People don’t typically think about eating nuts that grow in our local woods. Before Europeans arrived, the forests of Cape Cod were more diverse. Stands of nut-bearing hickories, walnuts, beeches, chestnuts, and hazelnuts—all rich food sources—were much more common. Mashpee Wampanoag food activist Danielle Hill says that her people still use and remember these foods.

For hundreds of years, Wampanoag people have relied on quahogs both for food and for making wampum, traditional purple shell beads. But recently, Chuckie Green has been wondering if these two uses are competing. Green is the natural resources department director for the Wampanoag Tribe, and he says native quahogs are changing.

Peter Burgess is as interested in the history of farming as he is in the practice itself. His farm in Truro is called Sixpence Farm, after a silver coin he found in the soil that dates back to 1689. Burgess focuses almost entirely on fruits and vegetables that would have been found here over a hundred years ago. On the day I visited, he told me about the apple varieties he planted, and why he chose them.

The Agrarian Trust is a national land trust trying to reimagine American land ownership. As American farm land becomes consolidated into fewer and fewer hands, the trust wants to help communities move in the opposite direction—to help people across the U.S. buy and hold farm land collectively. One of the first groups to join the organization as a so-called Agrarian Commons is the Somali Bantu Community Association of central Maine.

Last fall I noticed an unusual fruit tree. It was growing in Wellfleet in a protected courtyard, and there were bright orange fruits the size of golf balls hanging in the branches.

Dave Scandurra and Marina Matos are landscapers. But they’re not interested in planting your average Cape Cod garden of hydrangeas and beach grass. Instead, they work with people who want to fill their yards with food. Right now Dave’s excited about something called mioga ginger.

According to farmer Ron Backer of Brewster, there’s only one fruit meant for salsa. The surprising thing is that it’s not a tomato. “The tomatillos are what you really make salsa from,” Ron says.

Ben Chung is obsessed with garlic. He lives in East Orleans with his wife, six kids, and uncle, and he works as a dentist. But when he’s not cleaning teeth, he’s outside working in his garden, where he grows over fifty kinds of garlic.

What if I told you I’ve been making grape pie? Would you believe me? Or, like my mother, would you need me to cut you a slice, to prove it?

Ken Mason is an avid cook. His son Morgan is a fisherman, and he often shares extra bluefin tuna with Ken. This summer, Ken’s been experimenting with smoking the belly, or Toro, of the tuna. "As you can see have different kinds of toro here; there is otoro, which is the fattiest and the firmest and then this is chu toro, it’s got more connective tissue and it’s a little tougher and it’s a little flakier.”