"Preserving Our Roots: My Journey To Save Seeds And Stories" by John Coykendall with Christina Melton, Photographs By Sarand Hackenberg

"Preserving Our Roots: My Journey To Save Seeds And Stories" by John Coykendall with Christina Melton, Photographs By Sarah Hackenberg, (2019, Louisiana State UUniveristy Press) is an instantly eyecatching book. I had heard of the author and his book shortly after it was released during a conversation with my good friend Bill Best who is also an expert on the preservation and propagation of heritage crops. I finally saw and purchased John Coykendall's book directly from the author at the April 4, 2026, Pike County Seed Swap in Pikeville, Kentucky. My wife Candice and I have traveled to the seed swap primarily to visit with Bill Best. But the entire event and the people we met made the day much more than a meeting with an old friend. When I first saw the book, several copies were laid out on a folding table in front of John Coykendall whose table was set up just a few feet from that of Bill Best. Bill introduced me to John and we spoke for a few minutes early in the morning, but that conversation was quite brief. The crowd was in the process of growing as people streamed in the doors of the Pike Central High School gymnasium where it was held. I wandered around the tables, met a few people, bought some honey, a bag of stone ground meal, and talked to anyone who had a minute or two free for conversation. At the official start time of the event, a low key memorial was held for my recently deceased good friend Frank Barnett who had died on Narch 18, 2026, as the culmination of a series of cascading health problems which had begun with a cardiac valve replacement surgery. Like Bill Best and John Coykendall, Frank was a giant among the seed savers of Appalachia. As the day wore on and traffic slowed, I returned to John Coykendall's table, had a few enlightening minutes of conversation with him and bought the book. John Coykendall is still employed as a heritage gardener at Blackberry Farm resort in Tennessee near where he has spent most of his life. The vegetables he grows are an integral part of the menu at Blackberry Farm, a resort in Walland, Tennessee. But this book is focused almost entirely on another aspect of John's life, his annual trips and lifelong friendships in Washington Parish Louisiana where he travels and stays for lenghty periods in the off season at his job. The book is divided into sections based on the four seasons, and each section is composed of well written, highly informative stories of life in a very remote and somewhat traditional area of Louisiana. Each section describes the farming lifestyle of the parish during that season, provides several short stories of John's encounters with his many friends there, and is illustrated with stunning photographs of gardening, crops, prepared foods, and the people of the parish. It is also illustrated with closeup photographs of many of the pages of the lifelong journals which he has kept complete with his hand drawn illustrations of what he has seen and learned in the parish. Each October, he travels to the parish for at least a full week to volunteer in the Washington Parish Free Fair, one of the few free local or regional fairs in the entire country. During those visits, he serves as a cook in the fair kitchen each day, visits with his many friends, meets new ones, and feeds them all with foods produced from heritage food crops. John is professional trained artist and a former art instructor for quite a few years. Everywhere he goes, he takes his journal and takes notes, draws finely detailed illustrations of people and processes they have discussed during their encounters. The book is an amazing piece of work in todays world where publishing has generally taken the low road to avoid extra work and expense. It is an artistic masterpiece in every possible definition of the word. If you are a person who loves gardening, good food, traditional lifestyles, and stories of life in the southern USA, this is the book for you.