food and culture Educator Resources
Florida Heritage Gardening Resources
The Florida Heritage Gardening Resources below are designed to assist educators and gardeners in the design and development of gardens that highlight easy to grow crops that are significant to Florida’s multicultural history.
Africa in Your Garden and On your Table: connecting local food and culture for healthier choices (trifold pamphlet PDF) provides a brief introduction to the nutritional benefits of six African heritage foods commonly consumed in Florida. Created by students in HUM2420: African Humanities at Santa Fe College, the statewide popularity of this brochure by health educators and school gardens inspired the creation of the Florida Heritage Foods Initiative.
African food crops have influenced Florida agriculture for several centuries, and a wide variety of African plants continue to grow in home gardens throughout the Sunshine State…A beginning gardener can plant the path to better nutrition with African food crops …
Crops included: Roselle, Watermelon, Sweet Yams, Okra, Pigeon Peas, and Aloe
Planning a Florida Heritage Garden (PDF) provides planting and harvesting information for 37 heritage crops that are easy to grow in Florida. In addition to genus and species, the chart includes a variety of multi-cultural common names for each plant. The three-page full-color layout is an ideal starter for first-time gardeners, school gardens and other food and culture enthusiasts. The chart is available in both Spanish and English.
Crops included: Aloe, Bay Leaf, Bitter Melon, Black-eyed Peas, Bok choy, Cassava, Celosia, Chaya, Chayote, Collards, Colorful Potatoes, Daikon Radish, Fig, Garlic Chives, Ginger, Kiwano, Lavender, Malabar, Mint, Mizuna, Molokhiya, Mustard, Nopal, Okra, Olive, Oregano, Parsley, Pigeon Peas, Pomegranates, Roselle, Rosemary, Shiitake mushroom, Sweet Potato, Tarragon, thyme, Tomatillo, and Turmeric.
Download the Charts:
Food and Culture Cooking Resources
Florida Heritage Foods Recipe Cards not only provide historical, cultural and nutritional information about heritage foods featured in our collections, they also offer quick and easy recipes to help integrate delicious and nutritious heritage food in the curriculum and school menus. The full color 4×6 cards can be used to celebrate Florida’s multicultural history and heritage through food.
To browse the collection and download PDF and JPG versions, click here.
Multicultural Recipe Gallery on this website includes a broad spectrum of global recipes ranging from historical concoctions to contemporary adaptations. Recipes can be found on their respective plant pages in the Heritage Foods Plant Gallery or compiled on the Heritage Food Recipes page.
Cultural Garden Posters Coming Soon!
