The 2024 application cycle has closed.
We anticipate launching the next application cycle in February 2025.
PURPOSE
This 5-day program is designed for aspiring, beginning, and intermediate cooks and food justice workers of Black, Indigenous, and Latine heritage to gain skills in culturally-rooted, whole-foods cooking and preservation. By the end of the program, you will have the knowledge to harvest seasonal ingredients, plan menus, make value-added products, and create your own dishes inspired by your heritages, as well as the tools to align a professional kitchen with a more sustainable food system. As with all our programs, it is our hope that you will also deepen your connection to land and take steps toward your personal food sovereignty.
DESCRIPTION
This summer, a team of passionate chefs will come together with participants from all over the region and country who are seeking to increase access to life-giving food in their communities. There will be one Farm-to-Table immersion that will accommodate 18 participants. There will be simultaneous skill-share options for beginner small scale cooks and more advanced large scale cooks.
Farm-to-Table Skills
Participants will leave having practiced many of the following skills:
- Cooking
- Knife Skills
- Washing and Storing Produce
- Using Kitchen Equipment
- Basic Cooking Techniques
- Intuitive Cooking
- Whole foods processing
- Gathering, preparation, and organization
- Recipe Development
- Menu Planning: per meal, per week, for year ahead
- Menu Translation: ancestral dishes using local in season ingredients
- Substitutions
- Climate Resiliency: adjusting for drought
- Harvesting
- Hands-On: when and how to harvest
- Integrating menu with farm planning and harvest lists
- Collaborating with Farmers/CSAs
- Preservation
- Fermentation
- Drying
- Freezing
- Jams
- Value-Added Products
- Managing a Kitchen
- Organizing tasks and roles
- Waste Reduction and Compost
- Health and Safety Protocols
- Certifications
- Insurance
- Medicine Making
- Learning the Medicine of a Plant
- Growing medicine
- Harvesting
- Basic Techniques: infusions, decoctions, elixirs, tinctures, salves
- Mushrooms
- Growing & Harvesting
- Cooking and Preservation
- Stocks and Broths
- Extraction
- Chickens
- Selecting
- Processing
- Cleaning and Breaking Down
The learning will take place in an affirming environment that centers Afro-Indigenous cooking and food preservation practices and histories, and uplifts the collective wisdom of the group. Together we hope to build a stronger network of land-loving cooks and food sovereignty chefs regionally and nationally.
2024 Farm-to-Table Immersion
Read the detailed description before applying for more information about cost, the flow of the day, learning goals, and more.
PROGRAM DATES
- September 8 – 13, 2024
- This program will run from Sunday at 6:00 pm through Friday at 1:30 pm.
TIMELINE
- Application Launch: Friday, February 23
- Application Deadline: Friday, March 15 – 5pm EST
- Notification: Monday, May 20 – 11pm EST
- Acceptance & Deposit Due: Friday, May 24
FAQ
Sliding scale $250 – $2500. Once you are accepted to the program, a $50 non-refundable deposit holds your spot. (NOTE: the real cost to run the program is around $2000 per person so please support at a higher level if able.)
Check out the Accommodations Guide for detailed descriptions and photos to determine whether our facilities will meet your comfort and accessibility needs.
Young people ages 15+ may apply as adult participants to the Farm-to-Table Immersion.
For children 5 – 11 years old: We will offer daily activities customized for youth. There will be both all-ages time so that people with children can participate alongside their young ones, as well as parallel activities where adults are doing one activity and youth are having a separate tailored experience (appx 3-4 hours per day). There is a youth attendance fee of $150 – $1500 sliding scale including a $50 non-refundable deposit due at the time of program acceptance. The fee contributes toward the costs of the youth facilitators and food for the child throughout the immersion.
We receive a significant number of emails with questions that can typically be answered by reviewing the detailed program descriptions linked throughout this application. Please respect our capacity and limit email inquiries to items NOT covered in the detailed program descriptions. We can be reached at programs@soulfirefarm.org.
We are completely committed to making the program affordable to everyone. The REAL cost of one participant’s attendance at the Soul Fire Farming Immersion is around $1000, yet most participants pay much, much less than that. Please contribute to help offset the costs to run this unique and transformational program.