Table Settings

The art of feeding seasonal agricultural workers

It is spring 2020 COVID-19 has disrupted most day-to-day activities and life as we know it has to adapt and adjust to keep up with so much uncertainty. Life in the fields and vineyards in Prince Edward County goes on because a pandemic doesn’t stop activity at a vineyard or a farm. Vines continue to grow, crops need to be planted and tended just as always, because with so much invested, it can’t simply be ignored, pandemic or not. This is the second part of a story that ran last week in the Times about how two individuals from away found themselves in the hamlet of Hillier immersed in this tightknit community. It’s about two women who made a difference in their newly adopted community through art and food, through a selfless act of not only identifying a need, but choosing to fulfill that need by giving back and giving of themselves. Last year was the fourth year Claire Tallarico, Alchemy Artists Residency founder, and her long-time collaborator Tonia Di Risio have called Hillier their summer home, but they decided after three years of offering a traditional artists’ residency in Hillier, they would try something different. It was the offer of kitchen space at Closson Chase Vineyard in the midst of an uncertain pandemic that set the course they would take during their time here that summer. “During the first wave of COVID , we came up with an idea that we would like to have artists in a very safe way cook for some of the seasonal agricultural workers as a recognition of the isolation they faced during COVID,” explains Tallarico. “Because we were facing as artists a different kind of isolation, we could not bring our community together, but maybe we could do something that was creative and would make a contribution in their community, so in 2020 we came up with Table Settings,” she says. “While we came up with the idea of providing meals to farming vineyard workers in Hillier, we then had to find money to do that.” They were introduced to Linda Downey at the Storehouse Foodbank who has since become their charitable partner, as well as connecting with The County Foundation. “They were the linchpin to bring our funding together to pay for the food that we were going to cook and serve workers.” She also speaks to Downey being an “unwavering supporter” of what they do. “I can’t thank Linda Downey and the Foodbank enough for their support; it’s not necessarily what a food bank would do and she’s not a traditional food bank, they are very forward thinking.”

Alchemy got a late start in 2020 because of the pandemic and the restrictions it brought, but they received funding in July last year and began cooking in August, right up until the middle of October. Cooking twice weekly, they produced 620 meals for about 40 of the area’s seasonal agricultural workers, all at no cost to the workers or the establishments who employ them. “This year, again with the support of the Storehouse Foodbank and The County Foundation, we started cooking at the beginning of June, up until the end of October.” Expanding the project this year, they made 1,200 individually packaged meals this summer, doubling last year’s effort. Using the donated kitchen space at Closson Chase again, this year they cooked for 13 growers in the Hillier area (up from six in 2020), including six vineyards and seven farms. While they asked participating vineyards to pick up the food for their workers to make the process safe because of COVID last year, things relaxed a little this year. “What’s different this year is a lot of the workers themselves are coming to pick up their dinners or the vineyard might send the vineyard manager or the owner.” Tallarico notes this year they cooked for a lot of the same people as last year. “The vineyards have a history of having deep relationships with workers that come from away, some have been coming for up to 10 years, so there are a lot of familiar faces.”

The meals for the seasonal agricultural workers are simple and creative, healthy and hearty. “The kind of food that you would have on your dinner table at home.” Importantly, all the ingredients are primarily grown or raised in the County. “Our produce and our protein is raised or farmed here, so we work a lot with local farmers, growers and makers, so that money stays in the economy,” she says. “You work with what you’ve got and that’s what artists do often,” she adds. As a visual artist as well as a trained chef Tallarico notes there are a lot of similarities being in a kitchen and problem-solving every day and being an artist and problem-solving. Language also comes up in conversation as she says they and most of the visiting artists do not speak Spanish, but they have been using Google translate. “Food is more or less our language,” she says.

While most of the ingredients they use are purchased from local farmers and producers, donations of food also come their way when a neighbour has extra for example. It might be a 25-pound squash, excess tomatoes, 15 pounds of mushrooms, Swiss chard or 30 pounds of local honey. “People are very generous that way, our farmers are very generous.” The meals are cooked in such a way they don’t need anything further done with them, they are still very warm when picked up or they can be eaten at room temperature and don’t have to be heated up. Meals are not planned in the traditional sense as one would when preparing to feed a large number of people and the menu is kept simple using whatever ingredients are available that week and what’s in season.

Tallarico and Di Risio were approached by Ontario Culture Days to be part of a program this year called Creatives in Residence. “They were specifically interested in the ways in which we collaborated with each other and within a community,” explains Tallarico. “We decided we would take the small grant they awarded us as part of the 2021 Artists in Residence and we would bring artists (one at a time) over the course of the harvest season.” Eight artists were selected and they had all been here involved with Alchemy before. They were paired with a Hillier-based vineyard and each artist had two weeks to make something, do something or create something that was inspired by the land, by the people and their experience in Hillier. “It was an important component to invite people to apply who had a history with us and a small history with the County, for them it was really important to come back here,” she says. “At the same time they are having their own miniresidency and we asked in return they spend two days a week in the kitchen the week they were here to help prepare the dinners because we don’t have a paid kitchen staff,” she explains. The result of the artists’ response to being here was a month-long exhibition in October as part of the Culture Days project called Field Notes.

“It has been a really amazing experience on so many levels and it brings more artists together that might not have met; it shows a behind the scenes look at the community of what happens, and every two or three weeks it’s different.” Tallarico is quick to say the success of the initiative is due to a lot of support from a lot of people. “I don’t feel like it’s about helping or feeding the seasonal workers as much as acknowledging really hard work, but what I think we observe is these long-term relationships between wineries and vineyards and the workers who work on their land,” she explains. “We were so struck by the contribution of so many people to make beautiful wine and grow beautiful food in a place that is not friendly to either; it’s hard soil to work with and it’s a very unpredictable climate in a lot of ways and we were just very struck by that dedication.” Above all, Table Settings is about creating a sense of belonging and inclusivity. “It is a lovely way to honour and respect the hard work of a part of the community that is not always seen,” says Tallarico, adding, “I am really happy that it’s happened.” Further information on the Alchemy Artists Residency can be found at makealchemy.com