Bacon, eggs and salad trifecta: Keeneland launches meal kits with farm fresh items
Sometimes a salad is just a nice way to start dinner. But other times it’s a fresh start of a different kind, bringing together a historic Bluegrass institution and local group with a social justice mission.
Keeneland, world-renowned racetrack and leading auction house of the Thoroughbred industry, is partnering with Black Soil KY, an agritourism organization dedicated to expanding market share for local Black farmers, for the 2021 Spring Race Meet.
Black Soil KY co-founder and COO Ashley Smith and Keeneland Hospitality executive chef and managing director Marc Therrien combined Black Soil farm-fresh ingredients with Therrien’s culinary expertise to offer Lexington locals the opportunity to enjoy seasonal produce in both the Keeneland dining rooms and at home.
During this year’s Spring Meet through April 23, Keeneland’s menu features lettuce grown by Ag in the City, a west Louisville-based Black Soil urban farm.
Black Soil KY is also selling frittata meal kits developed by Therrien using seasonal produce. All ingredients for the meal kits come straight from Black Soil farms, including fresh eggs from Hills of Kindness Farm, local bacon from Cleav’s Family Market, and an array of seasonal garden produce from Ag in the City.
“Everything was there to make just a beautiful frittata,” Therrien said. “To me, any good food, or a good menu just needs to happen naturally, and this was one of those cases.”
The skillet frittata kits are available on the Black Soil website as well as at the Julietta Market in Greyline Station, where Black Soil runs The Recipe, a year-round indoor farmers market. The take-home meal kits feed up to four people, cost $50 and are electronic benefit transfer (EBT) eligible, continuing the Black Soil mission of providing equitable access to seasonal produce and local meat.
“At the end of the day, regardless of where we sit, we all have to eat, and we want to bring that world-class experience of Keeneland hospitality to the comfort of many, many Kentucky homes,” Smith said.
Although Keeneland is unable to use produce as consistently as a regular restaurant, Therrien said he plans to continue using Black Soil ingredients as much as possible for future events.
“We really want to celebrate these partnerships and what’s coming from the ground,” Therrien said. “We need to keep it local and tell that story.”
The partnership between Keeneland and Black Soil KY serves to further the mission of educating consumers about where their food comes from, and why buying local empowers both the farmer and consumer.
“It’s important for every group of people to know where your food is from,” said Chris Thomas, a high school agriculture educator and the owner of Hills of Kindness. “That may be the biggest thing (Black Soil has) done, is help bridge the gap between farmer and consumer.”
Black Soil KY does more than just increase market share for their farms through strategic sourcing like the Keeneland collaboration. The organization also offers farm tours, engages in education and outreach initiatives, and conducts off-season workshops to help reconnect local African-Americans to their agricultural history.
In Kentucky, Black farmers represent 1.4% of overall producers, accounting for fewer than 600 of more than 76,000 agricultural operations, according to the 2017 farm census. Smith said this disproportionate representation within the farming industry was much of the motivation for the creation of Black Soil.
“(If) Mother Nature can’t see who puts the seed in the ground, then why do we have such enormous disparities in agriculture?” Smith said. “Being unable to shake that question three, or almost four years ago, Black Soil was established to reconnect Black Kentuckians to their heritage and legacy in agriculture by really helping people embrace what true economic prosperity can look and feel like.”
Since the program’s founding in 2017, Black Soil has grown from representing one farm family to about 60 Kentucky based farms, culinary entrepreneurs and artisans, in 31 different counties.
Smith said she hopes to expand Black Soil outside of Kentucky in the future, recognizing that there is still great disparity when it comes to African-American farmers and urban agriculturalists in other states such as Illinois, Indiana and Ohio.