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Where food opens the door to conversations about craft, culture & tradition.
The Wild Kitchen Ep. 12 April McGreger
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Tiffany: [00:00:00] April McGregor spent over a decade running Farmer's Daughter Pickle and Preserves, where she earned 13 Good Food Awards. Her work and recipes have been featured in Bon Appétit, The New York Times, Southern Living, and many other publications, and she's the author of Sweet Potatoes in the beloved Savor the South cookbook series.
These days, she writes the Substack Preserving the South, is a certified Penn State master food preserver, and runs a fermentation program at a mutual aid kitchen in Philadelphia. Welcome to the Wild Kitchen, April.
April: Thanks so much for having me. I'm excited to be here and talk to you today.
Tiffany: I have been following you since I read a recipe that you had in Garden & Gun Magazine.
I think it was back in, like, 2020 or 2021 or something. I was like, "Oh my God." This like, th- the recipe remind-- and, and I keep coming back to this. I'm finding in this podcast, I keep coming back to, um... It reminded me of my grandma. It reminded me of something that she-
April: What recipe was it? You know, it's-
Tiffany: It was, it was a, um, [00:01:00] it was a cucumber salad, and I don't know what it was about it.
It like-
April: Cucumber corn salad.
Tiffany: Yeah, it had corn and cucumber and- Yes ... tomatoes in it. I was like, "Oh," that, that's like, it's the food I ate in Nova Scotia in my summers when I go back and visit my family. And, um, you talk a lot about, you know, sitting at the elbow of your mother and grandmother, cooking food in, in the town you grew up in, and, um, it just like, it, it re- really resonated with me.
I'm like, it just, there's this familiarity of, of the food you're cooking, and, um, I found it super interesting. So I, I'm curious, when you were, when you were a little girl, um, growing up in Vardaman, is that how you say it? Mm-hmm. Yeah. Uh, what, what kind of stuff were you doing? Like, what kind of stuff in the kitchen were you doing?
How were they including you in, in the food?
April: Um, uh, so yeah, when I was a little, little kid and, uh, um, my absolute favorite thing to did- do before I even, um, you know, before I started actually cooking in the kitchen, [00:02:00] we were pretending to cook. So I, you know, grew up making mud pies and playing in the sandbox for, you know, eight hours a day, literally.
Mm. Just my sister and I are a year apart, and we spent most of our really young life just digging in the mud. And we had, we had a-- we lived on this big hill and, um, you know, what other people call a farm, but when we were growing up, we didn't really use the word farm weirdly. Yeah. It was, you know, uh, although we had horses and gardens and fruit trees and dogs and chickens sometimes, it just depended.
We still somehow thought farming was, you know, a more organized, uh, uh, intentional, like row cropping- Yeah ... is kind of what we thought was farming then. But yeah, so, uh, but from a early age, like no one was really-- I always say no one taught me how to cook. You just learn by doing. And- Mm ... my mom, you know, by the time I was like, uh, 11 or 12 years old, my mom definitely was, [00:03:00] um, had me, um, and my sister, but me mostly because I was the, the most driven to cook.
I was making, you know, weeknight dinners using my mom's little index card re- and like recipe boxes from- Yeah ... you know, I always say like Betty Crocker style recipes, you know. Definitely a working mother. But we had a lot of meals that were, that, um, the old style of, you know, lots of little pots. So you have your, you know, your potatoes and your, um, peas or butter beans, which are very, very standard fare in Mississippi.
And then, you know, cornbread or rolls and then either baked chicken or pork chops or sometimes a fried pork chop. Um, so a lot of, um, a lot of those kind of meals too. But she definitely, you know, was not afraid of, uh, chicken and rice casserole using like, um, you know, a packet of Lipton onion soup mix- Yep.
and, um, minute, Minute Rice or something, I guess. Yeah. Those types of [00:04:00] recipes are, that's definitely how I learned to, to cook.
Tiffany: A lot of the recipes and, and looking at the products you're making with, um, Farmer's Daughter, it was like chow chow, mustard pickles, and, and even just now talking about the food you're cooking, it w- it's, it's so close to the food in Nova Scotia, it's, it's crazy.
And so I was like, "W- why is this food so close?" 'Cause it- these are pretty, like, they're ... You know, especially at the time when these foods were being developed and cooked, and, uh, they still, you know, w- are around today obviously, but, like, how did, how did such a wide geographic area develop very similar food ways?
So I, I was looking at it and I had no idea. There was, like, the Black Loyalists that got sent up north in the mid 1700s, and then the Acadians got sent south and- Mm-hmm ... um, I'm curious if, if there was ... I, I mean, there must've been some sort of sharing of, of food because it is so similar.
April: I mean, yeah, I would guess, um, of, uh, for, I mean, for, [00:05:00] for my food ways, for sure- Mm
there ha- the, when I say, like, cooking in a lot of little pots- Yeah ... that style of cooking is, like, very, very British, very Irish, whatever, you know, very-
Tiffany: Yeah ...
April: um, uh, Scottish. My family is definitely, you know, comes from, um, they're Highland Scots and- Mm ... and, um, Irish and, you know, Scots-Irish and all in between.
Um, but mostly Scottish and Irish. And, uh, that sty- I mean, the food, I, I literally just came back from Ireland and, you know, over and over again, the food feels very similar and hasn't- Oh ... um, hasn't changed in a lot of ways. Uh, you know- Yeah ... uh, the thing that changes, I think, was, you know, they say that nothing defines what you eat more than just, like, you know, your, your latitude, your-
your, your climate. Like, what grows. So- Yeah ... and definitely in Mississippi you're gonna have a lot more okra, a lot more of those kind of, like, peas and butter beans, those really warm weather, um, crops, and we, we certainly lean very heavily on those. Or, like, the substituting corn for- [00:06:00] Mm ... whether it's, like, oats or, um, you know, barley or wheat.
Uh, corn just grows so well in the warm weather climate of the South that that ended up being, you know, the, the, the backbone of the cuisine. Um, so I feel, feel like we probably, it's just, you know, those kind of, like, Northern European, uh, roots and that sort of thing. So the- there's that certainly. Um, yeah, I, I think that's kind of the- Yeah
we probably share that, that basis a little bit.
Tiffany: Now that you say that, I think that, that definitely explains it. I d- I've got Macintosh on one side, Northern Highlands, and Sinclair, Sinclair on the other side, I think. Yeah, no, that, that definitely ticks that box. And you, so you grew up in a place that w- sort of self-designated as the sweet potato capital.
April: Yes.
Tiffany: Yeah. Um- How, how is it growing up in a place that's, like, so tied to one, one crop?
