Our Philosophy

We believe that great food cultures are born not from abundance, but from constraints—regional limitations that spark creativity. Garum, the fermented fish sauce of the Roman Empire, ingeniously transformed fish guts into a shelf-stable source of umami. In the Alps, milk couldn’t travel down into the valleys before it spoiled, so it was fermented into hard, long-aged cheeses like Comté and Gruyère. In the same spirit, we explore what becomes possible when we commit to the ingredients, waste streams, climates, and communities of the Northeast.

Our work focuses on three key areas:

1. Regional Ingredients – We explore how Northeastern vegetables, fruits, grains, legumes, and wild foods can form the backbone of a vibrant larder. We focus on crops that matter to farmers, rebuild soil health, and offer untapped culinary potential.

2. Upcycling Waste – We develop processes to turn industry byproducts—like spent grain, vegetable trim, or fruit pulp—into useful and delicous ingredients.

3. Preservation and Fermentation – We play with ancient and modern preservation and fermentation techniques, both native to this region and adapted from elsewhere, to stretch the growing season and concentrate flavor.

Why do we do this? Because we believe that building a strong regional food culture—one that’s seasonal, diverse, and deeply rooted—leads to better health, greater sustainability, and a richer sense of place. When our diets align with what grows here, we support the land, reduce dependency on long supply chains, and build resilience—nutritional, ecological, and cultural.

We see our work as both continuation and contribution. We’re trying to contribute to what is already here, and to extend it. When we borrow from other traditions, we do so with respect and curiosity, integrating those techniques into a local ecological logic.

The supermarket is the dominant interface between people and food in the U.S., but it’s a distorted one: shaped by shelf stability, scale, and profit margins. What ends up on the shelves is often trucked from thousands of miles away, nutritionally hollow, flavorless, and aggressively processed. This interface contrinbuted to a logic of convenience over care.

This broken system has real consequences:

• A narrowing of culinary, botanical, and cultural diversity

• Poor health outcomes, driven by caloric density and nutrient poverty.

• A disconnection from land, season, and community.

• Food waste at every touchpoint

What we eat directly shapes our environment. Our collective choices determine how soil is treated, what kinds of farms are viable, and what our landscapes become. When we upcycle waste, when we celebrate what grows here, when we cook with care, we change the system from the plate up.

We’re interested in reversing these loops that abstract us from place and community. Can we build a food system that contributes to, rather than ignores, our region? That diversifies rather than monocultures? That makes it easy—and joyful—to eat food that’s good for us and good for the Northeast?

We also believe that food doesn’t exist in isolation. Fermentation is a conversation with microbes, but also with sustainability, time, memory, and joy. Deliciousness is a cultural expression. A well-made dish can be a system intervention. That’s why we explore the links between food and everything else, because food is everything else.

Open Sourcing Knowledge

Everything we do is shared—ideas, prototypes, flops, breakthroughs—in the same structure and language we use internally. This website is our lab notebook. You can explore the full network of our research through the knowledge and flavor graph. We add new notes regularly,sometimes daily or hourly.

What We Do

We organize our work into three domains:

1. Develop
   We draw from sociology, anthropology, agroecology, history, and systems design to explore how food ideas interact with people, land, economy, and identity.

2. R&D
   We conduct rigorous, gastronomically minded experimentation to develop techniques, recipes, and products that showcase what’s possible using ingredients from the Northeast.

3. Share
   Our research is meant to be used. We collaborate with chefs, restaurants, and producers. We share our knowledge openly and accessibly, and we run workshops to support culinary literacy for everyone.