A Rye Whiskey Rural Arts Metaphor

Templeton's home-grown rye crop; Brewvana

[Editor's Note: As I am facing numerous writing deadlines over the second half of February, this seems like a good time to give a retrospective glance to the first two years of Art of the Rural. Over these weeks I will feature a few new articles, but also many favorites from the archives. Thanks again to everyone who has read and contributed; what began as a labor of love has become a project far larger, and far more rewarding, than I ever could have anticipated - and I deeply appreciate the readership and participation of such a diverse audience. In March we will offer new articles and series, and share some new projects related to our mission.

[A Rye Whiskey Rural Arts Metaphor was originally published on February 9, 2011. A review of Kristian Day's excellent documentary Capone's Whiskey: The Story of Templeton Rye is forthcoming. The trailer for this film is included at the conclusion of this piece.]

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We occasionally like to dwell on issues of food culture and the culinary arts that have a particular rural connection (see the search function on the sidebar for Ian Halbert's excellent series of articles), and today we've found a controversy that has developed across the state of Iowa that may be of interest to our readers.

The story involves Templeton Rye, a small-batch rye whiskey distilled in Templeton, Iowa. With the exception of liquor connoisseurs, most folks outside of Iowa--even most folks in the midwest--probably have never heard of Templeton, despite the fact that it is one of the most sought-after whiskeys in the United States. It's also a whiskey with a compelling local and historical legacy. Here's a brief introduction from the distillery's site:

When Prohibition outlawed the manufacture and sale of alcoholic beverages in 1920, many enterprising residents of a small town in Iowa chose to become outlaws – producing a high caliber and much sought-after whiskey known as Templeton Rye.

Based on its extremely smooth finish, the American rye whiskey earned the nickname of “The Good Stuff” and quickly brought a certain degree of fame to the doorsteps of Templeton (pop. 350). As the premium brand of the era, Templeton Rye fetched an impressive $5.50 per gallon – or approximately $70 by today’s standards.

Over the course of its storied history, Templeton Rye became Al Capone’s whiskey of choice, quickly finding its way to the center of his bootlegging empire. Hundreds of kegs per month were supplied to Capone’s gang who in turn filled the demand of speakeasies throughout Chicago, New York and as far west as San Francisco.

Capone was eventually convicted on charges of tax evasion and sent to prison. Later legends suggest that a few bottles even found their way inside the walls of Alcatraz to the cell of prisoner AZ-85.

Although most American whiskeys ceased production after prohibition ended, Templeton Rye continued to be produced illegally in small quantities for loyal patrons. More than eighty-five years later, the infamous small batch rye whiskey finally returned – made available legally for the first time ever in 2006.

While the Capone connection may be enough to tempt a taste, the product's history is far from a gimmick; this is one of the finest, and most unique, rye whiskeys that money can buy. Beyond the connection to Prohibition and Alacatraz, this is no doubt also related to the local elements of this product's creation, to the care that the distillers--and the town itself--has put into each bottle. As their blog indicates, this distillery is intricately linked to its home region.

The Templeton controversy, however, has emerged at the convergence of all the wonderful attributes contained in the previous paragraph. Iowans want to purchase a quality drink with an Iowa connection,  stores in the state wish to stock this local gem, and--to confound this seemingly simple example of supply and demand--a huge number of urban, coastal connoisseurs are desperate to also enjoy a sip. Extraordinarily limited quantities of Templeton Rye can be found in upscale liquor stores in New York City, San Francisco and Chicago, often at considerably higher prices. Even within Iowa, it is very hard to find the product; often local stores will only receive 2-4 bottles a month. People turn to Facebook and Twitter (#TRspottings) to report when and where they have found "the good stuff."

Ironically, then, a product which began as a contraband item has, through different circumstances, become again a subject of hush-hush conjecture. This has led, within the state of Iowa and no doubt through internet chatter, to the perception that the scarcity of Templeton Rye was linked to a single likely cause: Templeton was shipping a larger proportion of its product to distant cities. As the video below and the site's allotment data indicate, this was only a perception. The vast majority of Templeton Rye stays within the Iowa border.

Herein lies a multifaceted metaphor. We see in this story those ever-present tensions between the local and the cosmopolitan, between the rural and the urban; we also see here the point at which a fantastically successful rural, regional business reaches a challenge that has less to do with profit-margins than with the community on which the entire enterprise is rooted. As a culinary art form, this is a kind of instructive tale for artists working within other mediums.