April: Yeah, I mean, that was... I feel like what was interesting, what's interesting about [00:07:00] that to me, my brother actually-- My, my dad farmed sweet potatoes and my brother now farms sweet potatoes, and I had to-- I helped my brother, you know, build out his website, and we were trying to think of what, you know, how to tell the sto- his story of, of farming because, um, while my brother...
You know, my dad was the first person in, in my family to commercially grow sweet potatoes. Everybody, like every single generation, like every census that we ever filled out listed farmer as the occupation. You know, that's like, has what, is what we've done from, you know, since coming to this country and, and before in, in, uh, you know, Scotland, Ireland, um, England, uh, was farm.
And, uh, I always say that, you know, that, that migration pattern, we sort of, we avoided. We did everything we could to avoi- avoid industrialization. You know, we, when, when Europe, when England and, you know, um, Great Britain started, uh, industrializing, it's like, "We gotta get out of here." [00:08:00] And then, you know, and then, and then in the US it's like Pennsyl- come into Pennsylvania, come into North Carolina, you know, just keep moving down, keep moving further and further over, out into the outskirts trying to...
whenever, you know, industry and things like that came in. So, um, there, there's definitely a lot of, of that, uh, farming and, um, uh, all the way back. But sweet potatoes became a market crop in the town where I am, and i- it originally started s- because, uh, there was these families in Tennessee who were farming sweet potatoes and realizing that it was a commercially viable crop, and they were looking for land, um, that was a certain type of soil that worked well with sweet potatoes.
Honestly, I was just talking to my brother about this. Sweet potatoes act- are very, very, uh, l- I wouldn't say they're easy to grow, but they are resilient. They're a [00:09:00] resilient crop. They, um, you do not have to have that perfect, you know, Mississippi Delta soil or that perfect Black Belt soil. They do not require the types of soil that like cotton, um, required.
And, um, and, and generally the middle of Mississippi is sort of the red dirt of, of, of the state and considered-- and you generally find poorer people. There were not, um, you did not have plant- this plantation economy that you had on th- both the eastern and the western side of Mississippi. Mm-hmm. But that red dirt actually worked really well with sweet potatoes.
So these farming families from Tennessee, I think it was originally four families, came down into Vardaman and, and, um, there was land available there for them to farm on, and so they started farming and, um, a lot o- uh, and other farmers who were already, other families who were already in the area started farming after that, and it just became an area that was, yeah, very, very tied to sweet potatoes my whole life that, you know, um, really nothing would've ever happened in our [00:10:00] hometown if we hadn't had-
um, all these festivities around sweet potatoes. Yeah. So that kind of made it exciting. The sweet potato, um, festival was, was like the first Saturday in November, and it was like the most exciting thing that happened in our town. Yeah. And we would have, you know, sweet potato queen. Um, so all the, you know, a lot of my friends were competing for the sweet potato queen, and we would have a-- and you'd get to ride in, you know, um, a convertible in the, uh-
Christmas pa- you know, in the- Yeah ... Christmas parade every year, those sorts of things. So I mean, I, I don't know. It was, it was really, it was kinda fun. I- Yeah ... also my, my mom's best friend, Miss Cardwell, was like the home ec teacher in our high school, and we, um, the home ec class always helped run the sweet potato, like, tasting booth at the festival every year.
So I was alway- I was involved in that, and, uh, it was fun. I always, I always say it kind of, uh, inspired like creativity, I feel like- Mm-hmm ... a, as a cook 'cause it would have, um, cooking contests and like I said, this tasting booth. And so it was always, [00:11:00] "What else can we make out of sweet potatoes?" You know, it was, uh...
I mean, there's, I've had sweet potato sherbet. We, we eat a lot of raw sweet potatoes. Really? Like instead of carrot sticks, you can, unlike, um, russet potatoes or- Yeah ... Irish potatoes, as people say, that are poisonous raw, sweet potatoes are totally fine to eat raw, so... And, and you can eat them like carrots or whatever, so anything, almost anything 'cause- Yeah
sweet potatoes are a bit of a s- you know, act sort of like a starch in recipes. They're very easy to, especially in baking, are very easy and, uh, and they add a really nice beautiful orange color if you use the orange varieties. So lots of creativity, I feel like is, um It's spurred on by that. And it's nice just having so many different families and people who are sort of employed in the same industry.
Yeah. Um, there is a little bit of com- competition that I feel like has happened- Yeah ... in recent years as, uh, farming and capitalism have proven why they don't work very well [00:12:00] together. Mm. Um, uh, but, you know, growing up it felt like, you know, w- everybody was sort of working, a, a lot of families were kind of working on the same project, if not as farmers, you know, as, you know, my...
I had a close friend whose dad was, like, a mechanic who, like, fixed all the tractors. So l- you know, everybody's kind of participating in the one big agricultural economy, so that's nice.
Tiffany: It's, it's cool too that it's, like, I find these communities that have something. Like, you drive, driving on the highway you see a sign for a town, it says, like, "Welcome to blah blah blah, home of whatever."
And different areas have different signs, and I find certain regions are, like, very humble. It'll be like, you know, g- "A nice place to stay" or, or something like that. But it's cool to go to a place that's, like, proud of their heritage, proud of what it is. I was in a town last week and it was, "Gateway to Wells Gray Park."
So gateway to a completely different place. Like, their pride and joy of their town is that you have to drive through it to get somewhere else, which I thought was a really strange thing. It was a little sad. Like, [00:13:00] I like the fact that y- you know- There's, there's something that, that brings everybody together and, and ties a town together.
It's neat.
April: Yeah. It, it always made me happy that, um- Yeah ... you know, most farming towns in America today, because they are so mechanized and because, you know, so much of the corn that's grown is not food that you can eat, to have a- Hmm ... to have a farming town with food that you can eat, you know- Yeah ... uh, and, uh, you know, lends itself to creativity, I feel like is a much, much better, um, and probably much, much better than, than most of the other sort of agricultural, um, communities and towns in the US, um, it l- especially like in the Midwest where it feels like what it has meant to be a farming town is that you actually move all the people out of the town.
Hmm. Because people are not required for most agriculture anymore. But sweet potatoes are really fun and unique that way, where they have resisted mechanization, um, and they still require a [00:14:00] lot of human hands laid on them to... You know, they can't be machine dug and machine sorted completely the way that a russet potato is because their skins are too thin.
Tiffany: Hmm.
April: Um, yeah, so, uh, you still need people to grow sweet potatoes.
