News & Events In Common Newsletter Fall 2009 A Little Brazil on the Vineyard
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Volume 8 • Number 1 • Fall 2009
A Little Brazil on the Vineyard
Locally grown Brazilian vegetables on Martha’s Vineyard this past summer. Locally grown tropical Brazilian vegetables were a big hit on Martha’s Vineyard in 2009. The UMass Extension’s Ethnic Crops Team has been working with farmers and markets on the Vineyard since 2008, introducing crops such as taioba, okra and maxixe to the island. Taioba is a leafy green and maxixe is a spiny cucumber. Frank Mangan’s graduate students Zoraia Barros, Celina Fernandes and Renato Mateus promoted these vegetables at Brazilian and non-Brazilian markets on the island in 2009, and they were especially popular at Cronigs Market in Vineyard Haven. Customers at Cronigs were allowed to taste traditional Brazilian recipes with taioba, maxixe and okra, and then were given surveys to evaluate market demand. There are an estimated 3,000 people of Brazilian origin living on Martha’s Vineyard, but the popularity of the produce, which is now served in several island restaurants, quickly moved beyond its ethnic constituency, something that Extension’s Frank Mangan attributes to the spirit of culinary adventure that prevails throughout the vacation destination. The UMass Amherst team initially worked with three farms – Morning Glory Farm, Whippoorwill CSA and Bayes Norton Farm – in creating an island laboratory for the vegetables. All three reported quickly selling out any and all taioba at their farm stands. Elio Silva, who runs the Tisbury Farm Market, was one of the first to push the commercial potential of the Brazilian vegetables he had grown up with, and was instrumental in winning the support of the Island Grown Initiative. Many of the taioba plants that Silva sold this spring went home with non-Brazilians. Check out the UMass Amherst ethnic crop initiative. Credits:
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