Shop

Description

Allergen warning: We do process wheat/rye/spelt flour on-site, both milling and baking breads, so if you have an anaphylaxic issue with gluten or something where very trace amounts of wheat/spelt/rye could cause you issues, we would not recommend any of our products.

When first workshopping the idea for Hudson Valley Treats–before entirely committing to New York ingredients–I dug deeply into the historic food of the Hudson Valley, both pre- and post-Columbus.

In my days teaching travel writing, I frequently visited Historic Huguenot Street in New Paltz, where they interpret the story of the Native Americans who lived in this area before the Europeans arrived along with the story of the French settlers who came to New Paltz by way of the Dutch settlement in Kingston.

These visits opened my eyes to many preconceptions that I had about colonial and pre-colonial America, particularly in terms of food availability and scarcity. Our area is not only naturally blessed, but the settlers who came here largely arrived with ample farming supplies to broaden their food options.

The detailed research of Hudson Valley historian Peter G. Rose, particularly in her book Food, Drink and Celebrations of the Hudson Valley Dutch, is one-stop shopping on what was eaten in our area (by all communities) in 1669, when, as she says:

The Dutch brought with them various apple and pear trees as well as cherry trees, which “thrive[s] remarkably well.” They also introduced peaches, nectarines, apricots, plums, almonds, persimmons, cornel cherries, figs, several kinds of currants, Dutch gooseberries, licorice and clove trees.

While it’s hard to get our hands on many of these items today (I’ve never seen a persimmon for sale in New York myself, and currents and gooseberries were largely wiped out when they were banned by the government in 1911 for harboring pests that infect pine trees), we’ve created our Kingston 1669 granola to mirror the bounty of those days.