Tiffany: That's cool. And so I, uh, this sort of naturally lends into the conversation about your, your book, and I've, I've read that you were the-- I can't remember the exact wording, but basically there was no other person that could have written this book aside from you for, for sweet potatoes, and that you had bristled a little bit at the cap of 50 recipes for, for the cookbook.
Um, what was it like? How, how did that, how did that conversation come up where, where you were approached to write this book for, for this?
April: Yeah. Um, that conversation happened at, um, a Southern Foodways Alliance event- Okay ... in Oxford, Mississippi, where I was, um, the pastry chef for, um, one of the dinners that we had- Hmm
and the, [00:15:00] the dessert that I made was a sweet potato crème caramel.
Tiffany: Oh, okay.
April: And, um, the editor at that time at UNC Press was Elaine Maisner, and she, um, requested that I write the book on sweet potat- And she heard my story, I guess- Hmm ... when we were talking about, when I introduced the, um- When they introduced the chefs for the dinner, I told the story about how my family grew sweet potatoes, and we used their sweet potatoes for the dinner, um, just down the road from where we were having that dinner.
And, um, anyway, so she, she asked me to write the sweet potatoes based on that one dish alone. Really? She was like- She must have
Tiffany: loved
April: it ... "As long as this recipe's in it, I don't care. Put it what you know." Like, it was like- ... we just definitely need the sweet potato crème caramels. Mm-hmm. She was a big fan.
Yeah. So, uh, that was really sweet. Um, and I lived in Chapel Hill, um, at the time, went to-- had gone to grad school at UNC, so, um, that wasn't why she asked me to write the book. But it did make it convenient in terms of, um, working on that [00:16:00] project. Uh, yeah, and when I said 50 recipes, I thought, well, I could easily write 50 recipes just on, you know, like baking recipes- Yeah
for the sweet potato. But all the other books had had, you know, uh, every category of food. So- Mm ... I thought, "Well, that's gonna be-- I'm gonna have to do some serious editing, uh- ... in order to get, get my, get my baking repertoire of sweet potatoes down to- Yeah ... not take up the entire book. So I had to make- Did-
some hard choices, I guess.
Tiffany: Did it, did it change how you saw yourself in your caree- like, you've, you've-- for people that don't know you, you've jumped around. Like, you studied geology. You went to Italy to study volcanoes, came back, and were like, "Yeah, no, I think I wanna get in food." And, and, and you've-- like, so you were a pastry chef, and now you're a cookbook writer.
Like, did it change your, your perception of yourself or how you saw yourself? Were you-- did you consider yourself a writer at that time?
April: Um, so h- I have, you know, [00:17:00] I, um, I'm continuing to evolve in how I see myself. Yeah. I thought of myself as a very steady, uh, you know, grounded person. But I, for one, for a steady, grounded person, I have v- definitely jumped around.
I, I, I guess I would, I would credit being, um, from the really small town that I'm from and a really small high school with my, you know, sort of extreme well-roundedness that has- Mm ... made, um, you know, the, the modern world of, um, specialization has never really been my lane. Although I don't think of anything that I've done as being new, none of it came out of nowhere.
I feel like I've done all those things since the beginning. I, I, as an undergrad, I was an English major. Hmm. Um, so, uh, so I was writing. I did a lot of- Okay ... creative writing as an undergrad, um, in college at Millsaps College in Jackson, Mississippi. Um, you know, I, um, I wrote, I wrote in high school. I, I've always been a big fan [00:18:00] of, um, you know, of writing and cooking and like I said, mud pies, so, and dirt, you know?
Very interested in... And, and now, you know, i- in terms of, like, food and culture and, um, a- and, like, have such a, have, I'm so drawn to history and this sort of, like geology is all about this, like, deep history and- Yeah ... you know, uh, just the, um the enormity of time and, uh, you know, a- and how many, you know, and what we came from and what we came, you know, uh, and where we're going and what we're all part of.
You know, all of those, like, really big ideas of, have always been, um, you know, part of what, that wonder. You know- Mm-hmm ... geology is really, really about, you know, this, this wonder and, like, um, s- trying to solve these mysteries of, um, you know, where we came from and how, how we got here and, um, you know, and, and just the mysteries that are all around us and, um, [00:19:00] under our feet.
And I feel like I bring that same kind of idea to no matter what I'm studying. Mm-hmm. Um, but, uh, when I was doing, you know, when I came out of geology graduate school, I decided to, um... I had gone to, actually, I got my master's thesis on this volcano in Italy, Stromboli volcano.
Tiffany: Mm.
April: And, um, up until that time, like when I went to graduate school, I had worked in restaurants.
I started working in my m- my best friend, one of my best friends in high school, her parents owned a little, um, cafe gas station combo that I worked in. You know, I was, like, frying chicken and making biscuits at 4:00 AM as a high school student. So, uh, you know, I've been cooking and, and living that life for a very long time.
And in a small town like Vardaman, like, we didn't have restaurants, and my family, we cooked for fun. We cooked to bring everybody together. There was a lot of, um... And, you know, it, it was both creative and very [00:20:00] sensory rich, and those things have what, are what always drove drove me to cook and ca- how cooking really spoke to me.
And then, um, in college I worked in restaurants, and particularly these small independent restaurants which became, you know, a big inspiration. Hal & Mal's in Jackson, Mississippi inspired a lot of the work that I do. Um, but studying English and geology, I didn't decide that I was gonna do geology and go to geology grad school until I was a senior.
I kind of made that switch at the very last minute. And, um, when I was in grad school, I ended up studying, of all things, also by accident, volcanology. Ended up studying this, doing a, a master's thesis on the s- statistics, using statistics to, um, discriminate between whi- which vent of a multi-vent volcano the explosion came from.
Like how- ... like using data. Anyway, statistics and volcanoes. Yeah. And, um, but when I came [00:21:00] back, my boyfriend, who's now my husband, you know, was like, "You seem..." You know, I was like talking all about the food- Yeah. ... recreating all the different foods, cooking everything that I had eaten.
Tiffany: Yeah.
April: You know, trying to, uh, talking about this restaurant that I went to that had five desserts and every single one of them was lemon, and you could see the lemons growing on the, you know, hillside on the side of the volcano, like off the porch of the restaurant, like while you were eating it.
I had never really en- encountered all, any of those things. I was literally, you know, 22 years old maybe.
Tiffany: Yeah.
April: Uh, so yeah, I, and my, m- my now husband said, you know, "You seem a lot more-- You seem really passionate about the food." Yeah. "Like more passionate about the food than the geology. Are you sure you shouldn't be doing something in food?"
