Phila. meal focuses attention on threatened plant species

In the shadow of City Hall and the company of 900 fellow dinner guests, Caleb Karlen, 11, sampled the Waltham butternut squash caponata.

"Delicious," the sixth grader at Penn Alexander said as he went back for a second forkful at "70x7 The Meal act XXXIV".

Caleb, whose mother, Ann, is executive director of Fair Food, is no stranger to heirloom produce. He not only kept up with conversation about food access and healthy eating, he taught fellow diners a few things.

The meal, commissioned by the Mural Arts Program to kick off its 30th anniversary, ends the "What We Sow" project, launched in June with the goal of provoking conversations about the politics of food production and healthy eating.

On Saturday, 900 diners took their seats around tables at the Municipal Services Building plaza. Elementary school students sat next to Lancaster County farmers. Foodies and city residents mingled with suburbanites and out-of-towners, all picked via lottery.

The meal, free to participants, took two years to plan and more than $115,000 in in-kind donations. It was supposed to be held at Independence Mall around one 1,640-foot-long table but had to be moved because of the government shutdown.

Mural Arts executive director Jane Golden said her team had five days to find a place, cut the table into pieces, and set up for the massive meal. She credited the city with acting fast to let the event happen.

"There was no way we were giving this up," Golden said. She said the project reflected how her organization had grown over the last 30 years and the evolving definition of muralism and public art.

"We have to consistently think outside the box and bring, literally to the table in this case, innovation and creativity," she said. "That is how we're going to start to see a light stream in to start to break things open and make a difference."

The Parisian artists behind the meal, Lucy and Jorge Orta, have staged 34 community dinners worldwide since 2000, each with a different theme.

Philadelphia's vegetarian chowdown, created by celebrity chef Marc Vetri and catered by the Cescaphe Event Group, was the largest to date.

Its theme was the importance of heirloom produce - plants typically bred before the 1950s that are passed down from generation to generation.

Table runners were designed by the Ortas with images of turnips, pea shoots, and mushrooms alongside statistics on how plant varieties have declined. "It's biodiversity loss, but it's also cultural loss as well," Orta said.

Glenn Brendle, owner of Green Meadow Farms in Lancaster County, donated 75 pounds of mixed fingerling potatoes for the event that made for a killer red thumb fingerling potato and haricot vert salad. Brendle said people often think about animals becoming endangered or extinct but do not consider threats to plant species. "That's why it's important to pass down the same seeds year after year," Brendle said. "Keep the generations going."

Conversation around the 900-seat table included discussion of whether genetically modified produce should be labeled as such, and definition of a pawpaw (it's a small tree fruit).

When the meal was finished, diners wiped off the Limoges porcelain plates decorated with images of endangered produce and took them home.

"The hope is the meal carries on and the conversation continues," Orta said. "We like to imagine a table runner that wraps all around the world."