Earth Eats: Real Food, Green Living

“And so I really love to be able to see how other BIPOC farmers in the community are doing good with the land.” This week on the show, we talk with recipients of a fellowship that brings BIPOC farmers together to build community in Monroe County, Indiana. The farmers also receive funding for farm projects. We talk about what the fellowship has meant for the three farmers and how they will put the funds to use enhancing the local food system

“We have about a four acre parcel of land here that’s subdivided into a whole bunch of micro-plots, basically, where we can isolate, you know, the Black Strawberry Tomato, or the Chinese Wool Flower or a gourd or whatever it happens to be. And we can make sure that those seeds stay pure. Purity is one of the biggest things that we do here. We do a lot of purity trials, so we maintain that the seed we’re selling [to] somebody–we wanna make sure that that seed is 100% true to type.” This week on the show we visit Baker Creek Heirloom Seed Company to learn the particulars of growing for plants for seed.  And Violet Baron talks with the owners of Lost Farm Meal Service about growing a business during a pandemic. 

“Apple cake is a very family-specific recipe–I’ve never heard of it anywhere else, seen it anywhere else. My gramma started it–for as long as I can remember we had it on Thanksgiving. It was served in a very specific bowl and as a child, for Thanksgiving everyone would look forward to the apple cake. And when that blue bowl came out on the table it was just like –gasp!-- there’s the apple cake. And you knew that Thanksgiving had arrived.” This week on the show, a Thanksgiving special featuring a dessert that’s served with the meal, a side dish that MUST be made correctly, and a daughter attempting to make her mother’s flan for the first time. 

“There’s a restaurant on almost every street in our various cities–they are woven into the fabrics of our communities, and they are deeply embedded in our lives.  Restaurants are the places we go to celebrate marriages, to mourn divorces, the places we go to gossip with friends to celebrate after church and they become these places to hear the stories of their community. They’re talking to the farmers everyday, they’re talking to the fisherpeople everyday, they’re talking to the other producers, they’re also getting a sense of what’s challenging about their lives or what’s opportunities within their lives and they hear the everyday concerns of their customers. So they become these great collectors of stories.” This week on the show, a conversation with Katherine Miller. She’s the author of At the Table:The Chef’s Guide to Advocacy. She encourages chefs to harness the power of their unique position in the community and raise their voices for change in the food system.

This week on the show, Toby Foster talks with Barbara Henry at the Cincinnati Zoo. She’s the one who figures out what each of the animals need to eat, where to source their food and the best ways to feed the animals to ensure that they thrive.  And, Daniella Richardson talks with the founder of the Indiana Black Loam Conference about obstacles and opportunities for Black farmers in Indiana.

“I’m passionate about the idea that food should not just nurture our body, but should connect us with the land where the ingredients are from. Food should respect and value the techniques of the farmers that are growing those ingredients and the food should also highlight the creativity and the skills of the cooks that are transforming these ingredients. In this little country, we have so many examples of everything that actually makes sense about food.” This week on the show, Maria Carlassare of Piccoli Dolci, sharing her passion for regional Italian cuisine. And, she’s sharing a recipe for Italian pastry cream.

“A community is not resilient unless those benefits that we have from natural resources, like urban trees, are distributed in a way that all people are benefiting from them. And we do know that we have areas of the city that have lower canopy cover and some of those are associated also with lower income communities and marginalized communities.  And arguably those are the people [who] would be most benefited  by ecosystem services and the benefits of trees.” This week on the show, a conversation with Sarah Mincey and Hannah Gregory of Canopy Bloomington, an organization dedicated to community engagement with the urban forest.  

“Food connects to…for me personally, it’s something that I connect with in ways that are hard to describe at times. Perhaps because I’ve been away from my family, from India, and America has become my home.  But, when a place becomes your home, I think we still keep the things that mean a lot. And I think food is one of the ways–you know? It’s beautiful memories, nostalgia…” This week on the show, we’re in the kitchen with Kashika Singh. She teaches Hindi and Urdu languages at Indiana University, and shares another aspect of Indian culture –namely, food. I dropped  in on one of her cooking sessions at the IU Food Institute, and sat down with her in the studio to learn more about her work.

“After the peace, whenever that comes, we will have land that will have to stay out of production for years because it is so heavily mined or full of cluster bomblets.” This week on the show we talk with geographer Elizabeth Cullen Dunn about the current food landscape in Ukraine. We discuss what the future may hold for farmers and food producers in the region as the war with Russia drags on and as land policy shifts in Ukraine at the start of the new year.  We also talk about ice cream! We look at current shipping challenges in Ukraine, and the meaning of an ice cream cone in former Soviet Bloc countries

“ And she brought two jars of lilacs, like [a] drink made of lilacs. She brought also cups and everybody could try it. It was really something like a miracle for me because I have never thought that it could be drunk in this way.” This week on the show, a story about a community garden in Tallinn, Estonia. We talk with Jerry Mercury, a political immigrant from Russia whose encounter with the garden was transformative.  And later in the show we have a recipe for quick, garden-fresh pickles, plus stories from Harvest public media about composting efforts in Midwestern cities and Federal investments in farm-to-school programs.

“Speaking directly to Black women and wanting Black women to know that their bodies are not the problem. The way that our bodies are treated and problematized and pathologized, we’re often taught that it’s our fault, that it’s our problem to fix or we just need to love our bodies out of societal oppression.”   This week on the show a conversation with dietitian and author Jessica Wilson about her book, It’s Always Been Ours: Rewriting the Story of Black Women’s Bodies She’s challenging us to rethink the politics of body positivity by centering the bodies of Black women in our discussions about food, weight, health and wellness.

“I just wanted to provide context for folks because I do think that the conversation around plant-based food for the last eight years or so has been pushed toward a more corporate, vertical, lab meat, impossible burgers, beyond burgers, meat substitutes that act like meat and look like meat and has gotten really far away from whole foods and vegetables and legumes and how nice it is to just eat some beans sometimes.” This week on the show we talk with food writer Alicia Kennedy about her new book, No Meat Required: the cultural history and culinary future of plant based eating. 

“In terms of what is being discussed right now, I would say the $1.2 trillion dollar elephant in the room is SNAP. And so, the 2023 Farm Bill is estimated to be the most expensive farm bill in US history, over the course of 10 years worth of outlays.” This week on the show we’re talking about the importance of the upcoming Farm Bill.  Our guest is Shellye Suttles, agriculture economist at the O’Neill School for Public and Environmental Affairs at Indiana University.

“The goal with the collective is to bridge that gap–so then there is a lot more equity and a lot more opportunity. Because these coffees are incredible and most of the time when they’re coming from people of marginalized identities, those people are ensuring that they’re honoring  the farmers as well–and so the farmers are then getting equitable pay. And so it’s creating that throughout the supply chain.” This week on the show we’re talking coffee with Korie Griggs. She’s with the Color of Coffee Collective, working to support equitable access in the world of specialty coffee. She also has a message about slowing down and taking time to smell the coffee.  And stories about elderberries and peaches from Harvest Public Media.

“So, I like to say that bees are just like us. So bees have a society, and they live in a built environment, [they have a] little house, just like we have a little house, and they communicate through dance. I don’t know if we communicate through dance, but I think dance is also a thing that humans do…” This week on the show we’re talking with microbiologist Irene Garcia Newton about the beloved honeybee. We learn about the various roles within a hive, and how the diet of a bee determines…well, EVERYTHING.