Also, looking more broadly at the well-earned success story in Templeton, we have an aspirational model for the rural arts. It's a sort of material and aesthetic challenge for contemporary rural artists in all mediums, how to balance the desires of rural and urban audiences--and how to reach one's local audience in such a way that they take the kind of ownership over their region's work that Templeton's Iowa base has exerted. While this controversy has been a challenge to the distillery, it's an envious one for most rural artists. Imagine if the words "Templeton Rye" and "Batch 4" were interchanged in the video below with any number of other words: "our recent series of paintings", "our recent book of poems", "our current recording:"

The Weekly Feed: January Sixth

Sandhill Crane; Dugald Stermer, Los Angeles Times

Here's a partial list of the articles and links we've shared on our Rural Arts and Culture Feed on Facebook while we have been offline for the holidays and for holiday travel. We hope everyone has enjoyed their first week of the new year.

• The Los Angeles Times (as seen above) recently reprinted a number of field guide illustrations by Dugald Stermer, who passed away last month. This is an under-appreciated art form, and one we don't normally put under the wide umbrella of the rural arts, yet these illustrations make perfect sense alongside The Almanac For Moderns or the poetry of Lorine Niedecker.

• 2012 marks the centennial of Woody Guthrie's birth. The Woody Guthrie Centennial Celebration site contains all the information and links to a wide array of events, recordings and publications to mark this birthday. We'll have more information on these festivities as the year progresses.

• We've mentioned on numerous occasions the forthcoming film The Winding Stream: The Carters, The Cashes, And The Course of Country Music - and we were delighted to see this clip of a Carter-inspired song circle that crosses rural-urban lines:

• 2011 was a landmark year for the music and legacy of John Fahey. In the autumn Dust-to-Digital released Your Past Comes Back To Haunt You: The Fonotone Years [1958-1965] to wide critical acclaim, and Fahey's friend and collaborator Glenn Jones (who edited Your Past) released a The Wanting, a solo guitar record that also met with a warm and enthusiastic reception. On New Year's Eve we posted Fahey's later interpretation of "Auld Lang Syne," but here, instead, is a cut from the Fonotone years, with some vocals as well, followed by Jones's "Of It's Own Kind:"

 

• In thinking about the rural-urban migrations that shaped the modern blues, Howard Reich of The Chicago Tribune recently asked "Is This The Twilight Of Blues Music?"

• The Boiled Down Juice has offered a series of diverse pieces recently on Ozark New Year's cuisine, urban farming, and the work of Jimmy Santiago Baco: the poet and advocate for the arts within the prison system.

• Knife-making is another under-appreciated art form, but thanks are due to Rural Missouri Magazine for producing this excellent video on the process and the products of such work. Kyle Spradley also contributes an article from the Ozark Knife Makers classes.

• From an Bedouin village to international literary fame, Egyptian novelist Miral al-Tahawy's story touches on a number of rural-international and rural-urban narratives. Abdalla F. Hassan writes in The New York Times of her journey and her most recent work Brooklyn Heights.

• We were excited to see that Stephanie Ash of mnartists.org recently offered a review of the Rural America Contemporary Artists exhibit. We are going to work in 2012 to focus in-depth on these artists, so please stay tuned. Here's RACA organizer Brian Frink's "Winston," a rural-contemporary complement to the work of Dugald Stermer above:

In Brief: The Food Of A Younger Land

As folks may be preparing for family meals in the next few days, here's some news on The Food of a Younger Land, a book by Mark Kurlansky that examines a national food culture project initiated by the WPA that included the likes of Eudora Welty, Zora Neale Hurston, and many local writers. Here's a portion of Maureen Corrigan's introduction to the work on NPR:

Nine years ago, when Kurlansky was doing research for an anthology of food writing, the author says he stumbled upon the dusty archives of the America Eats project — an undertaking of the Depression-era Federal Writers Project which was a wing of Franklin Roosevelt's WPA. The Federal Writers Project provided employment for over 6,000 out-of-work writers, among them Ralph Ellison, Eudora Welty, Zora Neale Hurston and Nelson Algren. During the 1930s, the Federal Writers Project produced those now classic guidebooks to all 48 states, but by 1939 it needed another assignment. That's when Katherine Kellock, the director of the program, came up with the idea of a guide to American food and eating traditions which would shed a light on everyday American society. 

A great idea; but America Eats was never completed. The deadline for all copy was Thanksgiving week, 1941; the writers, of course, dragged their heels and then Pearl Harbor and the start of World War II blew America Eats out of the water. The rough copy — typed, on onionskin — that writers across the country had sent into Washington was boxed up and shelved.

In this interview with Mr. Kurlansky in GOOD, offers a taste of America Eats:

Each entry offers a portrait of American custom and American food, before highways, modern agribusiness, or fast food. What people ate was seasonal and, above all, cultural-the traditions from one state to the next varied wildly, and reveal undiluted customs that are all but gone now. So, for example, you've got Choctaw, Sioux, and Chippewa foods; Nebraska pig fries; Florida hush puppies; Georgia possum and taters; and "Washington Wildcat Parties," whose signature draw was fresh cougar meat, which apparently tasted "a little like veal" with a "stronger odor."

