Okay we are finally going to start. Hello everybody! Attention please.
Okay we're finally gonna get started and so I think you all for coming. I'm uh Dr. Maria
Elisa Christie. I'm Director of Women and Gender in International Development that's
at the Center for International Research, Education, and development, which is in turn
part of OIA- Outreach and International Affairs. So welcome to all of you those on Zoom those in
the multi-purpose room to this hybrid Gender and Development Discussion Series. this is the last
one of the Academic Year and I want to thank first of all Nina Mukerjee Furstenau for driving here
from Missouri and joining us for a whole week of events and then my co-panelists up here who have
been scheming with me for over a year on this and have hosted their own events, side events
so we've kept her busy and also Lumbini Barua, my grad student over there who is uh supports
this discussion series and is a PhD student in the School of Education here at Virginia Tech. So this
is our final one of the year and it's organized by CIRED and is supported by OIA as an inclusive VT
event of OIA. So I want to thank our co-sponsors and I actually put the little poster up on that
beam and also by the signature because I'm very proud of the diversity of our co-sponsorships
um because it shows how food is an issue that really brings people together. So we
have multiple colleges and programs so food studies program and the women's and gender
studies program both are in the College of Liberal arts and human Sciences. We have the Center for
food systems and community transformation which is in the College of Agriculture and
Life Sciences also life sciences and the Women and minority artists
and Scholars lecture series which is run out of the Moss Art Center,
the Department of geography in the College of natural resources and the environment,
the School of Visual Arts in the College of architecture arts and design and then also
again the College of liberal arts supported us through their diversity mini Grant. So as of this
morning we had 166 people registered. In addition to many diverse folks in the United States we have
people joining us from 10 countries including Bangladesh, Benin, Bolivia, Brazil, Canada,
India, Italy, Kenya, Nigeria, and Pakistan. So welcome to all. Please note that our event will
be recorded. So if you're on zoom and you don't want your image recorded turn your camera off
and before I introduce our speaker and panelists I invite you to reflect on Virginia Tech's land
and labor recognition. So our land acknowledgment Virginia Tech acknowledges that we live and work
on the Tutelo/Monacan people's homeland and we recognize their continued relationships with
their lands and waterways. We further acknowledge that the Morrill Land-Grant College Act of 1862
enabled the Commonwealth of Virginia to finance and found Virginia Tech through
the force removal of native nations from their lands in California and other areas in the West.
Then a labor recognition: we also recognize that it's Blacksburg Virginia Tech's Blacksburg campus
sits partly on land that was previously the site of the Smithfield and Solitude plantations
owned by members of the Preston family and this is actually a short version of this but between
1770s and 1860s the Prestons and other local white families that own parcels of what became Virginia
Tech also owned hundreds of enslaved people. So that's part of our history at which you would take
enslaved black people generated resources that finance Virginia Tech's predecessor institution,
the Preston and Olin Institute and they worked on the construction building. So okay,
so our event will last approximately 90 minutes. So the idea is that speaker's presentation will
be about 20 minutes then we'll have about 30 minutes of discussion, question and answer
among the panelists and the speaker and then 30 minutes open to folks both in person and zoom
um that putting their questions on chat or raising their hands advising
and you can post those of you on Zoom you can post your questions anytime in the chat box and we'll
be saving those to Google Docs so that we can go back to them when we get to the questions. So in
order for this discussion to be as rich as it can be, we need everyone to be respectful and treat
all participants with kindness and consideration without discriminatory behavior. So again this
is being recorded and so therefore you will have access to it via our website in a couple weeks.
In advance I'd like to ask you to please fill out the survey that you'll get a link to at the end of
this. It's very important to help us keep funding, and you can tweet Us by tagging us @wgd_vt. Okay
finally I know you're here for the speaker and the panelists so Nina Mukerjee Fursteanu is a
journalist, culinary writer. You know, why don't you raise your hands. An editor of the food story
book series for the University of Iowa press. She was a Fulbright Global Research scholar,
is on the board of directors for media for Change and has won the Mfk Fisher book award,
the grand prize award for cultural culinary writing from Les Dames d'Escoffier
International a Kansas notable book award and more. Green chili and other imposters
um also called Chilies, Chana and Rasa in India her most recent work was published in October
um of 2021 in the U.S and December 2021 in India. Other published Works include the
award-winning book Biting through the skin: An Indian Kitchen and America's Heartland as well
as Tasty Mozambique, Savor Missouri: River Hills country food and wine and other and numerous
stories and essays for newspapers and magazines. Nina was also a Peace Corps volunteer in Tunisia
and I would like to thank Dr. Brady Deaton and Dr. Ann Deaton the founders of the Brady and
Deaton Institute at the University of Missouri for introducing me to Nina over a year and a half ago
when we first started scheming this and when can we do this in person because we know if we knew a
food event we had to have it in person because we've had a lot of these discussions series by
Zoom for the last two years including in the fall and Brady was serving as our interim executive
director at CIRED and he suggested that she and I might have some things in common because my
work with a similar book with peanut farmers in Uganda and my work with kitchen space in Mexico.
So I'd also like to introduce the panelists and so if you could raise your hand Dr. Kim Nieowlny
is an associate professor of Community Education and Development at the Department of agricultural
leadership and Community Education at the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences she's also
the director of the Center for food systems and Community transformation. We have Dr. Ozzy Obaye,
she's a professor of the School of plant and environmental Sciences at Virginia Tech's College
of Ag and life sciences and she teaches among other things worldcraft, student culture. Finally
we have Dr. Anna Zeide and she is the associate professor of the Department of history and the
founding director of the Food studies program at the College of liberal arts and human sciences and
she also teaches among other things intro to food studies. For the time of the discussion today is
food, gender and identity in a global context, please welcome Ms Nina Mukerjee Furstenau.
