food

The Bay Area’s long history of chocolate spans all the way back to the Gold Rush. Since then, the region has been a source for chocolate innovation again and again, from a Berkeley-based revolution in chocolate desserts to a craft chocolate revolution in the ‘90s that turned the industry on its head.

There’s a long history of chocolate making in the Bay Area that goes all the way back to the Gold Rush. Over a century later, a new guard of chocolate makers is picking up where a previous generation of innovators left off, and they’re leading a small but potent revolution in the chocolate industry.

Rosa Hernandez left Oaxaca when she was 20 to work in the fields in Madera, California. Now, she co-owns a restaurant, Colectivo Sabor a Mi Tierra, where she cooks the food of her homeland for the many indigenous Mexicans who live in the area. She did it, she says, after realizing the cultural value of her food through inter-ethnic friendships and connections.

 

Right now, there are backpackers crossing into Canada after five months of hiking the Pacific Crest Trail. They're called thru-hikers, and they started the trail in Mexico and will traverse 2,650 miles. Now, the lazy among us might have just read "Wild," Cheryl Strayed's memoir about the Pacific Crest Trail. The even lazier among us may be waiting for the movie to come out in December. The hikers who actually make this trek see toenails fall off and their feet can swell whole shoe sizes. They say the only thing they talk about more than their feet is food.

The Uyghurs are a Muslim minority in Western China who have been marginalized for years there.

 

Their origins are interesting- Chinese, with Turkic and other central Asian influences. Their food is a fusion of Chinese, Arabic, Kazakh, Afghan and Turkish flavors and dishes. 

 

 

On Saturdays, Mariko Grady’s company, Aedan Fermented Foods, has a food stall at the San Francisco Ferry Plaza Farmers Market.

“Hard work, low pay, miserable conditions, and more!”

  

On this edition of Your Call, we talk about the struggle to make the restaurant industry more equitable. The Bay Area’s food scene is sumptuous, but it’s not immune to some of the nastier aspects of the restaurant industry.

 

I’ve moved 16 times. So when I settled in San Jose, I thought I could finally get some real Vietnamese food.

But where to go?

A friend brought me to the Grand Century Mall food court in East San Jose to catch up over bánh xèo. It had been years since I’d torn through this sizzling crepe of coconut cream and rice flour batter. Shrimp, slivers of pork, mint, and bean sprouts spilled out the lacy edges of a golden crisp semicircle.

It tasted like home.

 

 

  

On this edition of Your Call, writer, artist, and activist Sunaura Taylor discusses her new book, Beasts of Burden: Animal and Disability Liberation.

 

This week on KALW's showcase for the best stories from public radio podcasts and independent radio producers...

 

Maritza Hurtado Torres has been cooking for as long as she can remember.

 

If you ask people in the city of Mexicali, Mexico, about their most notable regional cuisine, they won’t say street tacos or mole. They’ll say Chinese food.

 

With the amount of food we produce and consume, why do so many people still go hungry?

 

Unearthing the Green Revolution, Part III: California's industrial approach to agriculture has long served as a model for government officials in Punjab, India, which dramatically increased crop yields decades ago as part of the high-tech, chemically supplemented Green Revolution. Yet the cost for Punjabi farmers has been a legacy of pesticide reliance, debt, and the hopes for a better life in other countries. 

 

Unearthing the Green Revolution, Part II: The story of how agriculture became agribusiness in California and around the world begins in Punjab, India, where the Green Revolution didn't just change how farmers work the land; it changed how they live. 

 

Unearthing the Green Revolution, Part I: California's fertile Central Valley is home to a sizable community of farmers from Punjab in India, a region also famous for its rich cropland. Why they came to the United States is a story as layered and complex as the politics and science of the crops they cultivate. 

Chickens cannot fly.  That’s according to Air India, India’s national airline. 

It was admittedly a moment of sheer American holiday nostalgia. Cooking a turkey in India. I thought it could be a fun adventure. I just didn’t realize that finding a turkey was the least of it.

Durga Puja and Diwali bookend our festival season in Kolkata.  But there’s an ancillary festival that’s almost as important.

In a world where consumer choice is deified, multi-cuisine’s stock keeps going up, no matter its quality.  

In a world where consumer choice is deified, multi-cuisine’s stock keeps going up, no matter its quality.  

Meeting wild animals' needs and wants, and the dietary preferences of a very picky vulture.

We’d love your feedback, and your ideas. Do you know any specialists? Are you a specialist? Email specialistpodcast@gmail.com. 

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Sound design of this piece by Seth Samuel, who also wrote all the music. 

It’s hardly Santaland  but as Christmas approaches Montoo’s bakery, in a dingy lane in central Kolkata, is one of the city's hottest addresses.   

Liberal beef eaters unite!