Below, please find a link to an hour-long conversation with food columnist Rich Nichols, compliments of C-SPAN's Book TV:

Frybread: In Film, Art, Architecture, And Beyond

Photograph by Visible Narrative, from RPM's Frybread Stand flickr gallery

Revolutions Per Minute: Indigenous Music Culture is a relatively new site that's offering a wealth of news on contemporary music and arts. One of the recurring features on RPM is #frybreadfriday; a multimedia series that explores the centrality of this delicacy across Native American culture. From playwrights to rappers, interpretive dance to comic book art, RPM has opened up a vibrant discussion on this relationship between food culture and the arts. The photograph above is included within RPM's Frybread Stand gallery, a collection that demonstrates how this food is also influencing vernacular art and architecture.

One project that's appeared across a few #frybreadfridays has been Holt Hamilton's More Than Frybread, a hilarious mockumentary currently set to be released in early 2012. Here's an introduction to the film:

The First Annual State of Arizona Frybread Championship, sponsored by the World Wide Frybread Association, will be holding the first ever state frybread competition. All twenty-two federally recognized Arizona tribes will be sending their best frybread maker to represent their nation and to compete for the coveted frybread title. The winner will receive $10,000 cash, the official WWFA frybread trophy and a spot to compete for the National Title, which could possibly then lead to a shot at the World Wide Frybread Championships later in the year.

Five contestants; Buddy Begaye (Navajo), Sharmayne Cruz (Tohono O’odham), Betti Muchvo (Hopi), Sunshine Smith (Yavapai-Apache), and Sammy Powsky (Hualapai) allow a small documentary team to follow them as they travel the frybread road to the state finals. You won’t want to miss this exciting, never before seen, frybread event of the year!

The folks behind this film have made the World Wide Frybread Association a reality -- follow the link for videos, maps and further information.

Again, there's much more to explore on RPM - it has become one of our favorite sites, and we highly recommend a visit. 

Rural Farmers Feeding The Occupy Movement

Produce from western Massachusetts farms; Actions and Investigations

As a companion piece to today's article considering Crystal Bridges, Alice Walton, and the Occupy Movement, Contributing Editor Rachel Reynolds Luster has just sent word of Feed the Movement, a grassroots effort by farmers in the Northeast to help feed the Occupy gathering in New York:

WNYC has also profiled the work of the folks on the ground in city who gladly receive this food and then work to prepare it to be put to use on Wall Street. Jennifer Hsu writes of how one OWS member and an unemployed chef are cooking for thousands of people each afternoon:

Every night at Zuccotti Park, dinner is served around 7 P.M. What protesters may not realize is that their meals are made from fresh, organic produce donated by a dozen or so small farms located throughout the Northeast.

Since the early weeks of the protest, regional farmers have been coming down independently to Occupy Wall Street to donate fruits and vegetables. In those days, meals were prepared in volunteers' homes. Yet, as the protest quickly gained momentum, food preparation needed to get more organized, and Occupy Wall Street set up a daily dinner operation out of a soup kitchen in East New York, Brooklyn.

The 2011 BIG FEED

Photograph from a previous BIG FEED; Richard Saxton

Next month (October 15-16) the M12 art collective will host their annual BIG FEED celebration at the Yuma, Colorado Fairgrounds. Readers of our site may already be familiar with the M12 artists and Richard Saxton's work with his students in Yuma (please see the links below), so we can be certain that this event will be in keeping with the ethos of these artists' work: creative, playful, and forward-thinking.

It's an honor for me to share with everyone that I will be presenting on The Art of the Rural at this year's BIG FEED. I've been asked to offer a kind of "best of" contemporary rural arts and culture, and the invitation will present the opportunity to reflect on what we've covered here on the first two years of the site (two years!). As our coverage of the M12-related work has hopefully demonstrated, I have great respect for these artists and scholars' vision of how aesthetically-adventurous art and architecture can interact in a meaningful and sustainable way with communities. I look forward to sharing more of their artwork, ideas, and connections on this site when I return from Yuma.

I'll include below a list of this year's participants. The full BIG FEED program can be viewed here, and it contains much more information on each artist and presenter. As the schedule demonstrates, there's going to be an extraordinary range of perspectives shared during this two days, so, if folks live in the area, this will be an event not to be missed. That Saturday evening will come to an exciting close with a performance by the legendary alt.country group Blue Mountain.

The BIG FEED: Saturday, Oct. 15-16 at the Yuma County Fairgrounds, Yuma, Colorado.The entry to this event is FREE with a $5 donation and one food item to share!
  The BIG FEED is an annual event and action held by M12. It is a celebration of the regional landscape, experimental art and architecture, food, music, culture and community. It is a forum to connect community members and artists in a casual atmosphere, as well as an opportunity for the larger public to learn more about the groundbreaking work presented by the attending community members, artists, musicians, critics, and curators. Landing somewhere between a family reunion, potluck dinner, symposium, and festival, The BIG FEED is held every second weekend in October. The event is open to the public and free with a $5 donation and one food item to share. For more information on the event and the organization please visit the M12 website.

