Podcast Dispatches from Issue 20.4: Adrienne Bitar

Gastronomica

For our third series of podcasts produced in collaboration with Meant to Be Eaten on Heritage Radio Network, we sit down (virtually) with authors who contributed to our final issue of 2020, which continues to feature COVID-19 Dispatches, but also original research articles around the themes of “Working with Ingredients”, “Taste and Technology in East Asia”, “Excursions”, and “Dolce”.

For this episode, Editorial Collective member Lisa Haushofer is joined by Adrienne Bitar to discuss her article, “Decoding Miracle Food Cures for COVID-19”, in which she investigates the many “miracle” food cures for COVID-19 that continue to circulate on social media, such as “Israeli lemon baking soda tea” and “Yoruba pepper stew”, both presented as simple recipes for the complex disease that crippled the planet in 2020. While “miracle” cures are nothing new, the changing roles and perceptions of authority, food and new media are arguably more urgently in need of attention at a time when the pandemic is far from over, and consumers ever more desperate for a quick-fix return to “normal”. As Adrienne importantly underscores, while there’s little danger for most in consuming small daily amounts of lemon juice or pepper stew, there is more at stake in following a recommendation to ingest bleach, or in simply believing that lemon juice can be as protective as any scientifically tested and approved recommendation (also typically subject to peer-review before social media dissemination).

Podcast Dispatches from Issue 20.4: John Gifford

Gastronomica

For our third series of podcasts produced in collaboration with Meant to Be Eaten on Heritage Radio Network, we sit down (virtually) with authors who contributed to our final issue of 2020, which continues to feature COVID-19 Dispatches, but also original research articles around the themes of “Working with Ingredients”, “Taste and Technology in East Asia”, “Excursions”, and “Dolce”.

In this episode, Editorial Collective member Melissa Fuster is joined by John Gifford to discuss salmon and sustainability, drawing from his recently published article “Salmon on the Table” (featured as part of Working with Ingredients in the latest issue). Taking us to the waters off the coast of Vancouver Island, he explores the environmental effects of aquaculture, which is growing to meet global demands for fish. He then looks to Lake Michigan to offer an alternative model of fishing that is both sustainable and in harmony with Indigenous culture.

Podcast Dispatches from Issue 20.4: Amy Bentley and Stephanie Borkowsky

Gastronomica

For our third series of podcasts produced in collaboration with Meant to Be Eaten on Heritage Radio Network, we sit down (virtually) with authors who contributed to our final issue of 2020, which continues to feature COVID-19 Dispatches, but also original research articles around the themes of “Working with Ingredients”, “Taste and Technology in East Asia”, “Excursions”, and “Dolce”.

For this episode, Editorial Collective member Jaclyn Rohel is joined by Amy Bentley and Stephanie Borkowsky is discuss their article “The Food and COVID-19 NYC Archive: Mapping the Pandemic’s Effect on Food in Real Time”, which describes an initiative that grew out of an NYU class and has become an ongoing archival project dedicated to curating and preserving the food experiences and memories of (mostly) New Yorkers in response to the pandemic.

Amy Bentley
Stephanie Borkowsky

Podcast Dispatches from Issue 20.4: Kyoungjin Bae

Gastronomica

For our third series of podcasts produced in collaboration with Meant to Be Eaten on Heritage Radio Network, we sit down (virtually) with authors who contributed to our final issue of 2020, which continues to feature COVID-19 Dispatches, but also original research articles around the themes of “Working with Ingredients”, “Taste and Technology in East Asia”, “Excursions”, and “Dolce”.

For this episode, Editorial Collective member Krishnendu Ray is joined by Kyoungjin Bae whose article, “Taste as Governor: Soy Sauce in Late Chosŏn and Colonial Korea” (featured as part of the Taste and Technology in East Asia roundtable), explores the production, consumption, and class implications of soy sauce in Korea from the 18th to the 20th century, a period which included an influx of Japanese commodities on the Korean market as a result of colonization, as well as the more general effects of industrialization on a nation who had brewed their own soy sauce from the early modern period.

Podcast Dispatches from Issue 20.4: Coline Ferrant

Gastronomica

For our third series of podcasts produced in collaboration with Meant to Be Eaten on Heritage Radio Network, we sit down (virtually) with authors who contributed to our final issue of 2020, which continues to feature COVID-19 Dispatches, but also original research articles around the themes of “Working with Ingredients”, “Taste and Technology in East Asia”, “Excursions”, and “Dolce”.

For this episode, Collective Co-Chair Daniel Bender is joined by Coline Ferrant, whose article, “Food Desert or Food Oasis?: Insights from Mexican Chicago” (featured in Excursions), draws on interviews with Chicago residents of Mexican origin to examine the framework of food access and acquisition in “Mexican Chicago”, and to interrogate the linguistic implications of terms like “food deserts” and “food oases”.