Heirloom Seeds Story Archives - West Virginia Public Broadcasting

Heirloom Rice Thrives In Western North Carolina With Help From Hmong Farmers

Western North Carolina is home to one of the largest Hmong populations in the United States. Many Hmong families find ways to honor their culture through food. Tou and Chue Lee, owners of Lee’s One Fortune Farm, are one of those families.

This story originally aired in the Feb. 4, 2024 episode of Inside Appalachia.

When you think of rice, you might not think of Western North Carolina. However, Hmong farmers have been growing rice in the North Carolina mountains for nearly five decades.

Tou and Chue Lee are two of these farmers. They are the owners of Lee’s One Fortune Farm in Morganton, North Carolina. Named for the family legacy Tou and Chue hope to inspire, Lee’s One Fortune Farm aims to make fresh rice, along with Asian fruits and vegetables, accessible to local people.

The Lees grow multiple varieties of rice — sweet sticky, red and purple. They are also working with family members to develop a black shell variety they hope to sell within the next year. Fresh rice is unlike anything that you can find in a conventional supermarket. The sweet sticky rice is fragrant and somewhat chewy, while the red rice has a flavor similar to chestnuts. The purple rice is also nutty and has a deep inky purple color. The sweet sticky rice is one of the Lees’ most popular varieties.

“The sweet sticky rice has a very nice, kind of a honey, sugar cane aroma — a subtle freshness that is hard to explain,” Tou said.

The sweet sticky rice field at Lee’s One Fortune Farm in Morganton, North Carolina.

*Credit: Rachel Moore/West Virginia Public Broadcasting*

He likens the rice to a fresh loaf of bread. It may be hard to describe, but once you experience it, you will know what to look for.

Origin Story

While each of the rice varieties that the Lees grow is distinct, the sweet sticky rice has a legendary beginning in North Carolina. It started with a handful of seeds, passed down through a network of Hmong families.

“Someone visited Laos back in the 1980s after they came to the United States,” Tou said. “They were able to visit their families and acquire a few — I mean, not even ounces — worth of seed. I would say no more than maybe 40 to 50 seeds.”

The family planted the seeds in California. Tou said the rice grew, but it did not grow well because it was not suited for the California climate and terrain. So, the growers in California sent some rice seeds to friends in North Carolina — this is how Tou’s family acquired some. They planted the seeds just to see what would happen.

“Lo and behold, the thing germinated and took off and it almost grew as tall as a full grown adult,” Tou said.

The Lees have been growing the sweet sticky rice ever since. Tou said it has completely adapted to Western North Carolina.

“It started off as an heirloom from Laos, but as many years as it’s been here in Western North Carolina, it might as well be considered an heirloom in the Western North Carolina area,” said Tou.

Before and after: sweet sticky rice after it has been harvested and toasted (left), and sweet sticky rice after the hulling process (right).

*Credit: Rachel Moore/West Virginia Public Broadcasting*

Blending Old And New Techniques

It may be considered an heirloom, but growing rice is still a lot of work. The Lees had to establish their rice field in a low-lying area about a mile from the rest of their farm. It does not grow in a conventional paddy, but the Lees do have to flood the field each year to ensure the rice has enough water, and to provide pest control.

Each year, Tou and Chue Lee flood their rice fields with 8–10 inches of water for pest control.

*Credit: Rachel Moore/West Virginia Public Broadcasting*

The Lees find ways to incorporate traditional Hmong practices throughout the growing season. Take seed saving. Each seed has to be hand selected. It is a time-consuming process.

“When the rice starts to mature, we actually go in there with buckets or bags and we walk around and hand select the most plump, the most well-defined rice that’s on the stalk, and we hand harvest those just for seed,” Tou said.

The Lees do implement more modern techniques during the harvesting process — by using a combine harvester, for example — but their hulling process looks similar to what it did when they were growing up in Laos.

Tou Lee and his aunt hull sweet sticky rice that has been harvested. First, the rice is boiled in a pot of water and debris from the field is skimmed off.

*Credit: Rachel Moore/West Virginia Public Broadcasting*

On a chilly October afternoon, Tou and Chue, along with Tou’s aunt, Pa Vang Lee, hull the rice. Hulling removes the outer layer of the rice, making it edible. First, Pa Vang scoops rice into a pot of boiling water. This allows the rice to sink and all the debris to float to the top so she can skim it off.

Then, Chue toasts the rice in a large wok over a gas flame. Toasting the rice starts the drying process and helps develop the flavor. The rice finishes drying on large tarps. When it dries, Tou runs it through the huller and it is ready to cook.