Saturday, October 15:

2:30PM—DJ Rockcrusher, Maiden Rock, WI (DJ, Country & Western 78’s)
3PM—Vic Anderson, Estes Park, CO (Country & Western, Yodeling musician)
4PM—CU Art Students, Boulder, CO (Visual Art Presentation)
4:30PM—Yuma County Rodeo Queens, Yuma, CO (Presentation)
5PM—Gregory Hill, Joes, CO, native (author of East of Denver)
5:30PM—The Art of the Rural Presentation
6:15—Eric Steen (artist) & Ro Guenzel (Head Brewmaster, Left Hand Brewery)
6:45PM—The BIG FEED (with spit-roasted bison) with music by 4H Royalty
7:30PM—Mimi Ziegler, Los Angeles, CA (editor of loud paper; author of Tiny Houses, New Museums, )
8:15PM—4H Royalty, Denver, CO (full set)  
9:00PM—Blue Mountain, Oxford, MS (full set)

Sunday, October 16:

9:30AM—PANCAKE FEED

10AM—Jami Lunde, Lyons, CO (full set) 

Related Articles:

The M12: A New Vision For The High Plains

Richard Saxton's Vernacular Landscapes

Introducing The Yuma Project

The Yuma Project: Adrianna Santiago

The Yum Project: You Jin Seo

The NEA And Creative Placemaking In Rural America

selection from the cover to the NEA Arts Magazine

On Monday we discussed Double Edge Theatre, a visionary laboratory theatre group that can help to expand the dialogue of what's happening--and what's possible--in rural America and the rural arts. This effort continues today, and is aided by the recent issue of the NEA Arts Magazine, which is entirely devoted to how rural arts and culture organizations are enriching their local and regional places.

Rachel Reynolds Luster and I will be covering each of these organizations in greater detail, but I wanted to make sure that our readers had heard of this issue's publication so that they can peruse it and send the Magazine around to friends and colleagues. Following the link above will lead to a pdf, as well as a wealth of online features--including some well-produced videos. Here is the NEA's introduction to this publication; I'll include links to each organization:

Since the beginning of the 20th century, the United States has turned from a mostly agrarian, rural country into an urban, industrialized one. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Economic Research Service, nowadays only about a fifth of the population live in rural areas, even though those lands comprise more than three-quarters of the country and are a major source of the nation's resources, culture, and traditions. Rural America may be more connected than ever before -- through the Internet, better phone services, and improved transportation systems -- but it still faces unique problems. As populations moved from rural to urban/suburban communities -- and metropolitan areas expanded into areas that had been rural -- serious problems have been left in their wake: aging and inefficient infrastructure, lack of employment, increased poverty.

This issue of NEA Arts looks at the creative approaches rural communities have been taking with the arts to help improve their communities socially, aesthetically, and economically. In Vermont, the Orton Family Foundation is bringing artists into the community planning process, while in the middle of Arizona's Sonoran Desert, the International Sonoran Desert Alliance has turned an abandoned school into artist housing, leading to new economic growth for the small town of Ajo. Two rural towns in Washington State take different approaches to utilizing the arts to revitalize their communities. On the Fond du Lac Reservation in Minnesota, art is used in a health clinic to promote the Native culture as well as for its healing properties. And in North Carolina, HandMade in America has shown that the traditional arts are a viable, important part of the local economy as well as the local culture.

The NEA Magazine and its web features also consider Donald Judd and his influence in Marfa, Texas (via the Chinati Foundation), the NEA Our Town program, Dave Loewenstein's mural projects, and The Wormfarm Institute in Wisconsin.  (Folks can read our previous articles on Mr. Loewenstein here and Wormfarm here)

The term "creative placemaking" is discussed at great length in an excellent paper by Ann Markusen and Anne Gadwa; Creative Placemaking can be downloaded from the NEA here, and there's also a video that offers further information on the concept and its relevance to our current arts discussions: 

In creative placemaking, partners from public, private, non-profit, and community sectors strategically shape the physical and social character of a neighborhood, town, city, or region around arts and cultural activities. Creative placemaking animates public and private spaces, rejuvenates structures and streetscapes, improves local business viability and public safety, and brings diverse people together to celebrate, inspire, and be inspired.

There will be much more soon on all these ideas and these inspiring examples from rural America. Until then, we can enjoy the Magazine and the NEA video work.

The Yuma Project: Adrianna Santiago

Adrianna with Yuma residents in Shop All; Richard Saxton

Today we have the honor of presenting Adrianna Santiago's work from Yuma. Below we'll feature Ms. Santiago, in some excerpts from our email correspondence, describing her project and her collaborations with the community. For more information on the work of Richard Saxton and his students in Yuma, Colorado, please see our introductory article.

