Fruit Love Letters is a curious dive into the Anthropocene through fruit-colored glasses. Host Jessamine Starr may not be a botanist, historian, farmer or an expert on fruit, but as a chef in Atlanta she's simply had a lifetime love affair with it. So, she began penning love letters to fruit. This podcast pairs those letters with her desires to learn more. From the miraculous survival adventure of the avocado, to the nurturing personality of a fig, we’ll traverse the world of fruit through emotional meanderings and expanding a hunger for more information. Through discussions with farmers, scientists, chefs and enthusiasts, Fruit Love Letters proves that there is so much we didn’t know about fruit, from the blueberries you sprinkle on your cereal or that seemingly mundane apple snack, both in historical fact and mystique.
Fruit Love Letters is part of Whetstone Radio Collective. Whetstone Radio Collective creates storytelling dedicated to food origins and culture, with original content centering the perspectives of global majority populations and diasporas.
You can learn more about this podcast at whetstoneradio.com, on Twitter @whetstoneradio, on TikTok and Instagram @whetstonemedia and subscribe to our Spotify and YouTube channel, Whetstone Media, for more podcast content. You can learn more about all things happening at Whetstone at WhetstoneMedia.com.
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with no modification, redirects, or rehosting. The podcast is not affiliated with or endorsed by Podjoint in any way.
Fruit Love Letters is a curious dive into the Anthropocene through fruit-colored glasses. Host Jessamine Starr may not be a botanist, historian, farmer or an expert on fruit, but as a chef in Atlanta she's simply had a lifetime love affair with it. So, she began penning love letters to fruit. This podcast pairs those letters with her desires to learn more. From the miraculous survival adventure of the avocado, to the nurturing personality of a fig, we’ll traverse the world of fruit through emotional meanderings and expanding a hunger for more information. Through discussions with farmers, scientists, chefs and enthusiasts, Fruit Love Letters proves that there is so much we didn’t know about fruit, from the blueberries you sprinkle on your cereal or that seemingly mundane apple snack, both in historical fact and mystique.
Fruit Love Letters is part of Whetstone Radio Collective. Whetstone Radio Collective creates storytelling dedicated to food origins and culture, with original content centering the perspectives of global majority populations and diasporas.
You can learn more about this podcast at whetstoneradio.com, on Twitter @whetstoneradio, on TikTok and Instagram @whetstonemedia and subscribe to our Spotify and YouTube channel, Whetstone Media, for more podcast content. You can learn more about all things happening at Whetstone at WhetstoneMedia.com.
Cultivated or Wild the Blueberry Has a Story to Tell
Fruit Love Letters
29 minutes 4 seconds
3 years ago
Cultivated or Wild the Blueberry Has a Story to Tell
"Even so, I cannot move away from my ‘self’/perpetually residing in a blueberry cave."
Jessamine learns the history of both the cultivated blueberry and the native wild blueberry. For the former, she consults Kiyomi Locker, a historian for the Whitesbog Preservation Trust, birthplace of the cultivated blueberry. Through Kiyomi, Jessamine hears of Elizabeth White, the agricultural specialist who took the blueberry out of the woods and to consumers around the world. But just because most of us enjoy the cultivated blueberry doesn’t mean the wild one is gone. Brian Altvater and Holli Francis introduce Maine’s Passamaquoddy Wild Blueberry Company, the only Native-owned wild blueberry enterprise in the world. Clearly, there is space for both the wild and cultivated blueberry in our homes and our bellies.
Topics covered in this episode:
Min 0:00: Jessamine Starr recites her poem to blueberries
Min 1:35: Intro and blueberry description
Min 3:17: Meet Kiyomi Locker
Min 3:30: Whitesbog’s history as a village and cranberry bog
Min 4:30: Elizabeth White’s blueberry cultivation endeavors
Min 7:00: Blueberry varieties and crossbreeding
Min 9:00: Blueberry plants: errors and successes
Min 10:21: More explanations of blueberry varieties
Min 12:25: Elizabeth White’s unknown legacy outside of Whitesbog
Min 18:00: Meet Holli Francis and Brian Altvater
Min 19:11: Health benefits of wild blueberries and how they grow
Min 21:01: Passamaquoddy tribe history with wild blueberries and colonizer challenges
Min 22:02: The result of The Maine Indian Claims Settlement Act
Min 23:00: Altvater recounting the tradition of Passamaquoddy tribe harvesting and transitioning to mechanical methods
Learn more about this episode of Fruit Love Letters at www.whetstoneradio.com, on IG and Twitter at @whetstoneradio, and YouTube at /WhetstoneRadio.
Guests: Kiyomi Locker of Whitesbog Preservation Trust, Brian Altvater & Holli Francis of Passamaquoddy Wild Blueberry Company
Fruit Love Letters
Fruit Love Letters is a curious dive into the Anthropocene through fruit-colored glasses. Host Jessamine Starr may not be a botanist, historian, farmer or an expert on fruit, but as a chef in Atlanta she's simply had a lifetime love affair with it. So, she began penning love letters to fruit. This podcast pairs those letters with her desires to learn more. From the miraculous survival adventure of the avocado, to the nurturing personality of a fig, we’ll traverse the world of fruit through emotional meanderings and expanding a hunger for more information. Through discussions with farmers, scientists, chefs and enthusiasts, Fruit Love Letters proves that there is so much we didn’t know about fruit, from the blueberries you sprinkle on your cereal or that seemingly mundane apple snack, both in historical fact and mystique.
Fruit Love Letters is part of Whetstone Radio Collective. Whetstone Radio Collective creates storytelling dedicated to food origins and culture, with original content centering the perspectives of global majority populations and diasporas.
You can learn more about this podcast at whetstoneradio.com, on Twitter @whetstoneradio, on TikTok and Instagram @whetstonemedia and subscribe to our Spotify and YouTube channel, Whetstone Media, for more podcast content. You can learn more about all things happening at Whetstone at WhetstoneMedia.com.
