Cooking up natural nourishment in Cornwall

CORNWALL ­— Friends of Wellspring Commons gathered at the parish house of the United Church of Christ in Cornwall on Friday, Aug. 2, to taste, explore, and rejoice in the myriad possibilities of local forest cuisine.

Wellspring Commons, a land stewardship and environmental outreach nonprofit initially co-founded by Keetu Winter to “spearhead the protection of 650 acres of land in Litchfield,” hosted the sylvan celebration as the opener of a three-day Forest Festival: the experiential culmination of months of workshopping on the group’s foundational philosophy of bioregionalism.

“Bioregionalism takes a view of landscape, its communities and culture, as shaped by topographic and biological characteristics rather than by man-made divisions,” Winter said. From within this framework, the multidisciplinary cohort of scientists, ecologists, artists, and conservationists supporting Wellspring Commons cooked up the concept for a Festival that invited the public to delight in the emergent possibilities of local bioregional food systems.

“It’s an opportunity to learn through food and social experience,” said Kyra Kristof, founder of the culinary art project Forest Kitchen and Friday’s feast facilitator. On the conceptual level, paradigm-shifting ideas such as bioregionalism may be tough for some to chew on, which is why Winter and Kristof believe that understanding is best conditioned by experience.

“We try to bring in people with no experience, to awaken curiosity,” said Winter; the format of the Feast’s “kitchening” encouraged naïve, instinct-guided experimentation and expression, rather than adherence to recipes or notional, prescriptive nutrition.

Participants encountered locally-sourced berries, nuts, flowers, vegetables and mushrooms and transformed them into a dazzling array of colorful, novel dishes — among these a mushroom and elderberry quiche; rose-mint-mulberry juice; hickory nut and berry powder pastries; and caramelized onions and oyster mushrooms in tarragon butter.

“The experience is a feeling of coming home,” said participant Nathan Bixby, forking at a kaleidoscopic plate of food, “we have relationships with the land that we might not be aware of, but that open up in cooking.” Kristof hopes that, through embodied experiences such as shared feasts, more people will learn the personal and ecological value of “nourishing from place” (consuming the food available in one’s immediate locality) and thereby develop a deeper investment in environmental and ecological issues.

“Our Northwest Corner of Connecticut is critical,” Winter said. Although careful to provide the caveat that political boundaries such as those defining towns and states are immaterial — and perhaps even obstacles on the course of bioregionalism — Winter cites the “immense number of land trusts” in the heavily forested Northwest Corner as a positive tell for the regional community’s receptivity to bioregional initiatives.

To keep up with Wellspring Commons or access resources from the Bioregional Collaborative Cohort, including slide decks from past workshops, visit wellspringcommons.org.