And I'm like, "Oh, well, I mean, I know I'm obsessed with food, like food is my thing, but I, I'm not sure that I wanna have that be my job because I don't wanna, you know, burn out on it. I don't wanna-"
Tiffany: Yeah "...
April: grow to hate something that [00:22:00] I love so much." And he was like, "Well, you know, the world needs more people who are passionate about the work that they do."
Yeah. So he's the one who, you know, really kind of pushed me into, uh, trying out working in food. My last semester of grad school, my funding ran out and I decided, uh, because I had switched my project at the la- uh, I had switched my project and so I had run out of funding when I was finishing up writing my, um, thesis and decided to get in the, get a job in the best restaurant that I knew of in town, and, um, and I never left.
So, oh, I eventually left that restaurant, but I never left working in food, and I worked from that night for s- the next seven years at the sa- at the same restaurant in Chapel Hill. That was Lantern Restaurant, um, on
Tiffany: First. And you worked in pastry?
April: I started out just working in, on the savory side of things.
Yeah. And I did that for about three years, and they had had a lot of trouble, um, filling the pastry chef position. It had, uh, several different people had gone through there and, [00:23:00] um- And Andrea, who was the chef, was just like, "Can you do, can you just do the pastry?" Um, because I, you know, I had, I had worked on, like, when you start, you work, uh, generally in restaurants, uh, like garde manger, so- Yeah
doing salads and desserts and that type of stuff. And, um, you know, and we had had to fi- I'd had to fill in or something before. Anyway, she asked me if I would do it, and, um, I was really tired of working at nights- Yeah ... and that was-- this was gonna give me some more flexibility, so I was like, "Sure, I'll try it."
But I mean, I l- what, what was amazing about working pastry and the reason that I stayed in it was that... Well, first of all, I've always really loved, um, fruit. But the, the other thing is that, you know, Andrea, who was the executive chef, she w- was, um, you know, she did the menu completely on the savory side of things, but she didn't, she didn't really know anything about pastry.
Mm. And so I had creative [00:24:00] leeway in pastry, which is what I've always loved about cooking.
Tiffany: Yeah.
April: So I got to, you know, plan the menus, decide what we were gonna cook, and then even like, you know, decide who I was gonna buy everything from and sourcing things. So then farmers markets became-- Well, I was already shopping at them, but it became a much bigger part of my, um, you know, identity as chef.
A- as a chef, it's like, you know, choosing, uh, the different local ingredients for the menu, and I became really, um, close with a lot of farmers. And then when I left Lantern and started doing, um, Farmer's Daughter, which was making preserves and pickles and fermented foods, and then started selling at the same farmers market that I had been- Yeah
um, you know, shopping at as a, as a pastry chef. So, you know, it really was just everything in Chapel Hill was really, uh, and Carrboro, where those two towns are sort of interconnected. Mm. It was really, I mean, it was just all very [00:25:00] community-based and this, like, local economy and, um, and these diversified farmers, these very small scale, um, like what they call closed loop farmers- Yeah
um, sustainable farmers or whatever, are really doing... I mean, I feel like the Farmer's Daughter, my preserving company that I opened up, modeled itself on these diversified farmers much so than it did on, you know... It, it resembled their work a lot more than it resembled, you know, these giant, like, pickle companies or- Mm
you know, industrial. You know, it certainly wasn't any- anything remotely similar to what they're doing at, like, Smucker's or, you know, Mount Olive Pickle Company or anything like that. It was really about, you know, taking what's growing in the fields, processing it, putting it in a jar, you know, um, and usually processing it in a, in a very, like, old world, um, traditional method, um, where you're doing things [00:26:00] because they're, like very slowly, literally.
Yeah. And, you know, because they, uh, give you the most interesting textures and the best flavors, and not because, you know, they're a, a fast way to turn, you know, colored fruit water into jelly or whatever, you know?
Tiffany: Well, I think com- you know, the commercial jam industry has shown us that it doesn't produce tasty food and healthy food.
Yeah. It, it produces food that makes them money. And I, I saw that-- I read somewhere that you didn't, you don't u- well, you didn't use commercial pectin. Like, you, you cook down the fruit with sugar. You use, like, twice as much fruit as, as other, other places did. And I'm, I'm curious if it was the, like the practical experience with your family learning how to make these things that gave you the confidence to do that?
Or were you relying more on, like, your sci- your scientific background to, like, understand how things work from that side to know, to trust yourself to know how to do that?
April: Well, um, when I, uh, [00:27:00] first started, um... Okay, so what made me wanna make preserves? The first thing that made me wanna want to make preserves was that we had the most amazing farmers market, um, and the produce and, you know, uh, in c- at the Carrboro Farmers Market, the produce was just world-class.
Mm. Beautiful. Farmers seemed to be obviously so skilled. Um, the, you know, had a diverse population of people buying stuff, and the produce was just top-notch. S- at the same time, there was no one there who was making, uh, preserves anything remotely similar to the really delicious, you know, like whole fig preserves, pear preserves, um, muscadine jellies, um, and things that I had grown up with.
Like- Mm ... it was nothing comparable. So I knew, I, I knew that there was... Well, I thought maybe there was space- Yeah ... for a high quality, um, product that could [00:28:00] match the, the, the high quality of the vegetables and... So, uh, that is sort of my first thing. And then second is like, because I was buying my, um, fruits and things from these farmers, it would be always be...
They were always trying to push more strawberries off on me- Mm ... at the height of the season. Like, "You sure you can't use another couple flats? I got a truck full," you know. And I would say, "You gotta make jam. You gotta make strawberry, you know, preserves or whatever with these." And they would say like, "I don't have time," and I, "You know I don't know how to do that."
You know, like, so-
Tiffany: Yeah ...
April: um, it ended up where I just felt this need, uh, to make more. And, um, a r- and actually another job that I had was, uh, working at a blueberry farm- Mm ... when I was still in grad school. Before I started working, um, at, um, Lantern, I was picking blueberries.
Tiffany: Oh.
April: And so that, um, I started making, thought I would make blueberry jam from the blueberries that I was picking, and it, the f- it turned out terrible.
And I [00:29:00] thought- I, I'm very competitive with my mother. I, I blame her for that, not me. Yeah. Um, but, uh- Of course. She, she... That's a whole other story. Yeah. But she would never let me make sweet stuff at home, because she always was gonna do that. She didn't want us to, quote, "mess up," you know, the, the cakes or the pies or the preserves or whatever that she was making.
She would, you know, I would help her a little bit, but she was always in charge completely on the preserves front. Um, and, uh, and I thought, "Well, you know, if my mom knows how to do this, I'm gonna learn how to do this," you know? Um, and so I kept trying with the blueberry jam, and then I, uh, you know, made some strawberry and, you know, I was getting better.