Thank you! Hello thank you very much I think we are having the slides come up right now but thank
you so much for the invitation. I was thrilled to be invited. I'm very honored to be here it's been
a wonderful trip to Blacksburg. I've not been to this area before and found I find it very
beautiful. So thank you so much for having me and also to the panelists that just distinguished and
I'm just really uh excited to talk further with each of you. Okay so to get started
um I wanna if you can change the slides for me I appreciate that. So first I'm going to
start with a premise that food story reveals a nuanced uh Trail into the history of a region
and it makes it more obvious what might make comfort there what uh how um spirituality is
celebrated and you know what grows in the fields and what is made in the kitchens tells you a lot
about a region so that's the premise and because of this universality it's the same here as it is
for anyone in any part of the world. Food can reach across boundaries of gender and education
and conflict and geography and politics in many and many more things in accessible ways
um this approach creates an opportunity for a deeper dive into the roles of gender and
identity in a global context. So if you follow the food trail you're going to find maybe uneven
distribution of information between men and women due to gendered norms or literacy of women,
divisions of labor and access to resources and as well as power relations. So in journalism I
taught students to learn to focus on the five W's who, what, when, and where often are in
headlines around media platforms but for me and for many people time and again the most
important W is the last one, it's the why and um I think it's the heart of the story and um
Oh okay continue all right so the why is the most important W to me and I think it's because
it is the heart of the story for journalists and storytellers but it is also the pivot point for
social science research and I think that, that food story can reach that heart of the of the
culture swiftly in accessible ways. So you might wonder why I personally focus on food in my work
and that story stems from how I was raised. I was um my parents came from Northeast India
they brought us to South East Kansas in the early 1960s and you know at that time what was outside
our front door was the world of Kansas. There was pot roasts and there was mac and cheese and
there was fried chicken and behind our front door was the only place I sensed India and
that was usually you know could have been partly the sound of my mom walking in her saree, this
texture of silk or cotton that she wore but it was probably most noticeably in the kitchen and that's
where the aromas and uh flavors of my parents Homeland came home to me. Now if you think about
um how you learn about food story you probably don't think of it in that way but you know we
grow up understanding our tie to the agricultural cycle of our land without even maybe being overtly
told. So in Kansas at the Fourth of July there is probably going to be maybe if we were lucky
sweet corn and there would might be fried chicken, well that was because pullets were ready and corn
was ready for us to have those treats. You kind of understood that without being told that's what was
going to happen, we were tied to the agricultural cycle without being aware necessarily. So I didn't
have that connection to the foods of India unless it was in the kitchen. My father on a rainy day
might say I would really enjoy some khichuri and that's all lentil and rice dish that's very stick
to your ribs comfort food for Northeast India and I suddenly had an idea of what it might be like
to live through monsoon in India because that's what my mother would make for him if she had been
in Bengal or in southeast Kansas. So it was um it was very striking to me I don't know if I realized
it as a child but certainly as I grew older. So I want to talk about food story for just a
few minutes and then we're I'm going to show you a project tasty Mozambique that I did in Mozambique
to give you an example of how food story can move forward uh research in the social sciences.
So if you talk about what's in a taste um I'm talking about the senses right so it's not just
taste, it's touch, sight, sound, and aroma and it and how they these sensory uh tools that we have
reach across almost any boundary humans can come up with so it pun intended it's at the gut level
it's subconscious we just really get it you know it doesn't matter if we're in Virginia, Northeast
India, South America all of our senses are the same we experience the world through those portals
and if you can think of your mind as a sensory organ how you sense the world and interact in it
that's a sixth sense so in my field writers that leverage what's on the plate in their narratives
reveal much more than taste. I've already alluded to some of those things cultural,
social, economic, gender roles all kinds of things are showing up on your plate so if you give given
the idea that food reveals these personal and cultural choices descriptions of what is eaten who
is preparing it how it's being prepared it carries story it can't help it it's already loaded and
um it's a learned examination of place and if every time we sit down to a plate of food
we really can't help it you know we're human, we're wired this way we bring our minds with
us right? So that internal landscape that internal landscape is something that we are
we carry with us every time we take a bite of food and you know in the U.S where if you think
about food media those luscious images on TV of a hamburger that's grilling or maybe a vegetarian
savory dish that's just so delicious. We are wrapped to food media because we are wired for
um food understanding and being interested in food for survival.
So because we're human we carry this memory every to everything we eat, every landscape we tread and
um I think that food uh what food tastes good to us how we prepare it, produce it, expect it's
arrival on our plates our cultures decide those things based on all of these ideas we have in our
minds. So when you look down at a plate uh it will show you the story of who you are and where you
live and you settled and influenced the flavors of your region and as social science researchers as
many of you probably are I think that that's something to uh that can be a powerful tool
so I feel there's three ingredients to seeing story through food and writers and Scholars
that can use the census tools for effective communication lift your communication out of
the ordinary and it will add depth and dimension uh to connection and connection to your research
so one food is a personal identifier it reveals personal choices. Now I'm not talking about
subsistence level of eaters in the world they're eating for survival but for most of us in the
world food is a choice, what we eat what's a you know um we express how who we are as people many
times through the what we're choosing. It's a message like clothing. Okay food also reveals
cultural values it is for instance I gave an example on the slide of medieval times a
host table at the top with the honored guests and then maybe the rest of the guests are down seated
a little lower much like a much like a wedding uh reception in this culture today and you know what
served at that meal uh fantastic foods spiced with little with little bits of larger things
that come from all over the world at the time and literally that host is telling you you're going to
be eating this and it's and it's showing you who I am my place in society that I can do this for you.
Think about that and how different a message that is than a tailgate at a football game or
um two people eating in a cozy dinner you know in a secluded restaurant. It's
a very different message depending on how you consume food and how it's presented.
um so it reveals a lot about cultural choices and history and last food has always been and
remains a catalyst through history um our country was discovered partly by the West
um by Europe um due to a quest for foods. Population surges throughout history were after
foods and new sources of calories hit a culture suddenly there's population surges
when Napoleon's Army was marching it marched on its stomach there was major migrations and
continued to be through history depending on food sources and as you know the Irish potato famine,
but also from earlier ancient times. For all three reasons personal identifier, cultural identifier
of values in catalysts or history uh food story is powerful in writing but in the Sciences as well.
So now I'm going to speak briefly about tasty Mozambique and then I'm hoping we
can have a discussion with the panel who've also had wonderful experiences in this world.
um so tasty Mozambique is a low literacy cookbook developed with the women of Rotunda Mozambique to
improve human nutrition so in that area childhood and mental stunting was ranging between 40 and 45.
So the foods that had long sustained the people of that region were no longer doing so. and um the
project that tasty Mozambique was part of was part of a larger project that was a feed the future
funded project University of Missouri, USAID, climate-resilient resilient bean and soybean
Innovation Labs, University of Mississippi, IIAM of Mozambique, Penn State, and the University of
Maryland Eastern Shore were all part of this large project and the overarching project was focused on
develop developing improved common bean and soybean seeds traditionally hybridized over
years that would handle the changing climates better and also the depleted soil quality.
um so my project was just a very small part taking all this wonderful science
and information that the scientists were coming up with and digesting it and to use
another fund in a way that people who didn't have high levels of Education could use it,
so the people who also did the Agriculture and fed the families,
so communicating the research. So as an overview it won't be news to many of you in the room and
on Zoom but many um nearly every place on the planet has its native own native species of beans
every culture and has a species historically all of us came out of cultures that started with beans
as the base food so we are all full of beans and I and that's what Ken Albola says that he's
a food historian that's well known but with that in mind considering that the cultivation of beans
um has been crucial to everyone on the planet it's a source of protein for humans, it's a source of
cattle fodder it's a means of replenishing soil health um and even though every great Agricultural
Society has its staple grain so rice in Asia, corn and meso America, wheat in Europe and the Middle
East beans have been the one common denominator between all of them and it's been indispensable.
