Earth Eats

This week on the show, we talk with geographer Pablo Bose about innovative resettlement projects that help refugees connect with familiar foods from home, through gardening in community with others.

“As you walk through the doors, whether you like to cook or you don’t like to cook, you feel welcome, and things are accessible…”

“What our vision is, is to make it a better world through breaking bread at the kitchen table, if you will.”  

This week on the show, we talk with co-owners of Bloomington’s independent, locally-owned kitchen supply store, Goods for Cooks. We hear some of the shop’s nearly 50 year history, as it has changed hands, updated, and maintained a commitment to quality goods and face-to-face customer service. 

Plus a story from Harvest Public Media about a native midwestern fruit that should be way more popular than it currently is. 

“As Greeks, we don't really shop from supermarkets. Everyone knows someone who knows someone who comes from a village and has access to olive trees and olive oil.”

On today’s show, a conversation with Greek chef and anthropologist Nafsika Papacharalampous. She shares a recipe for Greek comfort food, and talks with me and Ogla Kalentzidou about the role of memory and nostalgia in contemporary Greek cuisine. 

Plus a story from Harvest Public Media about how prairies might be making a comeback in farm country.

“We know that there are all sorts of good chemicals that come out of the dirt and working with land–working with plants–that are beneficial to our mood and our health. For refugee populations that have had to be on the run or had to live in refugee camps for decades, having a little piece of land that you can tend to that you can take care of and then see the results and not feel like you’re gonna be bombed out the next day–it brings a kind of peace of mind and a little bit of healing.” 

This week on the show, Tammy Ho, Professor of Gender and Sexuality studies at University of California-Riverside, shares her research about refugees from Burma and their participation in the United States food system. We’ll learn about a supermarket sushi mogul, Burmese meatpackers as essential workers, and how a group of refugees saved a failing church by starting a community garden. 

“At least 100 years ago, the last robber barons, we got nice libraries out of it. This one, it’s like ‘oh, what is the family using its money for? To gut public education via charter school networks?’ It’s kind of Machiavellian–it’s Machiavellian in a really sad way”

This week on the show, I’m talking with Austin Frerick, the author of Barons: Money, Power, and the Corruption of America’s Food Industry. Frerick uncovers the sometimes shocking facts about seven large companies who play an outsized role in our nation’s food system. From hog barons to coffee barons, to Indiana’s own dairy barons, Fair Oaks farm. 

“And that’s why we call it a food value chain.You know, it’s a supply chain but it’s based on the values that you have as far as how the land is treated, how people are treated, what kind of nutrition contents in your food–all those things [that] people up and down–from the farmer to the consumer have an interest in. And so, this system that we’re developing is about addressing those values and making sure they happen.”

This week on the show, an uplifting conversation about organizations and coalitions working together for stronger rural economies and robust local food systems. We talk about micro lending, food hubs, farm-to-school programs and more. 

“When you have to make those decisions do you buy the nicest ingredients to make your food, since that’s why people are there? Or do you pay your employees two dollars more an hour? Or do you rent the building that’s gonna put you in the location that gives you the highest chance of success? I think that in many ways restaurant owners have one of the most complicated business owning ventures that you can think of. They are balancing so many different goals in one space.”

Today we’re talking with geographer Jennifer Watkins about restaurants–about owners, workers, customers and how precarious the whole industry appears to be in this moment. 

"...one of which is sorghum sudan grass, and if you don't mow that, it gets to be like ten feet tall. And so we had pigs that were  running through there, that reminded us of the velociraptors in Jurassic Park–you know, you can't see the animal, you just see the top of  the plant waving back and forth. And so we were always on safari when we had to go out and do pig chores."

This week on the show, we visit Nightfall Farm, a livestock farm in Southern Indiana focused on sustainable agriculture.

We talk about perennial pastures, rotational grazing and what farmers can learn when they listen to their animals. 

“Animal agriculture creates more greenhouse gas emissions than all transportation combined. Yet, as individuals we’re often told ‘you should take public transportation and ride bikes,’ all of which are good things but not very frequently are we told, ‘let’s reduce our consumption of animal products, and that will have a tremendous impact on the environment.’

This week on the show, Toby Foster talks with the creators of Planted, a local plant-based food truck and catering operation in Bloomington, Indiana. We learn about their inventive, plant-based menu and their commitment to sustainable practices.

We have an interview with Julie Guthman about the troubled strawberry industry and we wrap up the show with a recipe for  pickled carrots.

“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.