Chue Lee toasts rice in a wok to begin drying it before it can be hulled.

*Credit: Rachel Moore/West Virginia Public Broadcasting*

A Lasting Legacy

Growing rice may have its challenges, but the Lees believe it is important to keep doing.

When the Lees decided to settle down in Western North Carolina, Tou knew he didn’t want their culture to be hidden away in the background. The Lees bring their culture to the forefront by selling at farmers markets and introducing customers to Hmong foodways.

“The rice is something that brings our families back to remembering what our culture was in the old country and how we want to continue our culture here,” Tou said.

The rice is also an important piece of the Hmong new year, a huge annual celebration that takes place around Thanksgiving. In North Carolina, members of the Hmong community travel up to hundreds of miles to celebrate the holiday. Traditionally, this is when farmers would share their young, green rice with others.

“When the family gathers, you’ve got this fresh, new rice. You cook that and that is a means of making something that the whole family can enjoy together,” Tou said.

Now, the Lees are proud to share their rice with people outside of the Hmong community.

Rice is one of the Lees’ most popular items when they offer it at farmers markets. People line up long before the market opens to stock up. It was not always this easy for the Lees though. Tou said when he and Chue started selling at farmers markets a little over a decade ago, not many people knew what they were offering.

“I knew it was gonna be tough to start out with because people didn’t know what you have, so it’s a tough sell. We knew it would take a long time to develop it, and it did,” Tou said.

So, the Lees found their own ways to adapt. They share recipes and ideas with customers. Recipes like young, sticky green rice with succulent Hmong sausage, stuffed bitter melon or charcoal-roasted Japanese sweet potatoes, make Hmong cuisine accessible.

Tou and Chue Lee serve a meal of young, fresh sticky rice, Hmong sausage, hot sauce and an eggplant dip to guests of the Appalachian Sustainable Agriculture Project Farm Tour at Lee’s One Fortune Farm in September 2023.

*Credit: Rachel Moore/West Virginia Public Broadcasting*

Now, people beyond the Hmong community know how special Lee’s One Fortune Farm is. They respect the rice and they respect the produce, coming back year after year to stock up. Tou and Chue were able to help make rice thrive in North Carolina, and the community has shown they are willing to support it.

“The rice just seems to be in its home,” Tou said.

——

The Folkways Reporting Project is made possible in part with support from Margaret A. Cargill Philanthropies to the West Virginia Public Broadcasting Foundation. Subscribe to the podcast to hear more stories of Appalachian folklife, arts and culture.

Generation After Generation: Ashe County Seed Savers Preserve Heirloom Seeds, Appalachian History

In Appalachia, organizations like seed libraries and community gardens are helping to save traditional heirloom vegetables from being lost. Sometimes, the seeds are found in unexpected places like when Travis Birdsell visited the barn of an Ashe County farmer in 2017.

There, he found tomato seeds smeared on the side of an old grocery store sack.

“All the words said were ‘Big Red,’” Birdsell said.

“Big Red” ended up being an Oxheart tomato, an heirloom variety known for its huge size. Each tomato can weigh up to 2.5 pounds, making them more than four times the size of the average grocery store tomato. Before the tomatoes are even fully grown, they’re heavy enough to bend their stalks.

Birdsell knew he wanted to plant the seeds, but when he did, only one germinated. That single seed, though, was enough for him to successfully grow the tomato in 2019.

The seed was planted in the Ashe County Victory Garden. It’s located in downtown Jefferson, North Carolina. Birdsell, the Ashe County Cooperative Extension director, has used the garden since 2016 as a space to grow and reintroduce heirloom vegetable varieties in southern Appalachia.

Ashe County Victory Garden is home to nine different heirloom vegetable varieties native to southern Appalachia. The garden is designed with education in mind. The trellises shown here provide an opportunity for community members to learn best practices for their own gardens.

Each seed has a special origin story, but right now, the Oxheart tomato is the star — it’s enormous, of course, and Birsell said it has a meaty texture.

Varieties like the Oxheart tomato are kept alive thanks to the work of seed savers. The work they do throughout Appalachia is crucial in keeping heirloom varieties on our tables and in our bellies.

Seed saving is especially important in communities like Ashe County. Agriculture has always been the main industry, and local families have been able to keep certain varieties around for decades. Birdsell said he hopes the Victory Garden highlights that.

“We want to play into the culture that’s alive and well in southern Appalachia, which is independence. This is a way to tap into food independence.”