Listening is an important part my artistic process of engaging with any community.  In the case of Yuma, I began with the Yuma Historical Society Museum.  I investigated and researched the history of Yuma, as it relates to agrarian traditions surrounding food.  I curated a small exhibit from the museum collection and presented a small display in the context of the Shop All Grocery Store, also a historic site.  Those historical objects guided our conversations and interactions.  

From there, I spoke directly with community members as they shopped.  The main 
interest from the audience at the Shop All came mostly from the elderly, who recognized and could contribute to the topic of Yuma history and traditions.  The influence of these individuals was essential to the making of the work.  I initiated the creative process through conversation and invited collaborative engagements that were defined by the community. I also asked Shop All patrons to nominate community members who could teach me, through hands-on experience, about Yuma's traditions.

The most inspiring aspect of this work centered around those close community connections. While I began by meeting Judy Rutledge in the Shop All, who nominated her son, the web of connections became very apparent as I embarked upon new lessons with different community members. Organic popcorn planting, cattle herding, wood carving and butter churning were the focused situations that I experienced.

Working in the public space of the Shop All was most eye-opening.  I expected that the display of historic objects would surprise and draw people in, however, many completely overlooked my presence.  This experience caused me to reflect on the idea of being outside of the community.

Communities have become less connected, even in rural areas; the progression of technology has watered down the quality of relationships people have with each other. The family traditions and collective histories embedded in the identity of a locale are becoming mere memories spoken by elders. 

The individuals who founded The Yuma Historical Society Museum (YHSM) in Yuma, CO are dedicated to preserving the history of their farming community; they can be found leading efforts through their work at the YHSM. Founders and members of the YHSM share and archive first-hand narratives about times such as the depression era, stories about land development and the lineage of common families. Ms. Doris Mekelburg and other YHSM members want to ensure that younger generations of the town take responsibility and continue to preserve the cultural identity of Yuma.

I am intrigued by how quickly cultural knowledge seems to be disappearing, despite all “advances” in technology over the past decade. My work in Yuma will begin a journey focused on seeking knowledge and establishing a network where resources can be shared. I want to incorporate new technologies with old practices, without losing ties between people and the land. Eventually, I’d like to create a practical guide book that’s easily accessible for others to take part in so that they may create wholesome communal ties that preserve traditions in their own communities—Yuma, Colorado is the first stop in this process.

Introducing The Yuma Project

Yuma, Colorado; from the Baseline Group flickr page

Today we're excited to present The Yuma Project, a collaboration between art students at The University of Colorado-Boulder and the community of Yuma, Colorado. This project is led by Richard Saxton, an artist and scholar interested in vernacular, place-based expression. Folks may remember our earlier discussions of his work as well his collaborations with the M12 group and The Rural Studio, where Mr. Saxton was previously an artist-in-residence.

Over the next few weeks we will have the privilege of presenting a number of the art projects Mr. Saxton's students and collaborators created in Yuma. Today I'd like to offer an introduction, beginning with this excerpt from the syllabus itself:

Community and Site-based Art Practice (AKA The Baseline Group, AKA The Yuma Project) is a special topics course that focuses on approaches to community and site-based art practices with a particular interest in the rural landscape and rural communities.  Through a collective class atmosphere, students in this course will discover and discuss approaches to a unique realm of the art-making profession. Focusing on themes that include site, community, and collective practice, students will learn about the history of these art avenues, be introduced to concepts of site proposals, learn about project development, and collaborate on the design and implementation of ambitious community and site-based art projects.

This course will take place primarily off campus and is designed as an experiential course, meaning that students learn through the experience of doing. Students will experience and participate, first hand, on tangible projects in the field.  In this course we will spend a substantial amount of time outside of the traditional studio environment.

In the weeks that follow, Mr. Saxton leads these emerging artists to Yuma for an immersive process of thinking through--as a group--how art-making can address the "aesthetic, social, and historical context" of their sites in Yuma; the answers come through repeated visits to the region and through close contact with the Yuma community. In the end, these travels into the rural places beyond the traditional art-studio world offer an "experimental and interdisciplinary approach to creativity." 

In corresponding with some of the Yuma Project / Baseline Group students, I can attest to the unique kind of work this vision can inspire. Below, I'll offer two teasers of the installations which will follow in The Art of the Rural in the coming weeks. 

Adrianna Santiago, Nourish

I want to incorporate new technologies with old practices, without losing ties between people and the land. During my time in Yuma, I spoke with patrons of the historic grocery store, Shop All, a common place where community members frequent. I asked people to nominate community members who they think may be interested in a work exchange. Lastly, I traded my time for a lesson in a historical Yuma tradition. The documentation of this learning exchange is presented and archived as the Yuma Historical Society Museum.

