What We Brought

The sweet potato vines at my farm have spent most of the summer doing exactly what sweet potato vines do: taking over everything around them. They have spread beyond the space I gave them, disappeared underneath each other, and made it increasingly difficult to remember where one plant ends and another begins. I am getting close to harvest now, which means I have started thinking less about the vines and more about what is underneath them. Sweet potatoes feel so firmly rooted

No. 2 Before we get into the plant, understand this: okra crossed an ocean during the worst forced migration in human history, and the story of how it got here starts with someone deciding, in the middle of that horror, that there would be a harvest on the other side. Not because they knew for certain. Because they refused to accept that there wouldn't be. That's the plant we're starting with. The one that came off my own vines this week for the first time. Where It Started L

The full history of amaranthus — from Aztec ceremony to African trade routes to Caribbean provision grounds. How this plant crossed oceans, survived erasure, and ended up on your plate.

There was no instruction, no manual, and no permission granted. A ship crossed an ocean that was never meant to be survived. Yet, people carried knowledge through the worst conditions imaginable. Not in luggage or carefully packed containers, but in memory and practice. They held onto something that connected them to who they were before someone tried to erase it. Now, that knowledge is here with us. What This Series Is What We Brought is a plant-by-plant cultural history. Ea