So I'm not, I'm not the person who's gonna fail at something and, and just let that go. Uh, that's not gonna stay. I'm gonna, I'm gonna win, you know? I'm gonna, I'm gonna come back and, and, and, and turn, turn this thing [00:30:00] around, you know?
Tiffany: Yep.
April: And so I kept-- That, that sort of motivated me, I feel like, to work on it.
But in the beginning, it was completely intuitive. I mean, I was absolutely reading books and reading what other people said and trying to figure out what, um ... And a lot of the recipes were, you know, you add the pack of pectin. And, and my, my mom, we didn't use pectin. Like in the, um, there were a few things that she made with pectin, but like the-- What I wanted was like the style of like, um, fig, pear were the two most common by far of the ones that she made, and then they would make plum and strawberry.
Those were really the four. And then, and then my aunt would make blueberry jelly and then muscadine jelly. But my mom made preserves only and, and none of those had any pectin in them. And they just have a silkier mouth feel. They're very fruit forward. Um, you know, they are-- It's not like that they're [00:31:00] low sugar, but they, um, they just are, they're not water.
Uh, the water, um, you know, is cooked out and they're cooked in a manner. They're bright with like fresh lemon, um, and they're just real chunks of fruit, really recognizable as fruit. And so when I started, you know, doing that, I was reading everything that everyone else had said. You know, my mother was-- I had seen my mother make them 100 times, and my grandmother.
Although, you know, um, preserving, usually when I would go to my grandmother's house, who lived an hour and a half away from us, she was making dinner, so there wasn't a lot of preserve making. I would see her doing prep and things like that, but not the actual making of the preserves. But my mom, I was always around.
My mom would always be, you know, uh, on, uh, a Saturday, you know, cleaning house and at the s- at the same time trying to very slowly cook down a pot of, um, pear preserves or fig preserves, and you have to really watch them close. And she would be [00:32:00] wanting to run back and vacuum in the back of the house. So she would have me bring her a plate with a spoon of the preserve.
Yeah. "Put a little of the fig on there and bring it to me and let me see what it looks like." And you know, and then she would tell me whether to turn it off or not turn it off. So I- Yeah ... and I still use that exact same test, you know- Yeah ... to this day, all these years later. Um, so, but I started out, you know, that way, intuitive.
Only later when I was reading and trying to, when I was trying to get more, a more standardized process and teach other people and figure out how to teach preserving, did I really try to figure out what people were talking about with like refractometers and, um, you know, um, Brix and all this kind of like- Yeah
um, you know, more scientific stuff.
Tiffany: Yeah, that was, I mean, that was one of the things I wa- I was curious about. For someone that cooks intuitively, how do you, how do you teach that, right? Like, I think you, you probably have to teach them the [00:33:00] science-based stuff so they can build their own, their own trust in themselves and when they cook.
I know when I, when I bake bread, I, I very... I don't like using recipes. I, I maybe sort of as a background, and I've got a friend who's like, "How do you cook or how do you bake bread without a recipe?" I'm like, "Well, be- because I've done it for so many years. I used to work at a bakery." I know, like I, I can-- I know when I touch the dough and it feels a certain way, or if it's humid, or if I'm using a different wheat grain or- Mm-hmm
whatever it is, the temperature, it, it all totally changes things, and using a recipe is so limiting. It-- You can't, you can't, you can't change how you behave or how the, how you change a recipe or how you bake it if, if you're like everything's standard, 'cause it's not standard. Never is. Y-
April: yeah. I feel like, um, just hearing you talk about that, about bread, we could probably talk for, um-
a very long time about How as in the modern, in the modern [00:34:00] world most people are completely divorced from their senses. Mm-hmm. The idea that you would use your senses-
Tiffany: Yeah ...
April: to know what to do or when something's ready or, you know, how to season something or, you know, es- but especially like how do you know, you know, how do you make...
Same, I, I don't like recipes for that way, reason either because the flow state, the, the, um, just like how your entire body, your, you know, i- is alive with, uh, you know, sensory, like taking in all different kinds of information. When you're cooking by feel, there's just nothing compared to it. Whereas when I was trying to follow a recipe for making, you know, pepper jelly on the back of the, uh, pectin box, and it just tells you to boil it for one minute and then just put it into a jar and then you have to wait, maybe you have to wait 48 hours to know whether or not it worked.
Yeah. And I'm thinking, "This is terrible."
Tiffany: Oh, yeah.
April: I need to [00:35:00] know. Like I don't- Yeah ... wanna put it in the jar if I don't know that it worked. Like there has to be a better way, and why are we doing it, and what's happening? So I, you know, I'm a very, uh, curious person where I, even though I'm an intuitive cook, I'm always saying, "How does this work?
Why does this work? Why does this not work? How do we get it to where it does work?" You know, I'm a big... I love problem solving, and I, but I really love using every sense that I have to make something, you know, perfect the right way. Um, uh, exactly how I want it or whatever. Um, or, or just paying attention to how it this time is different from last time because, you know, for me like perfection doesn't equal standardization.
You know, I don't have like one... It's not like, it's not like McDonald's where their, you know, their burger or whatever has to be the same every time or it's a failure, right? Well, when you're living, when you're working with, you know, strawberries that maybe had a little bit more rain this time, maybe aren't as sweet this [00:36:00] season, maybe, you know, you're always having to adjust to that difference.
Um, and, and how do you teach that? I mean, I think the first thing you have to do though is you have to get people to, um... I mean, we can say trust their senses, but I think you have to go further back than that 'cause why would they trust their senses if their senses are not developed? So you have to have sensory education.
You have to have taste education. You have to, you know, start over. It really, really helps if people can understand what things are supposed to taste like when they're young, right? 'Cause your brain is being imprinted with like what should food taste like. And if what you're, what food should taste like to you is processed food, then that is what, you know, you're, you're never, you know, that's what you're gonna think things should taste like.
For me, luckily, I think things should taste like, you know, the food that came out of the little pots that my grandmother was cooking in. And, um- And that, like, I'm going for those similar flavor profiles no matter [00:37:00] what I'm cooking. You know, I may change the format and make something like a more modern version of some of those dishes, but still in my mind, you know, it's got a little smokiness.
It's got this balance of the, um, you know, uh, that little vinegar twang and a little sweetness, you know, from whether it's from like, you know, cured pork or just like a little sprinkle of sugar or, you know, sorghum molasses or whatever it is, you know. That kind of balance, um, I- you get that, you get that flavor memory from tasting things, um, and know, you know, having this kind of, this standard, um, that you're comparing things to all the time.