You Jin Seo, Untitled

As I move to different places, I start collecting objects in order to be aware of the different cultures and to get used to the new environments. I installed the shiny and beautiful objects that I have collected in Yuma so that people walking on the street can see the artwork in their daily life. I long to bring the beautiful moment when I observe the softly glittering lights into the vast and barren landscape near Yuma.

A Rye Whiskey Rural Arts Metaphor?

Templeton's home-grown rye crop; from the distillery's blog

We occasionally like to dwell on issues of food culture and the culinary arts that have a particular rural connection (see the search function on the sidebar for Ian Halbert's excellent series of articles), and today we've found a controversy that has developed across the state of Iowa that may be of interest to our readers.  

The story involves Templeton Rye, a small-batch rye whiskey distilled in Templeton, Iowa. With the exception of liquor connoisseurs, most folks outside of Iowa--even most folks in the midwest--probably have never heard of Templeton, despite the fact that it is one of the most sought-after whiskeys in the United States. It's also a whiskey with a compelling local and historical legacy. Here's a brief introduction from the distillery's site:

When Prohibition outlawed the manufacture and sale of alcoholic beverages in 1920, many enterprising residents of a small town in Iowa chose to become outlaws – producing a high caliber and much sought-after whiskey known as Templeton Rye.

Based on its extremely smooth finish, the American rye whiskey earned the nickname of “The Good Stuff” and quickly brought a certain degree of fame to the doorsteps of Templeton (pop. 350). As the premium brand of the era, Templeton Rye fetched an impressive $5.50 per gallon – or approximately $70 by today’s standards.

Over the course of its storied history, Templeton Rye became Al Capone’s whiskey of choice, quickly finding its way to the center of his bootlegging empire. Hundreds of kegs per month were supplied to Capone’s gang who in turn filled the demand of speakeasies throughout Chicago, New York and as far west as San Francisco.

Capone was eventually convicted on charges of tax evasion and sent to prison. Later legends suggest that a few bottles even found their way inside the walls of Alcatraz to the cell of prisoner AZ-85.

Although most American whiskeys ceased production after prohibition ended, Templeton Rye continued to be produced illegally in small quantities for loyal patrons. More than eighty-five years later, the infamous small batch rye whiskey finally returned – made available legally for the first time ever in 2006.

While the Capone connection may be enough to tempt a taste, the product's history is far from a gimmick; this is one of the finest, and most unique, rye whiskeys that money can buy. Beyond the connection to Prohibition and Alacatraz, this is no doubt also related to the local elements of this product's creation, to the care that the distillers--and the town itself--has put into each bottle. As their blog indicates, this distillery is intricately linked to its home region.

The Templeton controversy, however, has emerged at the convergence of all the wonderful attributes contained in the previous paragraph. Iowans want to purchase a quality drink with an Iowa connection,  stores in the state wish to stock this local gem, and--to confound this seemingly simple example of supply and demand--a huge number of urban, coastal connoisseurs are desperate to also enjoy a sip. Extraordinarily limited quantities of Templeton Rye can be found in upscale liquor stores in New York City, San Francisco and Chicago, often at considerably higher prices. Even within Iowa, it is very hard to find the product; often local stores will only receive 2-4 bottles a month. People turn to Facebook and Twitter (#TRspottings) to report when and where they have found "the good stuff."

Ironically, then, a product which began as a contraband item has, through different circumstances, become again a subject of hush-hush conjecture. This has led, within the state of Iowa and no doubt through internet chatter, to the perception that the scarcity of Templeton Rye was linked to a single likely cause: Templeton was shipping a larger proportion of its product to distant cities. As the video below and the site's allotment data indicate, this was only a perception. The vast majority of Templeton Rye stays within the Iowa border.

Herein lies a multifaceted metaphor. We see in this story those ever-present tensions between the local and the cosmopolitan, between the rural and the urban; we also see here the point at which a fantastically successful rural, regional business reaches a challenge that has less to do with profit-margins than with the community on which the entire enterprise is rooted. As a culinary art form, this is a kind of instructive tale for artists working within other mediums.

Also, looking more broadly at the well-earned success story in Templeton, we have an aspirational model for the rural arts. It's a sort of material and aesthetic challenge for contemporary rural artists in all mediums, how to balance the desires of rural and urban audiences--and how to reach one's local audience in such a way that they take the kind of ownership over their region's work that Templeton's Iowa base has exerted. While this controversy has been a challenge to the distillery, it's an envious one for most rural artists. Imagine if the words "Templeton Rye" and "Batch 4" were interchanged in the video below with any number of other words: "our recent series of paintings", "our recent book of poems", "our current recording":

Behind the Curtain of the American Gothic

selection from American Gothic; Grant Wood

Shortly after last week's reconsideration of Grant Wood appeared online, I received a wonderful email from writer Beth M. Howard. With her permission, I'm going to reprint a selection below:

Hello Matthew,

I just found your blog and saw your post on the American Gothic House – and Tripp Evans’ new book and his take on Grant Wood. The reason I found your post is because I live in the American Gothic House.  The house sat vacant for several years until I discovered it, purely by accident, during a cross country road trip. After falling in love with its cuteness I also found that it was for rent. I’ve been here four months, and have since begun selling pies in the yard on weekends at my Pitchfork Pie Stand.  I was born in the neighboring small town of Ottumwa, a place I never thought I’d return to because it seemed so “backwater,” but now Ottumwa is where I do all my shopping, go to movies, and on the rare occasion, grab a burger at the classic 1930’s diner, The Canteen in the Alley.  I left Iowa to travel the world, I’ve lived in places including Nairobi, Stuttgart, New York and most recently Portland, Oregon. And now….Eldon, Iowa. It’s like Grant Wood said, “I had to go to France to appreciate Iowa.” 

Through our subsequent correspondence, I've learned a little more about Ms. Howard, her life and her writing. The story of her travels away from Iowa, and the story of the relationships and adventures she nurtured along the way, all provide both a modern counterpoint and a moving epilogue to American Gothic.

Her new life in Eldon, Iowa, and her advocacy of pie-making as a back-to-basics community-building art are eloquently documented in her blog The World Needs More Pie. After traveling the world as a journalist, she moved to Stuttgart, Germany in 2003 to live with her husband Marcus. When he unexpected died in 2009, Ms. Howard dealt with her grief by taking what she calls her "leap of faith": setting out in Marcus's RV to travel the country baking pies for people from all walks of life. With the first anniversary of her husband's death  approaching, she turned the RV towards the one place she felt could provide the support she needed. Through this quest Ms. Howard discovered her own path back to Iowa. And she's been there ever since.

Between her pie posts, her blog also considers what it means to be a returning member of the rural diaspora, and how rural-urban relationships appear from that perspective--as in this post contrasting the local food cultures of Eldon, Iowa and Portland, Oregon. Ms. Howard is also in the process of writing a memoir about her experiences dealing, through her "leap of faith," with her husband's passing, and she also is hoping to produce a television series related to her experiences baking pie across the country. Last summer she judged pies for the Iowa State Fair. 

As I write this, and as this is read on the internet, it's provocative to think about the story of the woman who is now herself writing from the other side of that famous gothic window: how this Ottumwa native has experienced a range of joys and of losses that the caustic, shifting eyes of Wood's couple do not anticipate. For the artist himself, who biographer R. Tripp Evans suggests encoded his own sexuality within his work, Ms. Howard's story and the open and generous human relationships she's found in her sojourn in Eldon, lead us to a promising conclusion: now, in 2011, this is a house where Grant Wood could live. 

To learn more about the interior of the house, here's a video by Kyle Munson of The Des Moines Register:

The Southern Foodways Alliance

The Southern Foodway Alliance's Oral History Interactive Map Project

We think these stories offer far more than just sustenance--we think they offer a way of thinking about race and class, gender and ethnicity, those deeply important issues that have long vexed and long defined the South.  - John T. Edge, Director of the Southern Foodways Alliance

Earlier this summer, when writing about corn cob wine and the new online food culture magazine The Zenchilada, we discovered The Southern Foodways Alliance. While some of our readers may already be familiar with the wide variety of cookbooks, traveling events and documentary work of the SFA, we had yet to discover them--and our first visit to their site was a bona fide moment of culinary revelation. 

The organization projects an ambitious mission, to "stage symposia on food culture, produce documentary films, publish compendiums of great writing, and—perhaps most importantly—preserve, promote, and chronicle our region’s culinary standard bearers." What is plainly evident across their various efforts (from cookbooks to "okracasts", video documentaries to oral histories) is that the SFA is able to consider both the Southern past and its present, and to locate what it calls "the spirit of reconciliation" that gathers across these foodways:

The SFA site is currently featuring about two dozen documentaries it has created in conjunction with The Center for Documentary Projects at The University of Mississippi. They all are outstanding, and we'll include one below. Here's Eat or We'll Both Starve, a film by Joe York about the Taylor (MS) Grocery, a legendary catfish joint with a series of time-honored rules that encourage their patrons to sit down, slow down, and get to know their neighbors.

The SFA has also done extensive oral history work--see the interactive map above--and many of these interviews and field recordings are accompanied with photographs. Aside from individual oral histories, the SFA has a few regional food culture projects: The Southern BBQ Trail, The Southern Boudin Trail, The Southern Gumbo Trail, The Mississippi Delta Hot Tamale Trail and Wine in the South. 