However beans are also deeply charged with social bias more than any other food. Beans have been
associated with poverty, there's simple economic reasons why as people start to obtain more means
they they start looking uh to get their protein from animal sources and people who cannot afford
that are seen as lesser or less able to meet those nutritional require requirements through meat and
in um you know in places that are high population density or have low amounts of grazing land beans
remains like in China and India they remain a huge part of the diet but everywhere else people tend
to want to move out of being at beans as their source. So we start with almost every culture in
beans and greens we go to soybeans often because generally as communities rise economically
even a little soybeans seem to make their appearance uh there take a little bit more
supported agricultural value chain to grow them, it takes a little more development to
make soybeans viable and farmers start to raise soy for cash crops at times
and then next uh as people rise out of sustenance levels they begin to consider more meat and for
much of the last century uh in Europe and the so-called developed parts of the world only
those people who could not afford meat depend dependent on beans and so beans became a marker
of class as I mentioned and this feature of beans is what I focused my project tasty Mozambique on.
So when you come back around to illustrate my point I believe most cultures go through this
cycle um first it's the lowly I say that you know sarcastically beans and greens consumed across
the culture and it's mostly where the village I worked at in Mozambique this is mostly where they
were though they were starting to move through the cycles um and then people start to find they
can afford meat and they buy it whenever is possible uh and it's usually about that time
when whole Nations start to consciously promote dishes that are emblematic of their national
identity and these dishes almost always include beans. So if you think about typical Foods they're
always typical but not only typical they're populous foods. They're historically food
that's consumed by the masses and the best so as an example take for example the battle over who
owns falafel in the Middle East or Israel it's it's uh shows you something as simple as mashed
chickpeas that are cooked can be invested deeply with cultural and and political sentiments so
it's no longer just a lowly peasant food at that point but it's a matter of national pride right
so as it begins to become more obvious or maybe as a matter of National Health people start to cut
back a little on meat consumption and then we get back to beans and greens at least some sometimes
um and then we can move them. So in Mozambique the pilot project I worked on was involved with
aiming at smallholder female Farmers most of whom were illiterate and the fantastic
research done in the overall project was just not filtering down to them.
So our main goal was to educate the pilot group in Rotunda on the health benefits of common beans
and soybeans and legume benefits to the soil so that's the goal right but I just set all this
up saying that people are wanting to go to meet they're not valuing beans as much and we'll go on.
um So to do that we wanted first of all to actually get the information to them we wanted
to create low literacy uh format recipes for the smallholder female farmers and incorporate images
from that culture itself that celebrated the food story of the people of central Mozambique using
their fabrics, their pots and pans, their fires because if you think about it in the west we see
our food story celebrated all the time. People in advertisements drinking happily or eating yummy
foods and the people look like most of us and they act like most of us and they're sitting in chairs
that we're familiar with and it's just reinforcing our notion that our food story is important.
So if you go to parts of the world where that's not seen very often I think it's really important
to do projects that show their own food culture celebrated. So tasty Mozambique wanted to do that
um it was trying to set this project up for a scaling of legumes in the area.
So we did that by doing focus groups separated by gender
and we'll move on the initial research I worked with a group of AdZous students which were through
the Missouri school of Journalism. They recognized and did research on these things that women hold
the key role in mozambique's agricultural labor force that their children's health was their top
priority this may not be a surprise to anyone but they they actually verified this uh 24%
about of these women were illiterate. Childhood mental and physical stunting was really high 40
to 45 percent in the region and the constraints to making change in diets was that community networks
personal and cultural restrictions and fear of the unknown made change difficult, and so the team at
AdZOus of wonderful students came up with these goals of alleviate physical and mental stunting
due to low protein diets encourage additional use of common beans and soy in home kitchens,
show real women from Mozambique growing cooking providing for their families and being recognized
for their unsung efforts and give mothers additional health and agricultural information.
So the content of the campaign was going to be Mozambique and women who can grow and use
improved soy and common bean and make terrific traditional and favorite recipes. There's not a
lot of risk if they're their own recipes right cooking and preparation will be addressed so
there's no worry about being able to make meals that taste great. People just like me eat common
beans and add them to recipes along with eating soy to make their families flourish. So we wanted
to test things like the campaign included things like fabrics because they wear beautiful fabrics
there and so we tested nine patterns and color combinations this is the one that they liked
and you can see I don't know if you look closely you can see there's actual beans in that pattern
right so we were trying to in a way brand these improved seeds. So the Fabrics that were used in
Agricultural Fair Days on the tables the capilanas that the women wore that were talking about the
improved seeds and also the design of the book used this pattern and these colors. The students
came up with the idea of the mother being women were important as the household provider so what
resonated with them was the idea of strength, so we wanted to tie beans to the idea of strength.
um they came up with posters you can see they're wearing the capilanas and it had to so I didn't
show you the poster that had the words on it because this is for a low literacy group we
wanted them to see it and understand that beans helps you grow strong and so even though the
words in in Portuguese and also some of the posters in English said strength that grows I
wanted to just see the image by itself so you can see how we came up with that idea without words
and then another poster that said why beans and it shows a happy baby um that's how obviously
healthy wrapped in the in the cloth. Okay so those are some of the techniques we used
um to get there we interviewed women in the rural Village of Rotunda and um talked about their food
story nobody had really asked them about their food story their history what they actually did
themselves in the kitchens and in the fields I went back and forth for about five years and we
collected their favorite recipes. I wasn't there to tell them what their foods should be I wanted
to find out what their tastes and flavors were so we got and that also gave them ownership in
the project because it was their recipes and then we would tweak them with added protein
um to each recipe so and then they would taste that and see if they liked it
um we did shoot we shot step-by-step photos which is harder than it looks and you're talking about
uh you know you had to measure uh teaspoon of salt and add it to a pot of beans that's three photos
at least because you have to show salt you have to show it in the palm of the hand how much it
is and you have to show it being poured, so each recipe was quite a few steps um we distributed
cards to residents of the region with the low literacy recipes on them we compiled a brief
food history of the region and also individuals in the town and then we made the full book available
through the AG extension people of the region IIAM. These are some pictures just briefly I'll
show you of some of the women I worked with and some of the interviewing places that we were in.