But people don't trust their senses because they've never had to use them. I mean, that's knowledge, right? That's been- Yeah ... stolen from us by this modern industrial, um, you know, system for whether it's cooking in this instance, but you could think of a million other examples why, um, you know, that, that's knowledge that we lost.
But we're put in these [00:38:00] impossible situations where how do you work all these hours and still cook dinner for your family every night, right? So you, you, you're in a desperate situation where you, you need somebody to come in and do some of the work. But there is, um, you know, there's a lot of knowhow buried in that drudgery, you know, that- Yeah
we have to figure out how do you pull out the good parts and save those without, um You know, a- and, and improve the, the situations that do need improvement.
Tiffany: Yeah, and I think, you know, it, like, you touched on so many good things, but there's, like, people looking at food as an end goal. They just, they have to get it on the table.
It's just like, like the Jetsons, a sort of little pill they take. They get their nutrition, whatever it is. I mean, if, if nutrition even plays into it for a lot of people, it is really like, uh, they can't... They're just, they just need to get food in their system. Mm-hmm. I think a lot of people don't like food either, which makes it hard for them to, to trust what's good and what's bad if they're just like, "Oh, it's just whatever.
I just want something salty and [00:39:00] greasy or whatever." Right. Right? Um-
April: Or they're afraid of things being- Yeah ... delicious. Like, I know my, um, that happens in my husband's family where-
Tiffany: Yeah ...
April: uh, food being really good, that's very dangerous, you know?
Tiffany: Yeah. Exactly. It's, it's, it's unhealthy or indulgent or sinful or, or some- Like, I, I grew up in a house that used butter and ate red meat- Mm
and we had a garden and, and so food was like, it was how you showed love, and it was a pleasure. And for me now, like, I, I, you know, I went to school. I studied sociology. I, I became a chef 'cause I realized that I needed to cook. It was how I... It's when I'm stressed, I get in the kitchen. Mm-hmm. I- it's how I show my family I love them, and I, I got that through my, my family and g- and growing up in that ex- experience.
I saw my grandmother do it. You know, she'd get up at 4:30, 5 o'clock in the morning and bake bread every day and- Mm ... make pies. Like, she'd make me her own special little [00:40:00] raspberry pie for me for my breakfast, and I, I... That stayed with me, and I don't think people have that experience. They, it's... And, and you can Y- you can teach them how to, how things should taste, but I think that that love of food and that- Mm-hmm
fear of indulging yourself holds them back from really trusting their, their gut and their intuition for something, to be able to give that back, too.
April: Right. Yeah. And, and you know, it also I feel like is about, like you talking about, like eating in your grandmother's kitchen or whatever. I think most people don't have that, and it's not just- Mm
like the grandmother's kitchen. It's like this warm place- Mm ... that people want to stay. Like, right? Yeah. That's, that's, um... Now I feel like one of the things that we struggle with in my, in my husband's family is like we often want to cook, even like I just, I just cooked for, um, 17 of us who, um, got together for my [00:41:00] mother-in-law's 80th birthday.
And you know, and everyone's like, "Oh, I don't want you to be in the kitchen all day." Like, you know, that's, that's, it's such- Oh ... a struggle. And like, it's true. Like, the thing is, is like I don't wanna be in the kitchen all day by myself, but that's- ... not how it was when I was, when I was growing up and cooking- Yeah
with my family. It's like I'm not, you know, I'm not asking everyone to, you know, to be all hands on deck and we're all participating in cooking, um, a meal. Like that also sounds like a nightmare. But like, you know, i- if a few people at a time wanna come through and like just, you know, help out for a little while- Yeah
um, contribute something that they might enjoy doing, sit around, sit at the bar, make me a cocktail and talk to me. Mm-hmm. You know, let me find out what you've been working on or, you know, while I'm... Like the kitchen as like, as like a warm, social place- Mm ... that is just like full of energy [00:42:00] and life and, you know, participation.
Yeah. Like participation as, um, both a way to interact and a way to enjoy yourself and like to, you know, to, to, to gain, um, you know, skills and, um- dignity and, you know, um, to feel just w- worthy, you know? Yeah. To feel like a contributor. And like that, that style, that sort of like, the- my family, like growing up, like we were such a team.
Yeah. Everybody knew what each person in the family, you know, could contribute and, and, and how they were necessary and how they would be missed, not just their personalities, which that would also be missed, and that's true. You know, I, I don't-- That, that is true, um, you know, for a lot of families who don't see the value of being in the kitchen together.
But for us, we were, you know, it, I think that comes from coming out of this like subsistence farming background of like, you [00:43:00] know, your contribution is vital to- Mm-hmm ... the success of the family. And you know, and I got a lot of self-worth, um, out of that when I was... Sorry. I- It's
Tiffany: okay ...
April: I swallowed zip of spit.
It's all good. It's not listening. I got a lot of, um, you know, self-worth out of that when I, um, was a kid growing up wanting to, uh, you know, just feeling like my dad saying, you know, "Can you do anything with these, uh, you know, all these extra cucumbers? Can you do anything with, you know, do you want all these tomatoes that, um, w- we can't eat these fast enough.
You know, we need to do something- Yeah ... with them." And figuring out how to do that or, you know, uh, it, um, people would get very excited, you know? Yeah. It's like a- and I felt like, you know, I was doing this thing that really needed to be done. Um, anyway, yeah, so I still feel that way about the kitchen. It, you really, but more than, more than anything, you know, you have to, you ha- it ha- somebody [00:44:00] has to create that, that glue, that feeling.
Mm-hmm. And it is usually the mothers and the grandmothers who, if anyone is gonna do it, um, it's gonna be them.
Tiffany: Thinking about it, I've had a few conversations with different people. I was speaking with Dorina Allen, actually. Mm-hmm. The first, the first episode of this podcast, I spoke to her. We spoke quite a bit about feminism and, and these roles in the h- in the home being devalued and- Yeah
how there seems to be a resurgence finally, like which is, it's, I, like I remember telling people I wanted to cook, and they're like, "Why would you cook?" Like, "What is your problem?" Like, "That's," like, "You're e- you went to school. Like, why wouldn't you go do that? Go work in an office. You've worked so hard. Why?"
It was a, "You'd worked so hard. Why would you do that?" And it's like you said, like just describing this social center of the family, and it's, it- I don't know. I, I'm definitely biased, but I feel like it's, it's in the kitchen and giving everyone in the family, uh, they all have roles and they're all [00:45:00] valuable.
