Julie Kahn

America's wilderness and the rural dwellers who it sustains, have been the real losers in the real estate boom and bust. A documentary-in-progress, Swamp Cabbage, looks at the rugged people who live off the land in rapidly disappearing rural Florida. One of the filmmakers, Julie Kahn is an artist based in the San Francisco Bay area. She and her collaborator, Hayley Downs, a Brooklyn based filmmaker will be hosting a Wild Game Feast in November to raise money for the film and to bring together many of the bay area's foragers. See Calendar Buzz below for the details and buy tickets to the feast and see their trailer at Swamp Cabbage Movie.com

An Interview with filmmakers Hayley Downs and Julie Kahn

What does Wild Game mean as it relates to the film, and to the Wild Game Feast?

One of the folks we've interviewed for Swamp Cabbage talks about the many ways we all create walls to protect ourselves from a natural world that scares us because we can't control it and we don't totally understand it. He talks about it specifically in terms of Florida subdivisions that are comprised of identical air conditioned boxes meant to insulate its residents from the heat, the bugs and the various animals that might bite you. But there is this tremendous price for that right? People are attracted to the wildness and mystery of a place but then do their best to turn it into something they can know and control. And it's not just Florida. For us, eating Wild Game is about embracing the diversity of our food sources and getting as close as possible to the food chain when we consume. It's about stepping outside of our comfort zones - and ultimately finding out that it's more delicious that way. Delicious = locavore to the max!

In terms of events for the film - it's an ideal way for communities to get together and bond through the events. It provides context to think about larger themes in the film by bringing in a 360 degree experience -- relating the film to local places and drawing a deeper connection to wild food, conservation, local identity and community. The hunters, the cooks, the eaters are all there together in the same room sharing in an experience where the link is not broken. Our dream is, once the film is finished, to have these events all over the country in tandem with film screenings.

Julie--your artwork is often about building community. What do you hope happens at the Wild Game Feast?

I hope that the Wild Game Feast will not only introduce people to an important rural Florida subculture but will also allow them to see their own culture, landscape, and food sources in a new way. In my artwork, I aim to nurture community by creating environments conducive to unexpected interactions among strangers as well as opportunities for diverse folks to break bread together. My largest purpose is to break down the traditional barriers that exist not only between artwork and onlooker but also between various social and economic groups. I want farmers and venture capitalists and artists and cooks and construction workers to find themselves together in the same room. For me, it is important that everyone participates, takes risks and ventures outside their comfort zone because I find when people are disarmed and engaged and eating together, they are open to forming new ideas and connections. I feel strongly that such relationships are ultimately the most important engines of meaningful change in our communities and food systems.

Hayley--the trailer indicates that the film is about loss and surviving that. How does this relate to wilderness and your past?

I think we all have some events in our lives that we are obliged to survive, or overcome, don't you? I think the process of growing up involves revisiting and revising old ideas. I think what I have learned in my 12 years away for Florida was that a lot of the filters I use to look at the world - and a lot of my survival skills I inherited from the culture and the family I tried so hard to deny in myself. Things got a little better when I started to embrace who I am. I think Julie and I are trying to look at our collective relationship to the natural world - to the wilderness - through the lens of Florida using my personal story as a way in to some larger issues.

Hayley Downs

Recipe for Jerky by Willard Redditt
(Willard Redditt is an 80-year old multigenerational jerky maker and butcher from Christmas, Florida. He scrawled his family's jerky recipe onto a piece of notebook paper and gave it to Julie. It has been left in its original form because it reads like poetry.)

Redditt Family Jerky

Early Fla pioneers largeley had
to live off the Land -
One of the staple foods was fresh & Dried
venison & beef -
example - after dressing the animal
if was more than could be consumed fresh
- bone out - section out major muscles. Then
cut in strips with grain - salt heavy
after few hours (or) day put out to Dry
if at home & had smoke house -
build frame shoulder high - flat piece of
board or hopeful metal roofing Tin - Check Weather
then soon as sun up put meat on to Sun Dry
Careful to look for rain clouds & birds -
build small fires - put on slow burning wood
to keep away blow flies
rack needs to be high enough so dogs can't reach
turn meat over ocasionly - take in when
necessary - this may have to be repeated -
our Redditt family being one of the early
people in Fla -
Continues til Now
thanks
Willard Redditt

Calendar Buzz

The Wild Game Feast will be on November 15th and it includes a pig roast by chef and butcher Morgan Maki from Bi-Rite, Tjarn Takuji Sato is going diving for Abalone and will prepare the dish with some veterans of Chez Panisse and Oliveto. Gelateria Cici from Mill Valley is going to make foraged persimmon gelato and finally there's the"Jerk Off" Jerky Tasting. There will be quite a few contenders - both lay jerky makers and the pros like Marin Sun Farms and Fatted Calf. City Dirt is going to be throwing down with Squaw Candy. Joshua Archer from Beowolf Mead is going to make wine from honey. The folks at VERGE wine cellars are going to share a Syrah that they farm on the edge of the wilderness on Brandford Mountain. And don't tell anyone, but we may have a lead on some real moonshine. The event is hosted by Savory Thymes in Mill Valley which was established by Ali Ghiorse and it supports and educates the public about local, sustainable food systems within the context of the global economy through events that celebrate the tastes, beauty and textures of the earth. Savory Thymes events are sponsored by Hans Schoepflin.