You can see the types of pots they use and um
in the color you can see a little some of the colorful Fabrics and then this photograph is
showing the pots that they use I don't know if we're maybe past that but there was a photo just
recently that was the pots they use and also the farm equipment they use so it was the tools of
their life and that's an example of one um one recipe that actually is a bean stew recipe but
we did the combination of both common beans and soybeans in this book because the two Innovation
Labs were trying to promote ideas behind the protein value of both and this is uh some photos
of what they called spare change they called this recipe spare change and you can go ahead and
forward it because the students that were going to school could with the spare change in their pocket
buy one. It was very inexpensive it's like a little um like a butter flower cookie except they
used oil and they added a little bit of like a shortbread they added a little bit of soy flour to
it making those snacks suddenly much more protein heavy and the women got together to make them
you can see the bins of them there and we're very excited about that. And this is an example of one
of the ladies I talked to about her food story and you can see her lovely dress, there's another one
Amelia and then uh this was the Elder Statesman of the group, and you know she was telling me stories
about um how she had seven goats but uh somebody in her family uh decided he wanted more meat and
so he butchered two and so it was the community in transition and she was very sad about only having
five goats and so the idea that the bean protein could provide and the strength that their children
needed without having to butcher their animals was really strong for them and this is a picture
of the cover. The one on the right you can see is the final chosen photo but I wanted you to see the
one on the left I don't know if you can tell the difference but uh they're pretty uh light-hearted
wonderful women they had a real joy in life and that really shows it. I wanted that to be
the cover but the chief joined the photo and they sort of sobered up for that one. So um and we'll
go to the last photo I think of the presentation I wanted you to see some of the landscape this is
a little bit north just gorgeous place right? It's one of the prettiest places I think I've ever been
but I'll stop with that and be looking forward to maybe the panelists thoughts on this. Thank you!
Okay so I'm gonna make sure these are on I don't know if people can hear me out there.
um I do want to say that um you are free to help yourself to coffee and bagels and things they were
a little late being delivered but they are here for you so either anytime during the presentation
or at the end you can help yourself. so okay so um first I'd like to ask the panelists to introduce
themselves from whatever perspective you wish and then I'm going to ask you to go back in the same
order and just have a a brief response to her Nina's presentation so we'll just start at the
end. Sure um hi everyone my name is Anna Zeide. Maria Elisa introduced us earlier and um I'm an
associate professor in the history Department here and also direct our food studies program and so
um which is a relatively new program that began about three years ago trying to kind of bring
more of the Food Perspectives to um the College of liberal arts and human Sciences thinking about the
ways that the field of History Humanities more broadly can add to our discussions of food. So
of course Nina's work is so aligned with work I'm doing what all of us are doing and I think brings
all of us into conversation in really interesting ways but I'm looking forward to talking about
um but just to say a little bit more my background you know I think the kind of food as both personal
identifier, cultural values and major catalysts through history are also three very significant
touchstones for my own um background and entry way into thinking about why I study food. So um on a
personal level Nina and I have somewhat similar stories that we've been talking about in terms of
um having grown up my parents are both Soviet Jewish immigrants who moved to rural Arkansas,
Southeastern Arkansas in the in the 80s when I grew up where we were definitely the only
people within an hour radius it seemed who had happened with my parents who had accents of any
kind who were Jewish for sure and quite early and quite quickly food for me became clearly a marker
of difference. There were a lot of markers of difference between me and a lot of the people that
I spent time around but it was one of the earliest and most tangible ones that I noticed my earliest
memory actually has to do with recognizing that. I'll tell the stories I often tell it in class
because I think it does capture something and I was five years old it's kindergarten
um and you know we were all sitting around the rug in a circle and the teacher just asked as
a way to kind of ice break or what everyone had for dinner the night before and all the kids are
kind of going around saying very kind of you know standard American or by that point American dishes
pork chops or mac and cheese or other things um and it came to me and I remember still the way it
felt like even as I was about to say something I wasn't sure if I had the right answer and so
I said that we had had um rice with milk like rice cooked down to almost a porridge with milk
poured outbreak which is like a very common kind of kids food especially um in Russia. A
grain that's cooked down and I and I said that and the teacher kind of paused and she said oh
were you still sick? Because I'd been sick the week before and even then I got this feeling like
I should say and so I said yes the doctor told me I had to eat that um and so both that feeling of
noticing that what I said was kind of unusual that it required some explanation and that like
medical expertise was somehow like the layer on top of it that allowed for acceptability uh really
landed with me and I think has actually shaped a lot of what I've come to study
um and so that kind of personal story um and then I um I was trained in the history of science my
degrees my PhD is a history of science medicine and Technology um which was kind of an interest
interdisciplinary historical um feel but I kept finding that when I asked those questions about
how we got to where we are medically is you know technologically agriculturally that food kind
of kept coming to the center of ways of talking about where all of these fields intersect um and
as well as Tinder and class and all of our kind of identities that these intersected around food and
so I studied sort of how processed food in America came to be so dominant because of scientific inter
investment and the way that kind of scientific research overlaid a stamp of approval by the
early 20th century that made canned foods and later kind of processed foods more
acceptable and legible to Americans in a kind of increasingly scientific and industrialized Society
um so that was my earliest book and then since then I've kind of been thinking about lots of
ways within my research and in some of the work I've been doing with food studies Aboriginal
Tech both kind of curriculum development and others to think about how do we bring more
of these many conversations that are sometimes studied somewhat separately into dialogue with
one another so that history majors are thinking about food through lenses of History the English
majors and political science Majors have food as a way to think not only about food writing or food
politics but also intersections with Agriculture and development and economics and food science
and nutrition and kind of all the fields that um that I think are necessary to for all of us
to kind of at least have some understanding of in order to talk about these Central stories so
Well hello everyone! I am Kim Niewolny. I am associate professor in the department
of agricultural leadership and Community Education. As I said earlier I also serve
as the Director of our Center for food systems and Community transformation which is a center
that lives at the College of agricultural Life Sciences but has a footprint Beyond
um well well beyond just the Virginia but our southern region particularly focusing on work
intersecting that food Agriculture and Society for Central Appalachia Mid-Atlantic area in the
southern region it's an extension and Outreach Center and that's important to us because of the
story that we are connected to with the land grant Mission both being very critical of of our history
as a generative opportunity to move forward to think very creatively and hopefully more
um it's going to say generatively to to move our food system in a more just resilient robust and
abundant space so our Center focuses a lot on that work and but I wanted to and I'll speak
because I could speak to that to some degree but I really wanted to you know this is about
this is and I think this is about why we're here and the work that you're caring for so I wanted
to have a couple touch points and I'm sure we can circle around the oh so we share the space but I