It doesn't like, it doesn't have to be the, you know, the wife in the kitchen cooking, but like that, that work is valuable. Like, you know, holding that family together through dinners and, and providing food is a valuable role, and it's been so devalued for so long that it's, it's nice to see it coming back a bit and people like proudly, not in, not in a, "I have a $40,000 stove behind me and I'm making whatever."
And not, not to begrudge anyone in their lifestyle choices or anything, but like not that Instagram like kind of obnoxious housewife homesteader role, but like in a real way, like people can do this and, and showing the value of it. It's, it's great to see.
April: Yeah. I mean, I, I've, I've written about, I've thought a lot about all of those things.
Um, and, um, you know, exactly. I think if, if that's not the, you know, if a woman does not want that, you know... And, and honestly, in a lot of the, um, [00:46:00] in a, in a lot of the couples that I know of, a, a lot of the times the, um, there are men who are taking a, a stronger role in, um, in the kitchen, in family dinners, and things like that.
And, and I, you know, uh, as they say, mothering is a verb. There's no reason why, um, that, um, it's on- it only needs to be women who are doing that level of caretaking. But, you know, it's not just, um, it's not just feeding the family, it is also meaning-making. I mean, I feel like that is probably, you know, it is, uh, it is passing, it's-- Your women are cultural bearers in that way.
They are passing along, they are telling stories of the food that they're cooking. They are, um, creating identity, um, in families, letting people know who they are, where they came from, where they're going, what their values are. Um, you know, all of that happens through food, and there's-- Food is absolutely the best way to [00:47:00] do all of those things because, you know, it happens at least a couple times a day.
Um, you have to eat, right? Um, and then, uh, it's also can be joyous and, you know, especially young people, there are very few young people who don't enjoy eating. So you have a lot of opportunities to get people's attention and, you know, communicate something real and good and, and valuable. But I do think that we often think that, you know, culture is built through institutions.
Culture and, and, and cuisine, you know, is something that happens professionally, and the domestic spaces are, you know, are not just, you know, not just women in the kitchen, but everything that happens, that sort of meaning-making and cultural, um, torch-bearing that happens in domestic spaces is, is very undervalued.
I just heard a talk this past weekend that was, um, [00:48:00] at, um, the Dublin Gastronomy Conference, um, that was talking about, um, trying to make the, you know, talking about the kitchens, all the kitchens in Ukraine that were destroyed, and how, like, how much culture is destroyed every time, you know, that happens, and that, you know, these should be, like kitchens, home kitchens should be protected under international law, as, you know, a- as cultural, uh centers or whatever so that it would be illegal to, you know, um, to destroy them.
That's amazing. But I couldn't agree more. I mean, the idea that-- And that's literally what I thought of, um, when, you know, when I think of, um, w- war, and particularly because the, you know, uh, Ukraine has all these, um, like, uh, like canning kitchens. Like it's- Yeah ... preserving is a big part of the culture. Yeah.
So I remember when the war first started in Ukraine, I post, I made a post that was, that had a picture of one of these, like, canning kitchens and just was thinking about, [00:49:00] you know, how many of those would be, would, would, you know, not survive the war. Um, and anything that's, that's already old like that and that's connected to an old way that's, like, under serious threat, it's hard to see that.
You know, whether it's through, you know, natural disasters like, um, um, you know, like Hurricane Katrina and all the- Mm-hmm ... I know a lot of people who worked on the, um, that project of, like, um, all, you know, all the, the domestic food knowledge that was lost through, um, you know, through the hurricane and storm.
Um, and the same, you know, the same is true whether it's, you know, through war or, you know, through different, uh, you know, like I'm saying, natural disaster type events, that it's hard to come back from that because there's just so much history in those actual spaces.
Tiffany: Yeah. You know, uh, you used the term radical homemaking.
April: Yes.
Tiffany: What, what, [00:50:00] what do you mean by that?
April: Um, so, uh, I, um, a whole lot of things. Uh, but I, I, particularly these days, I think- Yeah ... I was l- I've thought about this. I need, I need to write it because only, only by writing it will I figure out exactly what I mean, what the difference is. But- Yeah ... I've thought a lot about how my ideas, you know, I came out of this like, um, you know, counterculture, um, a lot of anarchist, uh, sort of food ideas, um, in like Chapel Hill, uh, anarchist ideas in general, and started my business, Farmer's Daughter- Mm-hmm
like came out of that. And then recently to see all of this like MAHA stuff that looks quite similar to the work that I've been doing, you know, for the last- Mm-hmm ... uh, you know, 26 years or so. Um, and, and I'm forced to r- [00:51:00] to really try to articulate what it is that, or, or how what I'm doing is not, how what I'm arguing for is not the same thing as what they're arguing for.
Um, and it, and it, it's not easy to separate it all out. You know, I think on some level, if I really wanna give them the benefit of the doubt, is that they're responding to the mainstream not recognizing some of the, um, some of the issues that they're having, right?
Tiffany: Yeah.
April: I think they're latching onto the wrong things.
But a lot of times we're responding to, you know... There are points of agreement, I would feel like. You know, they're responding a lot, uh, a lot of times to, uh, some of the same things that we're responding to. But I'm seeing, and what I, what I grew up with, you know, is, um, eh, I'm seeing, you know, women are at the center of, of these systems.
It's, it's matriarchal. The power structure and the knowledge, um, you know, is very [00:52:00] much about like strong women who are, um, you know, the, the center of these families. And, um, you know, and, and they're not, they're not fitting, they're not within these, um, they're not defined by these very narrow ideas of, of femininity- Mm-hmm
and softness and, you know, they, they're- Submissiveness. You know, they're, they're-- Sometimes they're stern, you know. Mm-hmm. Sometimes they are soft, you know. They're, but they are, they're nuanced and dynamic people. They, you know, are, um, they're, you know, they... And They do a lot of service for sure. But, you know, I still wouldn't say that they live to serve.
They're dynamic people. They have a lot of different, um, uh, you know, um, motivations. Um, a lot of times, you know, they're, they're very stern and controlling and, and, and, you know, are gonna let everybody know what they think that they should be doing. And, and that's [00:53:00] all great and fine too. But radical homemaking to me is really, um, you know, starting with these ideas of, um, you know, the sort of anti-capitalist ideas a lot of times for me.
This idea that culture is something that is, um, that is worth saving, is, is valuable, is, is indispensable. Um, and, um, not just being a, a sort of an ideal consumer and, uh, you know, uh, gobbling up every convenience that's offered to you. Um, you know, that is a slippery slope where you will wake up and find yourself, um, it does- you'll find the, you know, hundreds if not thousands of years of culture that have been passed onto you, you're gonna be the one who drops the ball because, you know, you, um, you just, uh, [00:54:00] you, you couldn't deal with the, with all the pressures that are put on you.
