Field to Table, Heart to Heart

At peak golden hour Mr. Joseph Fields, a third-generation farmer on these lands, pulled up a handful of green onions while we chewed on wild mustard blossoms and chickweed that grow around the perimeter of the planted rows. We dusted sandy soil off strawberries before popping them into our mouths and decided that the rubbery-textured daikon radish leaves would actually be quite tasty in a salad. 

Joseph Fields is the youngest of eight children. His family has been caring for this land since 1903. He and his elder siblings, including his sister, Anna 84, and brother, Fred 83, still work the fields. They all smile when they speak. They take turns sharing stories of what their childhoods were like, growing up on the farm – sunrise chores of feeding and milking before walking a mile to school; the eldest daughters bused downtown to Burke High School; changing back into their farm clothes after school for evening chores; sounds of the juke joint next door to their parent’s house. Every family member played a role. They helped each other. And they still do. All of the siblings left John’s Island at some point – to the military, to the city– but they’ve all found their way back to the farm. The land called them home. Each sibling has a house on the property now. Grandchildren and great-grandchildren all participate in the family business. (You can meet grandson C.J. Fields at the PourHouse farmer’s market every Sunday.)

Anna and Fred beam when they talk about “baby” Joseph, about the long days working farmers markets, then loading produce to haul up to Asheville at 5 PM, sleeping in the truck and then driving back to work on the farm all day. There is no question that being a farmer is hard work. Most folks today wouldn’t survive a full day in the fields. But it’s clear that Joseph Fields thinks it’s the best job in the world. And I’m pretty certain that this lifestyle, living close to the land, hands in the dirt, is why the Fields siblings are more spry and agile at 84 and 75 than most 40-year-olds working a desk job. 

The Joseph Fields farm was certified organic 12 years ago and grows an abundance of vegetables that have been staples on Southern tables for centuries, alongside “trendier” ingredients that are requested by patrons at the farmer’s market. The southern-style vegetables of my childhood were fresh but cooked with bacon til soft and grey-ish – WiBi says us Southern folks like to “cook the life out of our foods, therefore eliminating the nutrients needed to heal our bodies from within.” So WiBi is reimaging Southern food in a way that honors the history of these ancestral foods while elevating their medicinal qualities.

We topped off our bellies with cake and berries, then huddled in the strawberry house to watch “Little Medicine Thing,” a documentary about master herbalist and healer, ​​Emma Dupree. Shydeia and I cuddled under Teniade Fann’s, @naijafly, handmade ‘quillow’, ears straining to decipher Ms. Dupree’s honey-thick accent. In a yellow cotton dress and sunglass, Ms. Dupree walked us around the yard of her North Carolina home, rattling off all the ailments that this plant and that plant can cure, and which neighbor she used it on. “I always did it,” she says, “just as far back as I remember.”  Head nods and quiet mmhmm's arose from the group as Ms. Dupree questioned the new plumbing bringing treated tap water through corroded lead pipes. 

In story after story, Ms. Dupree spoke of the folks she’d healed with plants. I can easily imagine WiBi at 75, with a collection of similar tales of curing hearts and bodies with her food. Around her table, each time we shared a piece of our own life story, a tendril of connection sprouted; a pea shoot winding itself around us all.

The more we shared, the clearer it became that our stories were concentric circles; we had all traveled different paths but shared a common center. And this night, WiBi’s dinner was the intersection that brought us all together.