think something that really excites me um my own personal story around food and we all have one
that's maybe the point we all have one and that's a really important place to begin and to nine and
through our Center into the research that I do my background is in sociology as well as an adult
education and so I really think about the power of knowledge the ontological possibility of story and
making story sharing story most importantly and the permission and the ethic of sharing story for
the purpose of cultural and social change and for me that work is within you know not just
um prior but also with the launch of our centers really thinking about the questions I like the the
Catalyst the cultural Catalyst that you mentioned and thinking about why the questions of why and I
agree those are some of the most important some of the hardest questions to ask and get answers
for but the but the how is also really important and so I really am excited about the food system
as a space for Praxis what do we mean by Praxis how do we imagine how we do what we do in action
with a lens of criticalness and for hoping for maybe a more abundant possibilities and
so doing doing that work in in the food system for us is really landing on a project called
the stories of Community Food work which has been a project related to addressing Community
Food Security in the Appalachian region particularly Central Appalachia I can I can
anyone wants to know more about the project I'm happy to share but that's not the point
um it is the point but not the point that um let's want to assure that the the work really
started within the communities themselves who were interested in sharing their stories
about why they're mobilizing for different possibilities in their food system their
stories of Community Food work we're really really significant to this position between
tensions of vulnerability in canoes and transition also communities of resiliency and dignity and so
how do we sit with those tensions since we ask stories about what kind of work do you
do? We don't have to tell me what you do we ask questions about what kind of world are you trying
to make? They don't ask that specifically but we ask questions around food at tables with food in
a narrative inquiry approach to ask folks how are you trying to change your possibilities I think
you said it earlier the language you used around um revealing possibility and so to me that's
sort of that what some Scholars refer to as the ontological politics however how do we reveal what
was not revealed to you previously to make a new possibility come forth? Because it's hard cultural
work but people are doing this every single day in their food communities and so one of our roles is
to create create some facilitation and in spaces for for these stories to be told and shared and
currently we have well over 75 throughout the region working with extension agents working
with Farmers working with chefs working with um individuals who identify as activists individuals
who identify as I live here and I care about my food system so I thought about the title
it's about what they do and their purpose and those stories have really been again countless
for project projects if you will in local very local spaces as well as opportunities for new
relationships to be built because this is about the imaginary and I personally think that's some
of the most important work a lot of us can connect to because the tools we have are the tools we've
been given but can we create new tools to change what we want and so that store power is storing
I think what you're describing is very much alive in in the communities of which we work in I have
another example but I'm going to hold off for a minute that I want to hear from a different thing.
Oh thank you and um in my case like I said that everything you said is me you know the working
big nice but I want to really tell a little personal story about mysel.f I came in
probably when I was 17 and I was uh adapted or taken by American
father in Pennsylvania Rural America and uh my first year I cried a lot
um and also sick mentally sick not physically but mentally. Just basically there is nothing
that this poor family did not do for me uh love me and do everything for me and uh so
a local doctor said that that uh I have some kind of tropical disease which I did not
um and then my mother my poor mother sent me to
um CDC in Atlanta to be examined for tropical disease which I do not have anymore
so another old uh doctor said I think I know I have a problem is I'm thinking like oh gee what
else now she said that that he was really a wise guy he said you need to send her to Washington DC
where they are a lot of Ethiopians she needs to be with her people and then eat the food
I think that's her problem my mother could be in the car in Spain a weekend in Washington DC
that cured my entire problem it wasn't really the people it was the food I ate medium potato
for one year a lady who is who used to prepare food there she was from German she prepared all
the food that I've never tasted before uh no no spices I think he was a card of cardamom in my
blood so I you know it was it was completely it was very interesting when I came back from
the weekend in DC where my mother said me when I came back I was a totally different person
so you can actually be food secure you know but not necessarily have the right food to make you
feel good who you are you know so that is really my passion really started from that
what happened to me for a year in America you know in Pennsylvania and I really never thought
the story because I was really worried that my mother would not be happy with me you know
because love did not do it nothing did it but the cardamom did it at the end yeah yeah and so and
then the law of course love and food go together so everything that that um Nina mentioned I am
actually my entire life is about food uh the love of food uh how how food make people really good
and how actually you make friends with food you know there is no enemy information about food
who would not love you if you provide food or even talk about food you know and one of the things
that that uh um Nina mentioned was food as a personal identifier personally when I meet people
I would never ask what do you do for living I always ask what do you eat what do you like to eat
because if I I say that that uh something else it might actually go to politics or something rather
not really good but what do you like to eat you know and uh how do you you know that really is a
great conversation to have because immediately it will take you a place that you never expect to go
and so put is the best um the best way to connect with people learn about people and uh and so
that's how that that um I also that that make my students like me by feeding them quite a few
right here too you know and so um and and um the other thing that that I will talk about probably
more later on is that uh about uh you amazing um Mozambique work and uh through um usaid era an
old projects of Virginia Tech and now um USDA we introduced mung bean uh to Senegal um you know I
am an Agronomy so I actually talk a lot about how to produce food you know but uh producing
food is actually half of really the problem you know we we have a lot of food produce but then
um an old friend told me that that about cultural poverty people don't necessarily eat what they
have because they don't know what it is you know so the quantity of food you have we actually
produce food in the world to feed everybody there are many other issues you know involving food so
uh so we uh we introduced welcome into Senegal and now is being produced and people like it but then
I'm working with a woman in women organization to produce it and and once they produces their weight
to know how to make it how to fix it they become all of a sudden insecure this new crop what do I
do with it so we are in the process of developing um recipes now and the other thing that that also
if you really wanted to know about people again food under the identifier go to the market just
randomly walk to the market what they eat actually tell you who they are immediately you don't have
to to know anything else about that and so I roam around the market it doesn't matter
whether I stick out in different countries like Thailand like China. I don't care I
just roam around the market you know and I have no fear of actually somebody is going to attack
me because I look strange now I'm just looking at Tomatoes I'm looking at anything they produce
because immediately you you know who they are you know by just looking at the market
so I have a lot of other things I can mention but for now well thank you for your wonderful
introduction so you see that we've got this really exciting panel they're all connected to
food we are all connected to food in our work and our personal lives as are you. Of course,
so I want to make sure we have time to open it up to people who are in zoom in here so but I
want to go back and just let you each comment if you can come back again so that was kind of your
introduction you want to comment on something that Nina presented today or anything else that you had
