Feast of Fields is a gourmet wandering picnic harvest festival and FarmFolk/CityFolk's annual fundraising event. With a wine glass and linen napkin in hand, you can taste the very best of the Islands and BC from chefs, vintners, brewers, farmers, and food artisans. Connections are made between producers and chefs, producers and consumers, farm folks and city folks. These connections provide an increased awareness of and appreciation for local food and agriculture. Feast of Fields is a gastronomic journey towards a sustainable, local food system.

History

Feast of Fields is an idea originally crafted by renowned Michael Stadtlander. As part of the organization "Knives and Forks", Michael partnered with Jamie Kennedy to create an event that aimed to get sophisticated urbanites out to the farm. In 1994 the Feast of Fields concept crossed the country to Vancouver. Following the success of the two events, Mara Jernigan returned to her roots on Vancouver Island and called a meeting at Ravenhill Farm with leaders in the food community in attendance. It was decided at that initial meeting that there would be a Vancouver Island Feast of Fields.

With the initial financial support of Debra Boyle at Pro Organics and North Douglas Distributors, Mara and a team volunteers organized the first Feast of Fields that was held at Ravenhill Farm. Since that first day in the third week of September, Feast of Fields has been held at the following farms:

1999 - Fairburn Farm in the Cowichan Valley
2000 - Seabluff Farm in Metchosin
2001 - Old Field Orchard in Saanich
2002 - Cowichan Bay Farm in the Cowichan Valley
2003 - Providence Farm in the Cowichan Valley
2004 - Woodside Farm in Sooke
2005 - Glenora Farm in Duncan
2006 - The Glendale Gardens and Woodland in Victoria
2007 - TLC's Keating Farm

Fund Recipients

To date the Island Feast of Fields has funded not only the work of FarmFolk/CityFolk but has also provided over $68,000 to community projects.

• CR-FAIR (Capital Region Food & Agriculture Initiatives Roundtable) for organisational development and again for continued support
• Lifecycles Community Projects and Lifecycles Growing Schools Project
• To the Archer family for fencing at Fairburn Farm
• The construction of a market garden at Sooke based Edward Milne Secondary School to complement the culinary program.
• Providing the startup support to the Island Chefs Collaborative.
• Providing support to Stewards Of Irreplaceable Land (SOIL)
• The construction of an industrial kitchen at Providence Farm in Duncan that will be used to train special needs community members in cooking, preservation and preparation techniques.
• Supporting two farmers to attend the Slow Food "Terra Madre" conference held in Torino, Italy.
• A bigleaf maple syrup evaporator for Glenora Farm
• Startup funding for the Island Chef’s Collaborative Bastion Square Market
• Construction costs to the Malaspina Culinary Program wood fired bread oven
• Site improvements to the Keating Farm Co-operative
• A walk-in cooler for FoodRoots to supply pocket-markets in Victoria
• Funding for the GoodFoodBox program to puchase local food
• A Foodshed map of the Cowichan Valley drawn by Briony Penn

If you would like to apply for a community grant from the 2008 Feast please contact the organizers.

Event Organizers

FarmFolk/CityFolk is a non-profit society that wants one simple thing: for people to eat local, fresh, seasonal foods, grown using farming practices that contribute to the health of the planet.

FarmFolk/CityFolk is open to any group or individual whose efforts - in areas as seemingly diverse as agriculture, the environment, human health and human rights - lead toward food security for everyone. With all of us working together, the impact can be enormous. Farmers' markets spring to life in parking lots, community gardens spread in the midst of cities, community kitchens bring people together to feed themselves better by pooling skills and resources.

Jason Found – Event Organizer

Jason is the Vancouver Island representative for FarmFolk/CityFolk. He has been involved in many aspects of the food chain having worked as a chef, farmer, gardener, food processor, and food policy consultant. With FarmFolk/CityFolk, Jason is actively focused on the supply end of the food system as coordinator of the Community Farms Program.

Jason has been involved with the Island Feast of Fields since 2004 as a volunteer, and became event organizer with Melanie Banas in 2006. In his spare time he can be found tearing up his lawn planting figs, fava, amaranth…. He lives in Victoria with his dog Cedar.

 

Melanie Banas – Event Organizer

Melanie is passionate about food and is committed to improving the local food system. She has worked in the food industry in Victoria for over a decade, serving in many fine dining rooms in Victoria and for many years at the Sooke Harbour House. 

She has been involved with the organisation of the Feast of Fields since it's inception in 1998. Beginning as a volunteer, Melanie's role continually grew until 2006 when she took over the event, from event founder Mara Jernigan, with Jason as co-organiser. In 2007 Melanie brought a third organiser to the team with the birth of her son Silas.  Silas took his first Feast in stride, and looks forward to this year's event now that he is on solid food. (Watch for Silas-inspired Feast of Fields' onesies for sale!) Raised in Victoria, Melanie is currently based on Protection Island.  

 

Mara Jernigan, Event Founder

Mara Jernigan is a chef who left a fifteen year career in the restaurant industry to start farming, educating and developing local food systems. From Fairburn Farm, heritage farm and cooking school in Vancouver Island's Cowichan Valley, Mara works to promote local farmers, restaurants and wineries with her Sunday Farm Tours, cooking classes and special events.

Mara founded the Vancouver Island Feast of Fields, a much-celebrated gastronomic picnic and fundraiser held each September, which she has been organizing on behalf of the FarmFolk/CityFolk Society since 1998. Mara's upbringing in the mundane Canadian suburbs of the seventies left her longing for a closer connection to land and cultural traditions.

This led her to Europe where she learned languages, worked in Switzerland, and lived in Austria on alpine dairy farm. Since 2000, Mara has worked to promote the goals of the International Slow Food Movement, serving Internationally as the Canadian Representative for the Slow Food Ark Project, and locally where she coordinates the Vancouver Island and the Gulf Islands Convivium with Sooke Harbour House owner Dr. Sinclair Philip.

Mara recently returned from four months in Italy where she attended the Slow Food Master of Italian Regional Cooking Program in the Marches region and traveled extensively in Italy, studying regional specialties from the fresh mozzarella and Cacciacavallo cheeses and artisanal breads of Puglia to the underground rabbits of Ischia. Mara believes food can be an instrument of social change, used to transform communities by encouraging the preservation of traditional knowledge, respect for quality of life and the environment, creating local traditions and celebrations based on seasonality.