Join us for another enlightening and informative Sundays at the Society event, this time a book launch of the brand new book Napa Valley Farming, hosted by the Napa County Historical Society. The authors are well-known local poets and historians Paula Amen Judah and Lauren Coodley. For this book they collaborated with the Napa County Historical Society. The book will be available for purchase and the authors will be on hand to sign the book.
Napa’s soil and climate make possible a generous yield of agricultural products; in other words Napans tend much more than grapevines. This book traces the cultivation of these products through a chronology of Napa’s farming history, from indigenous food plants, through early Mexican Rancho crops, to the orchards that were planted to feed gold miners.
The book highlights the contributions made by native inhabitants along with the diverse immigrant population including Chinese, Japanese, African, and European Americans. These workers picked wheat, hops, fruit, and nuts and tended cattle and beehives in this valley. Recipes and poems celebrating the bounty of the Napa soil are included as well. The scents of peaches, apples, cherries, pears, prunes, and honey linger in the imaginations of thousands of locals, while the trees, hives, and vines continue to thrive wherever placed.