um sure I'll just say a few thoughts that came out of both the conversation today
and looking at some of Nina's books and some of our brief conversation yesterday as well
um but especially I'm interested I guess in Nina's position as a food writer as someone who's sort of
trained and learned and has all this expertise and all these content areas that we're talking
about but also is really committed to the communication of it to the story not just
as individuals held stories but as um the way that we tell these stories the way we choose what we're
including to make these things land and matter to people you know every audience that you're
speaking to has different touch points that bring them into a topic that we're talking about and
yesterday Nina was talking about how including recipes so in her books when there's kind of a
historical or social or cultural content a lot of the chapters then and in a recipe in
something that has a kind of concrete takeaway whether the reader ever makes that recipe or not
that there's this kind of introduction into something that feels tangible and accessible
and I was really taken by that strategy in your work and you mentioning that yesterday because
um I think about that a lot you know like the things that we are passionate about and care about
feel so natural to us like everyone should love this stuff too you know there's such
like a natural pull for the things that we um are excited about but thinking about where
audiences people who are coming to this work and I could think about the way this might apply and
Mozambique or any of the kind of um applied contexts as well is like how do we make other
people care how do we make other people note it not make but invite them in to uh to the
spaces where these insights and conversations can land and so I'm really interested in as
our discussion continues and thinking about how the different audiences that we all communicate
with whether that's you know with students in our teaching work with the kinds of audiences that we
write to I'm kind of trained as a historian who historians I'd like to say like we're one of the
few remaining like narrative disciplines where we're trained still to like and I don't I mean
that's you know maybe self-aggrandizing way of thinking about it but um we both talk about it
that way like we care about right writing and then also there's not a lot of encouragement
to write excessively you know to think about who's reading our work and where it goes and as
I've kind of moved along in my career I've been thinking a lot about um writing for the public
what it means who the public is how the kind of skills and training of Journalism and food writing
um sits alongside what often doesn't overlap with kind of more academic writing and obviously the
kind of extension work and Community work that Kim does so much of locally I think about that
obviously as a way of extending audience as well so these are just sort of both kind of raising
some comments and questions perhaps something we'll continue to discuss and discussion is like
who are we producing this knowledge for how do the different audiences that we want to communicate
the value of food to in all of its different dimensions and then how do we kind of draw on
Knowledge and Skills of areas like journalism who have who have so deeply practiced The Art
of Storytelling in a very direct and applied way and bringing that I think more into more
academic spaces is something I'm really interested in and I've been trying to explore in my own work.
Go ahead please. We brought you here to talk so you can handle check now and then. so
um you know I think about broader audiences which is what we're all trying to do in
Academia is get uh information and perspective to broader audiences and journalism does that
well but storytelling in any form academic or otherwise also does it I just think there's
um so I when I was hearing everybody talk because all are amazing so I would love to talk with each
of you more but the um you think about a cultural uh touchstone and uh this is what we were trying
to get at with tasty Mozambique the research prior to actually producing the product uh was to find
out what it was that motivated people what their thoughts were about Who provided food and um you
know this the strength that grows came from this idea that mothers were the strength of the family
that they were providing this food for them all to be nurtured so but every culture's got that and uh
every family has that and I think that if you um think about your own lies and think back to what
it is that maybe pointed you in the direction you are now focused on in your research and scholarly
work or uh just in your life it often points to something that's really basic in you know
um I've thought about in Northeast India um if you travel they say you know you need to
load up on the foods of your home because that's what's going to sustain you till you come back
um I think about the foods of medicine in India food is medicine and I think about scientific
medicine and how that led to things in this country is slightly differently than it did
in India because there's a different approach to Medicine traditionally and I think about this uh
author uh that just recently passed away he was from Southern India he came to this country in
the 60s about my age actually and he um he became ill and passed away fairly young I'm
going to say fairly young because he is my age and um his late before he passed he was really
promoting the idea that for people who are ill bring them the foods of home that that's going
to sustain and make them healthier than anything else so our Hospital Foods need to be considered
about who the patient is that's a very uh Eastern idea that the patient is individual and there's
not a generalization of what food's going to be good for that person so I love that and I think
it ties into what you're talking about and then when you talk about communities and you know how
you know this base idea of what community what motivates those ladies uh is the health of their
children but their knowledge as providers and strength uh the strength of their communities
is acknowledged you know but when we come in with all these wonderful research projects
that are amazing we skip that little bit and these women aren't giving the information so that Gap is
what you're obviously working on and I just think that it's it's such a key component
all these pieces fit together to make the research much more effective I appreciate that
um I wanted to speak a little bit I think this is a build on I think about the pedagogy of food
um and I don't and I mean that from the classroom to the community and back uh how can I care a lot
about and similarly you know in my classrooms it's not only cooking in but also really bringing food
I recognize that people are at different places in their lives particularly students if we were
if anyone's taking my classes particularly my graduate courses I mean breaking bread
is part of the pedagogy it's part of the way we we connect and I see something else who's
been in my class with a nod in your heads it has to get to have my pesto and things like
that that really that are part of a story you share why I bring this why do I why do
we do this together and it's I think that's really significant to the work I think all
of us are doing I think probably many of you too but I also think about the way um food is
utilized in community settings so that's what you're describing I mean what anyway right else
I think about in terms of knowledge um creation a lot of times in community that we're working
Within have they've been asked a lot of questions they're getting off the glow of the it's a lot of
taking and so how do we actually uh flip that script and think about how we can bring bring
communities together to share really you know challenging stories because they want to tell
the story they want to be the ones to to own that narrative and and I've learned through the
years of cultural Community Development practices around storage service and there are many people
on this campus who are really well equipped to to share and teach this work and in our center
it's something that we really have focused on and how we use story circles as a as a way to bring
people together to share short short memories instances that relate to really challenging
difficult conversations to open up stay I do this in the classroom as well and it's always about oh
wait about food but it's also with sharing food to do so so it's again if it's the story people
can share and they can be very it can be painful stories they can be joyful stories and just making
sure there's a lot of there's permission to share those stories to one another so I feel like that
um just so much more below the surface I often use um the analogies of rhizomes in my work I
think about possibility if you know what a rhizome is look it up it's very important to agricultural
Concepts also a concept of knowledge things that are popping up in possible new ways and exciting
ways and they're agronomists in the house you would know this voted most and the idea that
