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.
All content for Fruit Love Letters is the property of Whetstone Radio Collective and is served directly from their servers
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.
“A perfume so intense it confuses the senses.”
One of North America’s least-known native fruits, the pawpaw deserves a stage of its own. Jessamine chats with historian, writer and citizen of the Choctaw Nation, Devon Mihesuah. Having grown up eating pawpaws, Devon wants pawpaw fruits to be available to Indigenous communities for years to come. To explore a pathway to pawpaw preservation through cultivation, Jessamine speaks with Neal Peterson, a plant geneticist who has spent the last 45 years creating pawpaws for the future.
Topics covered in this episode:
Min 1:00: Jessamine recites her letter to pawpaws
Min: 2:50: Jessamine gives a brief introduction to pawpaw
Min 3:40: Meet Devon Mihesuah
Min 4:40: Devon recounts her pawpaw past and present
Min 6:40: Favorite ways to eat pawpaws
Min 7:45: Role of pawpaws in Choctaw diet
Min 9:15: Cultural knowledge regarding pawpaws
Min 11:40: Foraging wild pawpaw challenges
Min 13:30: Tribes revitalizing pawpaws and indigenous food sovereignty
Min 15:00: Devon describes growing her own pawpaw plants
Min 17:00: Meet Neal Peterson
Min 18:00: Neal recounts his first taste of pawpaw
Min 19:30: Neal describes his research findings and method of past pawpaw breeding
Min 21:30: Neal finds surviving pawpaw trees to begin his cultivation process
Min 24:00: Neal explains the metrics evaluated to obtain his successful cultivars
Min 27:00: Neal praises the rise of pawpaw excitement and compares its future to be similar to blueberries
Learn more about this episode of Fruit Love Letters at www.whetstoneradio.com, on IG and Twitter at @whetstoneradio, and YouTube at /WhetstoneRadio.
Guests: Devon Mihesuah, Neal Peterson
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.
