Fine dining at America’s biggest home

Asheville, North Carolina CNN — Walking through one of the three hydroponic greenhouses he oversees at the Biltmore estate, Eli Herman notices that the nasturtiums are growing “like crazy.” “I don’t know if you guys have any use for nasturtium greens,” says Herman, Biltmore’s Field to Table operations manager, talking with the estate executive chef Mark DeMarco. “Send him a few pounds and see what he thinks.” While Biltmore’s first modern-day greenhouse was established in 2010, Herman and other staff started developing the current hydroponics program in 2011 – a system of growing plants without soil, using a nutrient solution to feed them – and rolled it out in three greenhouses in October 2017. “The tradition of agriculture here goes way back,” says Ted Katsigianis, Biltmore’s vice president of agricultural sciences. They often eat produce grown by the Field To Table program operated by Herman, a 40-year Biltmore employee, who works directly with Biltmore executive chef Mark DeMarco – a 15-year Biltmore veteran – and chefs at the estate restaurants to grow some of what’s needed year-round to feed their visitors.