A Southern Farmer’s Quest for Flavor
South Wind Produce focuses on flavor, making their ingredients the perfect match for a Kingfisher cocktail.
South Wind Produce, a 47-acre farm in Rougemont, North Carolina, is a blend of culinary passion and farm practicality. As an avid cook, Angie Raines prioritizes flavor while co-owner Miles Okal takes a pragmatic approach to what will grow best.
“He’s the practical side; I’m the dreamer,” Raines says. “We’re finding a balance.”
South Wind Produce has a unique focus on growing grains like buckwheat and rice. When we visited in late August, the Japanese sushi rice and long grain Indian rice were at different growth stages. Angie showed us one plant stalk, pregnant with grains that were ready to push up, while another had already bloomed and was bent over from the weight of the grain.
“In the evening, the field smells like a big bowl of rice,” Raines says.
When it comes to flavor, Raines wants “something special” from her crops. The rice is no exception; tasting it is a new experience for customers. “The fresh flavor is undeniable,” Raines explains. “It’s like buying fresh strawberries instead of frozen.”
On their quest for the most delicious flavors, Raines and Okal have discovered that many celebrated heirloom plants fail in the southern climate. “We can’t grow super funky tomatoes or special French melons,” Raines says.
Raines believes more breeding research is needed with a focus on flavorful plants for small farms. For this reason, South Wind is participating in new research that could ultimately create tastier plant varieties suited for the south.
In 2019, Raines and Okal conducted seed trials in partnership with Row 7 Seed Company, a chef-breeder seed collaboration focused on flavor. South Wind planted the trial Row 7 seeds alongside seeds from another company, which were bred for survival, but without the same emphasis on taste. When the breeders came to observe the trial results, the Row 7 plants had died in the North Carolina summer, while the others thrived.
The breeders assured Raines that this could be fixed. “The way they talk about it makes me so excited,” Raines says. “There’s so much work to do to get flavor. It’s going to take years, but I just love that people are working on it now.”
Raines also dreams of creating South Wind’s own bank of seeds that have thrived on their farm. She will experiment with saving seeds from one of her favorite crops this year: radicchio.
Raines and Okal also plan to plant an orchard with fruits that are well-suited to North Carolina’s climate, including Asian persimmons, Asian pears, hardy kiwi, blueberries and figs.
Raines’s emphasis on flavor originates in her love of cooking and eating. “It’s such a treat to get to eat three meals a day,” she says. Each day, she prepares lunch for the farm staff using ingredients from the farm.
On the day we visited, Raines opened a bag of the farm’s buckwheat, which had been milled into flour the day before. “Smell this,” Raines invited, “isn’t it so nutty?” Later that day, Raines would use the flour to make banana bread and the flavor was sure to be anything but ordinary.
