Ask Joe Henderson any question and odds are he’ll give you a very thorough answer. But ask him how to save one of the most endangered breeds in the world, the Randall Lineback, he’ll give you a very short retort: You have to eat it.

Henderson, a Washington, D.C. real estate executive and farmer, raises around 250 Randall Linebacks on the rolling hills of his Chapel Hill Farm in Berryville, VA. And what exactly is a Randall Lineback?

“Well, we don’t know what to call it,” says Henderson.
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Chefs with Issues is a platform for chefs and farmers we love, fired up for causes about which they're passionate. Jay Pierce is the chef at Lucky 32 Southern Kitchen in Greensboro and Cary, North Carolina and frequently contributes to Edible Piedmont Magazine and the restaurant's Farm-to-Fork blog.

As this year’s political season wends its way to Election Day, we voters will be implored to act, decide, stand up for what we believe in.  Our voice matters; as every child learns in school, one vote can make a difference.  No matter how disaffected or energized you are by rhetorical jousting about healthcare, debt ceilings or foreign aid, there is one topic that hits close to everyone’s home: buying and eating food. 
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Brent Ridge and Josh Kilmer-Purcell are the owners of Beekman 1802. Take a peek at life on their farm at beekman1802.com

When we first bought Beekman 1802 Farm, the only heirloom vegetables we’d ever heard of were heirloom tomatoes. But a welcome-wagon meeting with one of our neighbors changed all of that. Half-a-mile down the road from us lived the owners of Landreth Seed Company, and we soon learned that every kind of vegetable seed carries with it a little bit of history.

Before long our vegetable garden was sprouting with over 100 different varieties of heirloom seeds – peas, beans, lettuce, carrots, cabbages, and nearly any other kind of vegetable you’ve ever tried. Or haven’t tried.
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Eatocracy's Managing Editor Kat Kinsman attempts to vegetable garden on a roof deck in Brooklyn, NY in USDA Hardiness Zone 6b. Feel free to taunt, advise or encourage her efforts as this series progresses.

My edible loofah won't fruit, and there doesn't seem to be a darned thing I can do about it. For that matter, I can't stave off daikon bolt, keep my African Guinea Flint corn from slumping or save my white bush scallop squash from the indignity of slug consumption.

This is mostly my fault, and I have to live with it. I could have just laid down to drown in a deluge of Netflix-streamed episodes of Battlestar Galactica, taken up yogalates or just napped like a normal person, but no, not me. As a friend recently pointed out to me, I use any scrap of down time I have to assign myself an extra job.
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5@5 is a daily, food-related list from chefs, writers, political pundits, musicians, actors, and all manner of opinionated people from around the globe.

One might hear the word "extinct" and immediately think of dinosaurs and dodo birds, but some of our more delicious cohabitants might also be at risk.

Shaun Garcia is the chef of Soby's, a restaurant peppered with heritage ingredients, in Greenville, South Carolina.

When he's not in the restaurant, Garcia can often be found on his tractor Lucille working his 7-acre farm, where he grows several types of produce from the Slow Food Ark of Taste list.

The Slow Food Ark of Taste is a catalog of foods that are at risk of extinction - either biologically because of industrialized agriculture or as culinary traditions - and Shaun has made it his mission to preserve and promote them.

Five Reasons to Use Endangered Ingredients: Shaun Garcia
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5@5 is a daily, food-related list from chefs, writers, political pundits, musicians, actors, and all manner of opinionated people from around the globe.

You say "tomato," Chef Greg Elliott of Chicago's Lockwood Restaurant says "pass the heirloom."

As we previously explained, "heirloom seeds come from plants that have remained genetically unchanged and have been open-pollinated (by insects, birds, wind, etc.) for at least 50 – or some say 100 – years. This means no hybridizing with other varieties of plants."

'Maters that have stood the test of time? Let's definitely not call the whole thing off.

Five Reasons to Get Excited About Heirloom Tomatoes: Greg Elliott
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As long as Eatocracy has been around, we've been evangelizing for heirloom vegetables. It's not just that they're generally bred for exquisite flavor and variety, rather than durability and uniformity; they're also a link to our past and may very well determine the future of our food system.

As Southern chef Sean Brock says, "These ingredients tell stories about families, regions and the lessons we’ve learned from everyone else. They tell history. They tell about time and place. They enlighten us."
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Live from the Food & Wine Classic in Aspen - You say "tomato," we say "where'd it come from?" Managing editor Kat Kinsman explains why community gardens, farmers markets and online initiatives like LocalHarvest.org can help ripen up your summer.

Thinking of nixing lettuce from your diet after reading about the deadly E. coli outbreak in Germany and domestic lettuce recalls?

Not only can at-home growers skip this risk - you'll also save money, enjoy a nearly endless variety of organic and heirloom options and have fresh salads at their fingertips all year around - even without an outdoor garden.
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