“And as the blade rotates and the interior cylinder freezes, it begins to churn the ice cream into a wonderful fluffy content that will be established shortly thereafter.” This week on the show, let’s kick off the summer season with a story about ice cream. Toby Foster talks with Jordan Davis and Elijah Lawson of the Chocolate Moose, Bloomington's classic ice cream stand, and so much more. And we go into the kitchen with Chris Manansala and Maria St. Claire of Pinoy Garden Cafe to learn how to make their vegetarian lumpia ..read more

“We’re not shooting for perfection, we’re shooting for richness of experience.” This week on the show, we revisit a conversation at Groundwork Indy with then Executive Director, Phyllis Boyd. She gives us a tour of their on-site garden tended by teams of young people in their youth development program. Then we take a drive around Northwest Indianapolis to see more inspiring projects, including a community orchard. Plus, from Harvest Public Media, we have reports on an increase in honey production, drought in the midwest, PFAS in crop fertilizer and a story about the forest floor as agricultura ..read more

“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 Sovi ..read more

“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 ..read more

“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.  ..read more

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 ..read more

“Bloomington is known in the science world--if you say Bloomington, people think fruit flies.”  This week on our show, we tap into the 15 years deep Earth Eats archive, for one of my very favorite stories. It’s about our visit to the kitchen of a science building on the campus of Indiana University, where they prepare food for a tiny organism that supports genetic research around the globe. This one is from 2020, so you’ll hear some mention of the global pandemic. This is a strange one–but fascinating ..read more

"Peanuts had become popular because of this movement of new American pastimes that were accessible to like the common man, or the common person. So, baseball and theater halls and circuses--all of those places became places where people were interested in buying peanuts." This week on the show Kayte Young talks with Jori Lewis. She’s an award winning journalist and the author of, Slaves For Peanuts: A Story of Conquest, Liberation and a Crop That Changed History. It’s a book about the natural and human history of the peanut and the role it played in West Africa as the transatlantic slave trade ..read more

“There’s a feeling to it that’s kind of satisfying in that way. It doesn’t feel so much like we could survive on it, as we’re able to provide some of our sort of staple foods.” On today’s show we’re continuing to celebrate our 15th anniversary with a favorite story from 2020 about my visit to a farm East of Bloomington Indiana, to speak with Denise and Sean Breeden Ost.  We talked about growing food, preserving food and eating food.  We check out their dry bean threshing techniques and reflect on the notion of  food self-sufficiency. Plus, food news from Harvest Public Media ..read more

“I think our approach is: making it better–improving the land every time we have a chance.  We are benefited by the sweetness of the maple, right? So, that’s a source of sweetness for us and for the people to come after us. And hopefully the pawpaws will be. One of these days, somebody can enjoy that fruit. Yeah.”  This week on the show we explore what it can look like to have a vision for your land that extends beyond yourself and even your family. We speak with Larry Gillen and Helen Vasquez about their decision to gift their farm to a tribal college.  And Josephine McRobbie v ..read more