we have to be open to those lines of light lines of opening and so food in food pedagogy I think
really does that well and I like to see more more folk and on across campus it doesn't matter what
you're teaching you can there's that element of care and Hospitality that we bring to that
space and I think it's reciprocated well that was really what I was thinking about oh you do this
I thought that was my thing you know so um it's all thing you know um I teach a course and what
is it guys you need to tell me what it is and uh and food and culture so um [Music]
we cook in class we talk about different crops of the world and
um in class and lecture and then in the food lab we talk about the culture of the grain you know
and um who actually will grow it for consuming the most and the celebration around it
if we are talking about porn we celebrate a lot of what countries do we celebrate corn guys
Mexico that's what they say you know and we we wait we do a Chinese New Year dumplings
uh so every week we could but what's what's what's interesting about it is that now more
and more families are not cooking together they eat separately you know but when we
actually make the food in the kitchen people converse with each other what they're cooking
and sell for cell phone is not allowed but some of them tell me that that's the way they look at the
recipes it's not always true so I always go after them I think that's also making an enemy you know
and then it doesn't matter to me uh but um so and also the other thing that that beside the
actually the cooking every one of them have to do uh a write-up and one of it one of the write-ups
is that that um the first memory of food when did it happen what was it you know the story
the students get is unbelievable unbelievable how they remembered that they are going to this
little hamburger joint when I was three four years old eating hamburger that was a memory
of the food and then the other one is to visit uh two grocery stores two different grocery stores
and comparing contrast how things are shared you know what they are being sold which will
tell well I think the story will be actually more interesting that we live near big cities you know
but in bloxburg what are you comparing and contrasting Kroger and uh I think Oasis The Oasis
you know I think that's what they say they went but I don't know I'm not sure um and and the other
one is that that family recipe what is the family recipes the favorite family recipes and um and
what is this the other one is that the favorite the favorite call what is their favorite car
and what do they like about it you know so they write about this uh and and also another class
I have actually they develop recipes like for synagogue when they develop recipe for Senegal
I provide all the ones I know anyway ingredients that they find in Senegal
so they actually develop culturally appropriate recipes
but what we're finding out that the actually learning more about food Security in that country
through those recipes on anything else and they'll come and ask me that that whatever
preach you know do they have preach I say no they go back and then you know I just said how
do they make the food it's open fire they go back and I just in the process they learn about the
country and the people you know how actually that that food is produced and consumed so
um the classroom you know the food pedagogue the kitchen using the kitchen
as a classroom is probably one of the best things that I have ever done in my teaching
it says a lot to learn I thought I'd jump in for those of you who ever have the opportunity
to benefit from the cooking trust me I am just privileged it's really delicious
so I'd like to give Nina a chance to respond and then if you have any comments on on this
and then I want to read a couple of just quick comments on on zoom and then maybe we can have
a question or comment from somebody here and then I'll read one from the
so I just a little antidote when I was working in Mozambique I was working with them on what their
favorite recipes might be but I came in with you know a recipe I thought my little addition to a
bean soup that I thought they might like and it basically was lemon and maybe a few other little
things and so you know what it reminded me of it's like when I when you go to the Midwest and you go
to a group of ladies who are cooking or baking and you're the young person that's in the kitchen and
you have this idea and usually the ladies are just so kind you know they're like oh what a nice idea
that's that's lovely Nina so when I was talking to these ladies in Mozambique they were like oh
that that's a good idea let's let's try that they were so nice to me because they wanted
me to feel part of this circle of people who were nourishing their families and that my
idea was valid and you know when you take um that Community effort towards food security and um you
you know incorporate their ideas of what they want to eat you're just going to get something
that's a lot more useful to the community than if someone coming in from outside even with the best
intention uh you know I learned that in Peace Corps you know my memories of that time I was
there professionally doing other work but my memories of that time came from the kitchens
with the ladies and that's where I learned about their lives that's where I shared my food Story
Probably for the first time in my life and um it was it was very powerful you know so the power
of food story and sharing which is what we're talking about today too um is is pretty profound
okay so now we're going to shift and we're running late but I want to shift and just make a couple
comments one is from Theo who's in our Global Ed and he just wanted to thank you and for sending
me articles and information about spam before our Global educations office spam and eggs event so
um so okay and then Peter Schmidt and to everyone says by the way he also has a question which I'm
going to get to later but your book on green chilies can you hold that one up and other
imposters um is great I use chapters of it in a course on Asian food history last semester
so those are some comments so maybe we can have one question or come if
somebody can raise their hand here and then I'll pick one from here oh yes and
we are going to use the microphone so people on Zoom can hear you okay
maybe just intro just say your name yeah
um my name is Megan I'm one of Dr. Ozzie's students but we've talked a lot about how
food is important to Identity and especially food security and I'm wondering if you all have
any thoughts about the role that universities and departments at the University can play
in ensuring food security among the student body or if they have an obligation to do that
that's a great question I want to jump in really quickly because I this is an opportunity
um many of you may be some of you may be familiar that there has been some food Security on campus
work research as well as a task force I started on this task force early on but I want to recognize
we have actually a Dr Jess Agnew in the room who could probably speak to this more with Dr Ralph
Hall actually in a couple weeks they're going to be speaking about the the second cohort of
research that they've been producing around the questions of food Security on this particular
and also stretches to Northern campus and then in Roanoke so I just wanted to uplift that and
we're headed our Center fellows are going to be highlighting their work and this very topic which
is a national conversation and I always want to recognize that our a lot of this work has stemmed
from the lived experiences and the programmatic imagination at our community colleges across
the country who have really been I think leading the way there's a lot of work to be done but I'm
excited that this research is taking place here and so tune in on the 26th of April to learn more
but I just also have on Tuesday night Nina was on a panel it was also the launch of a
group called The Common ingredient I don't know if you want to say more but is a is a group that
had foundations in Columbia Missouri and now there's a new chapter has been formed here who
are interested in food security locally not just I mean including Virginia Tech campus but also
the New River Valley more broadly and Izzy largen who's the director food security initiatives on
campus was on that panel discussion as well and I missed it so maybe you can say quickly more about
it but I think the goal is to continue adding the conversation to What's Happening Here the
research that's happening and then seeing what kind of collaborations can continue to develop
with these different organizations who are talking about this really critical issue
and he is a large in at that meeting for talking about the common ingredient launch here in
Virginia she was talking about the programs they already offered here on campus and of course the
hope for more but what I was really struck by because of course I'm on the communication side
I I was struck by this idea that you know you talk about foods and how to make some