In addition to all of this, The Southern Foodways Alliance also operates a fascinating blog that features reports from folks who are cooking their way through the SFA's publications, as well as reports from the organization's interns. Check out the recent post by intern Kevin Kim on documenting the presence of Chinese American grocers in the Delta:

First introduced to the Mississippi Delta as indentured servants by planters during Reconstruction, these early Chinese sojourners soon became disenchanted with working in the fields and moved off the plantation to set up small grocery stores nearby. Mainly serving as an alternative to plantation commissaries and catering to a predominately African American clientele, the Chinese American grocer was a mainstay in many Delta neighborhoods well into the 20th century. Though their numbers have diminished in recent years, their history is an important part of the foodways of the Delta.

The Zenchilada And Corn Cob Wine

photograph by Kat Kinsman, who also writes for Eatocracy

The Zenchilada is a new online magazine that aims to discuss the ways in which food can be "our vehicle for better understanding of ourselves and others." We'd like to thank Chuck, a reader from North Carolina, for suggesting this publication--we think that folks are really going to enjoy it.

What's fascinating about this magazine, most immediately, is it's format: when you direct your browser to the site, the current issue opens up, complete with an easy-to-use browser bar. The Zenchilada is gorgeously illustrated, and its layout is artfully done; the site accentuates these features without getting lost in the technology. What's also really exciting about this magazine (as opposed to the hundreds of other "cooking magazines") is that it's equally concerned with the culture that complements these dishes. A quick glance to this first issue's contributor's list speaks to this: chefs, food writers, poets and folklorists have all gathered in these pages to offer a range of perspectives on these foods' connections to people and place. 

The current issue opens with "Meditation on the Corn Tortilla Nation" by Ronni Lundy, the editor-in-chief and a founding member of the Southern Foodways Alliance, and the writing to follow also considers the culinary and cultural reach of maize. One piece that caught our eye was The Lee Brothers' introduction to corn cob wine. In this excerpt from their Southern Cookbook: Stories and Recipes for Southerners and Would-Be Southerners, they discuss and "end of the summer ritual" they learned from Gordon Huskey of Pigeon Forge, Tennessee:

Since it's difficult to shear all the kernels off the rounded cob, a fraction of sweet kernel gets left behind. Rather than send this residue to the compost pile, Huskey put it to a higher use, making wine by packing the half-naked cobs in a water-filled pail. Airborne wild yeasts did the work of extracting the remaining sugar from the cobs and converting it into alcohol. Corncob wine has a nice balance of sweet and tart and a nutty, unmistakably corny flavor.

Explore The Zenchilada for the corn cob wine recipe (on page 97) and to discover all kinds of other inspired takes on our staple crop. You'll also find poetry, storytelling, archaeology and some wonderful recipes within--we can't recommend this site/publication highly enough. It's a model for how we can use a sometimes-depersonalizing technology to share some profound stories with each other.

Detroit, Its Future and Farming

illustration of John Nantz's project by Byran Christie

By Ian Halbert

My cousins all live outside of Detroit and it is not uncommon to hear from them horror stories of just how devastated and blighted the city has become. Surely, we are all familiar with Detroit’s economic problems and urban decay – it has been the butt of jokes for generations and after the onslaught of this most recent recession, the images and stories of just how it is in one of America’s former industrial powerhouses have been nothing short of astonishing. With an unemployment rate in Michigan at about 15% – 5% above the national average – and a housing market that has tanked, the area has become victim to all sorts of real estate speculation, as some homes cost as low as $5000. This blog seems to be a get-rich-quick-at-Detroit’s-expense scheme, while other – one would hope more responsible – outlets have pushed the same idea.  

The end result is that a great deal of Detroit land is embarrassingly cheap and thus easily repurposed. And this is potentially good news. As such, some bright lights have advocated remaking the city entire, in addition to rethinking the design and function of cities in general. Micro loans have become popular in the area and futurists like Jerry Paffendorf have applied such financial tools to more grand projects like “Loveland,” where anyone in the world can buy an inch of Detroit for a $1 with the aim of creating community owned and operated public spaces. (More on this not entirely comprehensible project here and here.) 

But perhaps the most exciting idea has been the serious proposal of expanded and extensive urban farming. The idea is controversial, as it would require converting large amounts of public and private land (currently there is over 40 miles of vacant city land) being converted to essentially farmland, graded, raised and laid out almost in the manner of Macchu Picchu to accommodate the urban terrains.  

John Nantz has the vision for such a project (see above), but the city and its constituents have been wary of putting so much public space in the hands of a single, corporate entity, rather than in the control of the community. 

While it is dangerous to be overconfident in the hopes for these grand urban farming ventures (see tip 6) in the face of such economic odds, these projects and ideas could potentially change how we think about not only our urban landscapes, but also our rural ones. One need only consider the immediate paradox that as we continue to industrialize the countryside and its crops, the cities would have access to fresh, local produce. Perhaps, in some strange irony of historical significance, from the ashes of the heart of American industrialism will come a return to the farm and the land.