Janie Tippett stands in a grassy field and rests her hands on a young brown cow. She wears a light green and white striped shirt and beige pants.

Janie Tippett

Writing, Cattle Ranching, and Foodways

Janie Tippett (Joseph) is a rancher, cook and community writer who attributes her good health to the traditional foods and food practices of Wallowa County ranchers. She hosts young farm interns and helps run a community food project. From the late 1970s to the early 2000s, Tippett wrote about local ranching traditions in a newspaper column.

Bio

Janie Tippett rises at five every morning to feed the animals before sitting down to a traditional Wallowa County breakfast. Her meals always include a few staples of local foodways. One morning, she might have ham from a neighbor’s hog with her trademark sourdough biscuits on the side. She spreads the biscuits with butter she churned herself and huckleberry jam from last spring’s foraging. At age 82, Tippett attributes her good health to traditional foods and the food practices she learned from the generation of Wallowa County ranchers that preceded her. She shares this inheritance with everyone she can, especially young people who might have a less intimate knowledge of their food sources. Tippett hosts young farm interns through an OSU Extension program and helps run The Magic Garden, a community food project for low income residents of Wallowa County. Tippett and her husband, Doug Tippett, belong to the third generation of Wallowa Valley cattle ranchers. From the late 1970s to the early 2000s, Janie Tippett shared her passion for local ranching traditions in a newspaper column entitled “Janie’s Journal.” Today, she works to perpetuate the rustic character of the place she loves. “They say that the Wallowas are one of Oregon’s seven wonders,” she says with some skepticism. “I would have to say that cows are one of the seven wonders.” Tippett wants to make sure that, in the turn to arts and tourism, Wallowa County doesn’t lose touch with its virtues as a place of robust agricultural production and a rich, longstanding traditional culture.

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