Blue Ridge Country - September/October 2014 - 56

blackberry farm

Facing page: John
Coykendall, Blackberry's
master gardener, has
been collecting heritage
varieties since 1959.

day of Hanukkah, when she weighed nine pounds.
Eight months later, fed only with scraps from the
garden, she weighed 275. She won't become bacon,
though - "when they get a name, they can't be
slaughtered."
The restaurants are one part of the business.
Harvest on Main is in a 10-year-old lodge-style building, with old timbers. Cross the alley and you're at
Blue Ridge Bakery, which serves breakfast and lunch
and sells provisions including jams, sauces, cheese and
smoked salmon. Moran runs a CSA - Community
Supported Agriculture sales network - through the
bakery. Masseria, in the next building over, was slated
to open in July, and will be a Mediterranean restaurant
with a wood-fired stove, covering the cuisines of countries including France, Italy, Morocco and Israel.
Besides running the restaurants, the CSA and a
small farm, the couple teaches cooking classes to
adults and runs corporate retreats for 15 to 100 people, and cooking camps to children.
"We really wanted to share what we've learned
about food with the youth in the area as well as people
coming and visiting," says Moran. "It's important they
know where their food actually comes from. The first
year the kids were searching for bushes when I asked
where to find potatoes were growing."
Mellman grew up hunting, fishing and foraging.
"My mother was a very good cook," he says, and a
gardener. She did all her shopping at the local farmer's
market. Mellman would bring her what he'd found
or killed - "if I caught it and cleaned it, she would
cook it. Fish, birds, rabbits."
Moran's parents both worked, and the family ate
out a lot. "It was a small town, and so we knew a lot of
the people who owned the restaurants." When she got
fidgety, her parents would send her back to the kitchen
and she'd spend time with the chefs, watching them
work. Her father, who died when she was 19, always

56 | BlueRidgeCountry.com

harvest on main

michelle moran

Above: The Blue Ridge
Grocery carries local
and regional products
including coffee roasted
in Asheville, N.C.
Blackberry Farm's sheep
are a mix of two breeds -
East Friesians (from
Germany and Holland)
and Karakul (from
Central Asia).

wanted to be a food writer, and he coached her on it,
asking her questions - how would she describe the fish
she just ate? How would she describe the room?
Today, she and Mellman still do a lot of foraging.
"Our relaxation time is going out in the woods for
four hours," he says, gathering mushrooms, fiddle
head ferns, ramps, blackberries, wild plums, wild
cherries, wild quince, paw paws, wild onions and arugula, cattails, dandelion greens.
They hope to expand their farming work to a larger
plot of land they're hoping to buy - 43 acres with
2,000 feet along a trout stream, and a 100-year-old
farmhouse, where Moran can build a herd of freeranging pigs and Mellman can build a smokehouse.
Moran says raising produce and raising animals are
about equal in difficulty.
"The animals raise themselves. It's amazing to
see a mother rabbit care for her young. Even pregnant for the first time she knows what to do. Nature
is amazing.
"The hard part are illnesses and not being able to
resolve or help the animals in any way. It's hard, but I
have been able to accept death on the farm much
easier than when I first started.
"Produce takes care of itself too, but you are at the
mercy of Mother Nature who - well, she can be fickle.
Last year I had a horrible year and grew nothing. This
year looks good, the right amount of sun and rain.
Now I just have to keep up with weeds and bugs,
which is also a struggle working sustainably."
Blackberry Farm, Walland, Tenn.
Blackberry Farm contains 4,200 acres in eastern
Tennessee, a resort supported by a working farm producing cheeses, honey, eggs, beer, sausages and heritage vegetables, and raising chickens and sheep. The
farm hosts cooking schools and epicurean events and

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Blue Ridge Country - September/October 2014

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