of the foods as was mentioned sometimes people don't know what to do with these ingredients
um how to make um that accessible to the demographic that might be on campus it's
a totally different way to communicate than it would be maybe for my generation so it she
had some great ideas for uh quick little videos and I'm hoping we can link those on the common
ingredient website as well so it just amplifies the the reach but um it's not only the foods but
it's how to communicate how to work with the foods to improve human nutrition that's important too
okay I'm going to read a question from Peter who's the one who's using your book and question
for Nina I don't recall much mention in your presentation about Staples grains in India
millets were traditionally the staple of drier regions that are now identified as Poor People's
food and most people have gradually transitioned to rice and wheat which are less nutritious are
you involved with efforts to revive the usage of more traditional more nutritious Staples
such as millets that's a very good question and I think you know the uh in part of the the purpose
of green chili and other imposters was to show how food moves around the world and I think that
um with the grains from outside of India that came into India during colonialism we did lose
some of our heritage foods to um maybe other foods from other places or as as mentioned the Staples
behind creating those same Foods in different ways so um I think that there is a lot of work
being done around Staples that are being lost Millet is a big one but also there's like six
thousand varieties of rice and that's um reduced from earlier times and you know we don't use that
many varieties right when I lived in India doing my Fulbright in 2018 to 19. found this if I walk
down the street about a half a block there is a shop that had maybe 25 varieties of rice in he who
took pity on me and say what are you making and I'd tell him and he'd say oh you want this rice
because each rice has a different flavor profile it had a different protein level everybody uh
we've lost a lot of that wisdom right and if you talk to people who do the staple grains
in most countries around the world most regions of the world um there are people that have that
knowledge and I think that we're losing it I do appreciate the question I I do not work in
Millet but I'm very interested in um in Heritage Foods I guess that's the that's the bottom line
that's what that book was about Heritage foods of Bengal Heritage flavors but it there's so
much more to be done so if anyone has more information on Millard I'd love to know yeah
just Dr. Agnew
I was just wondering thank you all so much it's fascinating conversation and
I'm excited to meet with you all later today um to chat more but I was wondering if you
could say something about the word should. It's all a word you've used in different
ways and it can create really there's really positive implications of "should" and really
negative ones and especially talking about food security like you know we talk about
you should eat fresh produce you should eat culturally you should do this but then when
maybe somebody's experience at a food bank that can make that whole experience very negative. So
it's something I've been thinking a lot about lately the word should, and should we use it?
thank you
okay so who's gonna who should answer that question?
I just personally I don't like that word um I think it's providing information and providing
um first of all that that you must understand the community you're talking to you know
you must understand what their likes and dislikes in the cultural aspects of the food
and I mean it takes a long time to get to the Village inside the village actually to
understand the people like you know I work for two hours and then I interact 14 hours
I mean that's what it is and it's not a waste of time you're learning about them you know and you
should actually to me is that the two forceful or too demanding I mean one never use especially
food in the culture of people so I I don't use it and I don't think it's the right thing to
do to impose you know whatever your beliefs are in terms of food and should does that you know
the good thing I was I mean that was a great response I appreciate the question because you
think about the ways in which I mean there's there's a lot of opportunities I think I want
to uplift the work that I think are always in Virginia Public attention who are working on
food access are really present with this question and there's a lot of you know structural forces
that kind of sometimes are asking for that shouldn't you know the question should be
this way should you eat that way and then not really always questioning the assumptions behind
the realities of people's lived experiences and their structural you know conditions and I think
there's a lot of I'm missing on some of the food stories that we've we've been working with and
these are the questions that I think are every day they're in that dilemma and they're also
realizing that people have we have agency we need to recognize that first first and foremost and so
um being really mindful of what you know your that's where I think we should all
be coming into spaces with your sense of self and reflection of how you enter those spaces
and I I just really have a lot of respect for um family and consumer science corporate extension
agents who they live this every day and they and not everyone's we're not perfect individuals in
the world right we will but um that's recognizing that um families are coming to to the table to
to make you know these are the recipes there's supposed to do it like this like feel your way
through that you know and be and be a resource be it be a voice of support and sometimes that means
this means not asking questions that necessary arguments aren't aren't important at that moment
um and so I really know what do I do with eggplant well let's talk about why we didn't plan for you
you know it's like that sort of you know just questioning your your role in that um particularly
around food access I think that's really something I don't imagine all the different stories I've
had this question around and and also being mindful of open it up and when we do say should
what did I you know why do we do that that's kind of that practice right in the moment yeah
and can I just add a quick comment to that I think that question has definitely animated
a lot of my own thoughts and not that not that um this totally takes away the issue at all but
I've definitely found myself wanting to work more with children like or at least when I talk about
Community Food work that there is a for me a different kind of space for the word should
when we begin with nutrition education part of the school program where we're talking about
kind of what values a child might develop before things are kind of a set but there's spaces for
foreign flexibility that with adults I think it's a much more tricky territory to be in because of
all the layers of of work so at least for me some of the Community Food work I've done in the past
kids feel like a space of opportunity um not that they don't have their own agency in space but that
it does feel like a very important foundation that a lot of intervention can happen without
as much of the tricky terrain of the concern of it it's a tricky terrain and I was thinking over
what uh if I had used that and if I had meant it and you know I I tend to kind of view things
um more like in the listening mode so like uh I'm also hoping to get others to listen to what their
bodies need what the Earth is providing what the land and the history of the region and the
Heritage Foods teaches them so I don't know I I see it personally in in terms of should or should
not I see it more in what is available to me if I just pause and step back and see it and if I'm
able to show other people how to do that with my writing or anything else I'm thrilled and I don't
necessarily uh maybe I probably need to examine that every time you know but that I'm not aiming
for a should, I'm aiming or the other goal So it's 1:59 and we actually have the room another half
hour for those we'll we'll cut you off on Zoom I'm sorry but but and you can't have Bagels anyway
um but I do want to formally close anybody who needs to be you know you don't feel like you're
interrupting anything and if you want you can come up and hang out and ask some questions
but um it's not my phone is it? okay yes. I did do that as a speaker I was in a big
room full of people and in the very back my phone was going off and everybody was looking
around like there is this weird person I'm like I had to run and turn off my phone so that just
happens it's part of our world these days. So anyway I want to thank all of you Nina, Anna,
Kim, Ozzy uh for this great discussion I want to thank all of you for joining us and all of you on
Zoom as well and again I ask you please respond to our survey, it'll take you three minutes and
it's very helpful to us and we will soon not too soon but we will have our list of speakers um for
next fall uh eventually on our website. So join us and join us all to thank the speakers. Thank you!