A Radical Idea

Getting seeds into the hands of home gardeners is a key part of that self sufficiency. In 2019, Birdsell produced enough of the Oxheart tomatoes to make seeds available to the public, through the Ashe County Seed Library, which is about a mile up the road from the garden in West Jefferson, North Carolina.

The Ashe County Seed Library is housed in an old card catalogue. Anyone in the community is welcome to borrow seeds — no library card needed.

The seed library is on the second floor of the public library and is housed in an old card catalogue cabinet. The drawers are stuffed with dozens of varieties of seeds. There are beans, tomatoes, greens and even flowers.

"Seeds are so important. We don't really think about it that much, but one simple seed can produce a plant that can produce hundreds of more seeds, which can feed a whole community."- Sarah Harrison

Each tiny manila envelope contains about a dozen seeds. Heirloom beans and tomatoes are among the most popular. Librarians ask that people try to save a few seeds, so they can continue to stock them next year. There are also handouts that describe the seed saving process for nearly every kind of seed in the library.

Beans can be left on the vine until the shells are dry. Then, the seeds can be removed and stored in a jar until next year. Tomatoes are a bit trickier. Some people dry the seeds on a piece of wax paper so they’re easy to remove, and others put seeds in a jar and cover them with water. The good seeds float to the top, and the others stay at the bottom.

All the seeds at the Ashe County Seed Library are free. There’s no formal check-out process, and you don’t even need a library card. And when the cost of heirloom seeds can sometimes be more than $4 in stores, it can seem like a radical idea to give them away.

“I think it’s liberating to be able to provide for yourself and being able to access free seeds is the start of that process,” Birdsell said.

Ashe County Cooperative Extension Master Gardeners pack seeds from the 2019 Victory Garden harvest into small manila envelopes. The seeds, which are germination tested, will be available at the High Country Seed Swap in March 2020 and in the Ashe County Seed Library.

A Lost Art

Some of these seeds in the Ashe County Seed Library have been saved by local families like Vida Belvin’s for generations.

Her brother donated a special variety of pole bean that’s been a staple in their family since the 1920s. She calls it the Six Week Bean. It’s a flat green bean and you can get up to two harvests a year with it — more than a traditional green bean.

Blevins and her brother learned to save seeds from their parents. Their mom, Kada Owen McNeill, has lived in Ashe County for a century. McNeill was the 7th child of 12. She grew up on a family farm, just a few miles north of Jefferson.

Kada Owen McNeill, long-time Ashe County resident, sits in her home in Jefferson, North Carolina. Her family has grown the Six Week bean that was featured in the Ashe County Victory Garden and Seed Library since the 1920s.

They grew and preserved most of the food they ate. McNeill remembers giant, 65 gallon barrels of sauerkraut that her family would make and share with their neighbors. And, to save money, they spent many hours at the end of each season saving seeds.

McNeill grew up during the Great Depression. Then, saving seed was a necessity. Because you couldn’t just run out and buy them at the store. They saved seeds for apples, cabbage and parsnips. Her dad even built a small room specifically for drying pumpkin and apple seeds. She taught her daughter to save seeds too.

“I think it’s kind of a lost art now,” Blevins said.

Seed saving may be less common than it was a few decades ago, but it can still have the power to shape entire communities, Sarah Harrison said, who donated seeds to the Ashe County Seed Library through the Seeds of Resilience Project at Appalachian State University.

“Seeds are so important. We don’t really think about it that much, but one simple seed can produce a plant that can produce hundreds of more seeds, which can feed a whole community,” Harrison said.

According to experts like Chris Smith, the executive director of the Utopian Seed Project, based in Asheville, North Carolina, the cost of losing these seeds could be devastating for Appalachian communities down the road.

Smith said that seed saving helps build ecological resilience. Because if we only have a handful of different types of tomatoes or types of beans, we aren’t as adaptable as we would be if we have hundreds of different types of heirloom seeds kept somewhere safe. As a researcher, he said that genetic diversity in seeds is key for a sustainable, resilient future.

“If we’re saving our own seeds, in our own regions, then what we see is crop adaptability from season to season,” Smith said.

And the seeds that have grown here in this climate for hundreds, sometimes thousands of years are simply better adapted to southern Appalachia than most of the seeds you can buy in the store.

This story is part of the Inside Appalachia Folkways Reporting Project, a partnership with West Virginia Public Broadcasting’s Inside Appalachia and the Folklife Program of the West Virginia Humanities Council. The Folkways Reporting Project is made possible in part with support from Margaret A. Cargill Philanthropies to the West Virginia Public Broadcasting Foundation. Subscribe to the podcast to hear more stories of Appalachian folklife, arts, and culture.