body are one conversation. She is the founder of Healthy Roots Institute, owner of City Food Studio, and executive director of Frogtown Farm in Saint Paul.