Earth Eats

“Cooking came to me a little bit later in life. Holidays in my family were always a really big deal, especially around the meals. The meals were the most important part of the holiday gathering. And I was pretty much the least useful person in the kitchen. It wasn’t until–even into my mid twenties, at Thanksgiving time, my mom would be like, ‘Mark, you can take the premade Parkerhouse rolls out of...

“I’ve been mushroom hunting before and you'll kind of squat down and look in between all of the low plants, and then you move to the other side and you look on the other side and all of a sudden you see like four, and they’re right there.” This week it’s the third installment of our special series, Earth Eats Eats Wild– a nine-part seasonal special all about foraging for wild food. We couldn’t wra...

“She introduced me to Susan Weed’s books, and chickweed is in one of the herbal healing books. And it’s talked about as this star-shaped plant that kind of dances–that that’s it’s energy [laughs].” This week on our special series, Earth Eats Eats Wild , we’ll be talking chickweed with Stephanie Solomon, preparing purple deadnettle deviled eggs, harvesting spicebush and ramps in the woods with Jill...

“And you’re stepping into–sinking really–into this clay that’s surrounding your feet, and there’s also some sticks in there, and you know, there’s bugs and spiders on the water…” This week on the show we kick off the Eats Wild special series, all about foraging and edible wild plants. Monique Philpot, founder of the forest and folk school Soulcraft Bloomington, takes us out to discover wild food i...

“I had six different people’s donations of basil in my dish yesterday, and that’s what made it work.”  This week on the show, we talk with Heather Craig of the Community Kitchen of Monroe County about cooking for a crowd everyday, improvising in the face of uncertainty, and sourcing ingredients from the community.  Plus, stories from Harvest Public Media about rural grocery stores and the effects...

“At least a hundred 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 Fo...

“So if you were a giraffe or an elephant you would go along in your world and you would consume things off of trees. And so we try to mimic, as best we can, what we call browse , which is edible tree material.” 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 bes...

“In the first Trump administration, about 350 thousand people from Central America or Mexico were given these H2A visas to come in temporarily with labor contractors. And many of them seem to have overstayed their visas because their labor is needed . We can’t pick the crops in this country without them.” This week on the show, we welcome back geographer Elizabeth Cullen Dunn. She is the director...

“Our younger generation, and mainly the girls, have got hearing, and they can hear that high frequency squeals that the vacuum puts off, and man they can just go in the woods and start finding ‘em and you just cut that out put a connector in, put another one in and they can just run through the woods fixin’ holes. Older guys that can’t hear, you’re a strugglin’ trying to find ‘em [laughs].” This w...

“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...

“When the phorid arrive, the ants release a pheromone that tells their nest mates, all the other ants that are in the vicinity, their sisters that are in the vicinity, tells them ‘Careful! The phorid are here! You better go back to your nest or get paralyzed.’” This week on the show, we get to nerd out on insects with Ivette Perfecto who studies biodiversity and agroecology. She’s got some wild st...

“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 mos...

“Studying food is a way to study how we are connected to the world of life around us. Whatever we think about humans being so cerebral, so intellectual–it really breaks down because we are a part of everything else around us.”  This week on the show we talk with the author of The Book of Yerba Mate, Christine Folch about how one plant can tell us so much about ourselves, and the world around us. 

“[It’s] the same old narrative that we hear, that it only happens to white folks and white women. And I argue that eating disorders not only don’t discriminate, but they target marginalized communities such as women of color.”  This week on the show, a conversation with Gloria Lucas, the founder of Nalgona Positivity Pride We’ll be talking about her organization’s social justice approach to eating...

“Filipino food is not really known like that, especially in Indiana, so we wanted to bring something new.” This week on the show, we visit with the owners of Pinoy Garden Cafe. They talk about what it means to them to bring authentic Filipino cuisine to Bloomington, Indiana and they share a recipe for vegetarian lumpia, a Filipino style spring roll that locals can’t seem to get enough of. Plus a s...

Have you ever had a hunch about something, tested it out and been shocked by the results? That’s what happened to pharmaceutical microbiologist Funmi Ayeni.  She took a traditional Nigerian home remedy and applied the rigors of scientific research to test its efficacy. The results were nothing short of jaw dropping.  This week on Earth Eats, food research that could end up saving lives.

A man obsessed with making pizza at home shares his secrets and a local home cook shares Clara Kinsey’s persimmon pudding recipe.

“I love cookies. They’re hands-on, there’s a lot of technique involved in them,  they’re really fun and easy to do with kids,  they bake quickly,they’re perfect for gift giving any time of year, and they’re great.  Holidays and baking go hand in hand. Join us for a collection of favorite wintery stories for the holiday season with Earth Eats. We drop in on a cookie baking workshop with kids at a f...

“Now, I love food!  Let the people know–let the people in the back know, I–hey, I love food. I plan vacations around the top food spots. So, I love food. But I just don’t enjoy cooking” This week on the show we hear the story about a local business, Popcorn Kernels With a Twist. We speak with the owner, Virginia Githiri about what motivates her to run her own food business, since she doesn’t reall...

“It’s not about simply that protectionism and nationalism–that we only want to make sure that we eat Lithuanian food. It is a much deeper sense of urgency that as a state–and its political sovereignty–depends on the ability to produce food and feed its population for a long time.” This week on the show a conversation with sociologist Diana Mincyte who studies food systems in post socialist Eastern...

“To know there is an invisible line between the index finger and that barely discernible trio of fruit swaying up in the canopy..” We’re honoring the fruits of the forests today, with a pawpaw piece from poet, Ross Gay. Plus, some favorite stories and recipes featuring persimmons.  We also hear from Chef Freddie Bitsoie about creating pathways for Native cuisines.

“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. An...

“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 h...

“Imagine, we have dinner at 7, 8 pm–my baba would take all of the çörek to the bakery and have it baked and he’s back home at 10pm–doesn’t matter! Fresh tea, hot tea, feta cheese, olives, breakfast–that’s like your night breakfast the day before Eid.” This week on the show, we spend time in the kitchen with Derya Dogan. She is a PhD candidate in Education Policy Studies in Middle Eastern Languages...

“There is a beautiful Hindustani saying, ‘Kosa kosa per pani badle, chare kosa per vani,’ which means "Every two miles the water changes, and every four the language." So that, in fact, is the geography of taste and terroir in India.” This week on the show, we talk with sociologist Krishnendu Ray about place and food and caste in India and how identity can be defined as much by what you DON'T eat,...