By Candice J. Semien | Joseph Syndicate Reporter
GREENSBURG, La. — When celebrity chef Emeril Lagasse needed great vegetables, his eye for flavor and freshness led him and his television crew to the fields of Sweet Jones Farm.
There they met Jay Quincy Jones Sr., known throughout St. Helena and East Baton Rouge parishes as “Farmer Jones.”
“He's proud of his collard greens, and rightly so,” Lagasse said in a voiceover. “This farm is not the largest operation in the state or even remotely, but does it know how to grow good crops?”
Jones prepared 25 pounds of collards and mustard greens for Season 4, Episode 1 of Le Gras's Roku original show “Emeril Cooks.”
The episode is called “Collard Greens for All” and begins at the Sweet Jones Farm with Farmer Jones delivering 10 to 15 pounds of vegetables to two businesses in Baton Rouge. At Southern Cofe, an urban cafe in Scotlandville near Southern University, owner Horatio Isadore has dedicated display boxes for local residents to pick up bags of free produce. It is being installed. “Sweet Jones Farms has some of the best products,” Isadore said.
“I guarantee you they'll be gone before the day is over,” Jones said. Next, he delivers vegetables to Boil-n-Roux, a great Southern kitchen restaurant. “As you can see, (the vegetables) are always fresh and delicious,” said owner Maurice Walker.
The 24-minute Emeril Cooks episode then moves to Greensburg, Louisiana, where Jones walks through rows of vegetables, corn, herbs, and tomatoes, talks to three goats, and works with a young farmer. He wears brown cargo overalls, knee-high work boots, and a straw hat strapped to his chin. Jones has a deep voice with a distinct south Louisiana twang and a passion for agriculture.
“I didn't come from a family of farmers. I'm a first-generation farmer. When I started finding myself, I always wanted to do something meaningful,” Jones said. Jones feels that farming is a “good life with purpose.”
One way he brings purpose is by establishing community gardens in the middle of neighborhoods where residents can harvest food for free. So Emeril Cooks' production team follows Jones to one of his 494 “food deserts” in Louisiana, on North 38th Street in Baton Rouge. The USDA identifies communities as “food deserts” because residents lack supermarkets and other food retailers with affordable, nutritious food.
There, Jones met the Rev. Errol Domingue, pastor of Elm Grove Baptist Church, who asked Jones to establish a community garden on a vacant lot near the church. “We want people in this so-called food desert to experience healthy food instead of going out and buying junk,” Domingue said.
Jones and West Baton Rouge farmer Cardel Thomas will go straight to planting tomatoes. Once completed, the church garden will be able to produce a minimum of 1,000 to 2,000 pounds of seasonal vegetables per year.
“It's powerful,” Domingue said.
After a short intermission, Jones joins Emeril at the Southern Food and Beverage Museum in New Orleans for a cooking segment.
Collard greens and cabbage, mustard greens, radish leaves, carrot leaves, and turnip greens from Sweet Jones Farm were washed, chopped, and ready to cook.
LaGrace prepared portions of three of her favorite collard dishes: gumbo zuherb, green shakshuka, and spatchcocked chicken with braised collard vegetables.
It was delicious, Jones said. “I take very seriously the idea that someone would take my food and feed themselves. That's the power of growing vegetables for me.”
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