Tastemakers

Ramona Farms // Gila River Indian Community, Arizo

Just outside of Phoenix, the Button family is cultivating a bean that nourishes the soul as well as the body. Ramona Button was urged by her community's elders to bring back the tepary bean, a nutrition-packed legume that has been cultivated by the Akimel O'odham people for centuries, but it was all but wiped out by the 1970s. Ramona and her family are cultivating tepary beans, heritage wheat and heirloom corn, sharing traditional food ways that feed their community spirit and help to revive the culture, reconnecting people to their culinary history and heritage.