Savers of Flavor

Which is the best garden pea? The first to ripen, breaking the winter dearth of green vegetables. Thomas Jefferson challenged neighbors to present the first plate of peas. Victors grew the Early Frame, sown in autumn, rising again in February. From 1770 to 1840 it defined spring gardens, then disappeared. The Savers identify an Early Frame pea from Little Mountain, SC, and return it to Monticello.

"Can she bake a cherry pie?" asks the southern song. If she could, she baked with the South's only pie cherry, the Dyehouse. Planted widely from 1870 to 1940, it vanished when Michigan monopolized sour cherry production after WWII. After the Savers of Flavor spark a radio hunt for the lost fruit, Kevin Mitchell and David Shields uncover a surviving Dyehouse tree on a Kentucky artist's farm.

Are we eating the wrong part of okra? Kevin Mitchell worries that okra's rich nutritional benefits are lost to those wary of its sliminess. The Savers travel Georgia seeking better uses. In Pitts they taste okra seed oil at Oliver Farms. In Milledgeville, at Comfort Farms, they meet Jon Jackson's Motherland Okra, grown for its greens. Chef Kevin prepares African-style okra leaves with smoked fish.

Carolina pumpkins trace back to Pumpkintown, SC, where the Cherokee shaped the Oolenoy River valley. The Savers meet Nat Bradford of Sumter, SC, champion of Dutch Fork pumpkins. Mohawk Chef Dave Smoke-McCluskey spreads Bradford's seeds among Native growers. Together they journey to the Cherokee homeland to roast Bradford's pumpkins alongside the "Little Tan," grown by Cherokee horticulturists.