Which, which I get, but I'm saying you have some choices, right? In terms of like you, uh, you know, you can, you can, uh Follow all this, you know, advertising that's trying to sell you the newest, fanciest, shiniest thing that's gonna make your life better. Or you can say like, "Well, maybe I don't need all those things, and maybe enjoyment and, and the good things in life are simpler than what, um, you know, what, what, you know, uh, these advertisements would have me k- kind of believe in terms of what we're, um, you know, supposed to aspire towards," right?
But it's just, I don't know, it's all these little choices- Yeah ... um, that you get to make every day, and it, it requires sort of being intentional and, um, but to me, in all the center of it is realizing that, you know, um, it's about relationships and it's about, um, you know, [00:55:00] culture and, um, trying to preserve that connection both with the past and with, you know, with, with the people that you're living with now, whether that's your family or your community.
Um, and, and just being intentional about all of those, um, you know, those relationships and, and that includes, you know, a lot of that can be practiced just through what you put on your, um, table every day.
Tiffany: I think the system's rigged. I think we probably both agree the system is definitely rigged. It's, it's hard for people, I think probably especially living in, in more central urban environments that don't have access to, you know, a back- backyard where they can grow things.
April: Right.
Tiffany: Um, access to good food is limited, um, especially when, you know, if, if you eat lunch at school, your school programs are horrifying. The food that, that Americans and Canadian kids are eating is, is terrible. Um, they don't know any better. But again, [00:56:00] like you said, everyone has a choice that they can make where they can sit back and be like, "Oh, the system's rigged, this sucks.
I'm just gonna go to McDonald's tonight." Or-
April: Right ...
Tiffany: you know, um, you can try to make those small choices. But you talk a little bit about food sovereignty and food security as being different things. Mm-hmm. Do you wanna, do you wanna talk about that, what, what the difference is between the two?
April: Yeah, sure. So, you know, sovereignty is about power, right?
So sovereignty- Mm-hmm ... is like, do you have, um, uh, are you sovereign in, in your food choices? Do you have the power to control the, um, even the options that you have? So a lot of times- Mm ... in order to be food sovereign, it really, you know, um, it really, really helps that, um, you have your own land. Do you have access to land?
Do you have that ability? You know, um, you know, that was a big part of, um, the Civil Rights era was, um, you know, these farming co-ops where [00:57:00] they, you know, they were saying like if we, uh, like Fannie Lou H- Hamer said, like if, if, you know, if my, if my cupboard's full of, uh, I'm trying to remember what dishes that she said, like green beans and, you know, um, uh, like tomatoes or whatever.
If my f- cupboard is full of, um, you know, uh, vegetable soup that I put up or whatever, like I'm gonna be a lot less vulnerable, right? Mm-hmm. Like who can control me when I have all the food that I need for the year? Yeah. And so that's sovereignty, this idea that like if you can take care of yourself, if you have enough power that you, that people don't have that same level of control over you, right?
Mm. So food security, somebody else can decide, you know, whether it's the state or, you know, whatever government or maybe it's your local food banks or whatever. They can make sure that you have enough food that you are not worried about where your next meal's coming from. That's food security- Mm ... right?
If you're not [00:58:00] nervous about your next meal, that can come from, that can come from organizations. It just might- You just might need those organizations to never fail for you to stay safe, right? Yeah. So ideally, the power, um, to keep yourself, um, secure, food secure, and, and, and s- and which is ultimately, you know, a, your primary safety, um, if you, if that power belongs to the individual, that- that's what, that's what we're, that's what we're always shooting for, the idea that you personally, that communities personally would have the power to, um, you know, to, to self-determine, basically.
Tiffany: I think people really, uh, have overestimated what their food security is too. Oh. I mean, there's-
April: I mean, yes.
Tiffany: It blows my mind.
April: Exactly. You don't have to be... Right. I mean, sure, a lot [00:59:00] of people have a lot more flexibility in the market 'cause they have more money, right? So let's say- Yeah ... I mean, as we've seen, food prices get really, uh, you know, ridiculous.
Mm-hmm. And, um, you know, that's gonna narrow your choices. But what if, you know, what if farming, you know, what if, what if California collapsed? You know, what if farming and- Yeah ... you know, like, uh, in California collapsed, like w- Not, you know, then rich people aren't even sovereign. You know what I'm saying?
Like- Mm ... yes, their, their money is going to cushion them and they'll be able to get whatever they need 'cause they have the most buying power probably, probably, right? But like- They
Tiffany: can buy it.
April: But it all feels pretty fragile coming out- Yeah ... you know, coming out of the pandemic. We're just like, "Hmm, I don't know.
Maybe, maybe we're not, uh, as, uh, you know, secure as a, as a country and, uh, with our, um, like food system as we thought we were." I mean, and, and certainly, you know, if you really start [01:00:00] studying agriculture and this like, you know, build up, build up of the salts in the soil, the way that all these yields, the, that were determined in labs are just not panning out- Yeah
whether it's, you know, super bugs or super pests or super weeds, you know, all of these things that just are not cooperating the way that, you know, um, lab, uh, ag said that it was going to work, right? So, you know, we're, we're all vulnerable, and I think one of the things that we really learned, like, through the pandemic is that, you know, uh, money, um, can only protect you so far and so much, you know, in terms of we're-- we-- you s- you still have to realize that we are all connected, and a system that is failing, you know, your neighbors is ultima- ultimately failing all of us.
Yeah. Um, yeah.
Tiffany: Espec- I mean, especially if your government decides... I, I don't know what it was like for you guys, but we literally couldn't leave the city area that [01:01:00] we lived in. We couldn't travel. We couldn't move. Um-
April: Mm ...
Tiffany: so you're limited geographically. You have to stay in the place that you are. And as well, you know, there's, there's certain people out there that are pushing lab-grown meat and let's eat lots of crickets, and not everybody wants to do that.
And so having that freedom to, you know, choose what you wanna eat, uh, is, I think, I think a lot of people, uh, are starting to realize that it's, it's limited and controlled by people outside of their small sphere too.
April: Oh, yeah, definitely. Um, yeah, I mean, I feel like the average person has not really, um- grasp that level of vulnerability at all.
No. We're gonna look like s- conspiracy theorists really quick.
Tiffany: You know- We
April: are really.
Tiffany: You know what? I, I got a hard time from my friends before COVID, and then it hit, and then all of a sudden the phone calls and text [01:02:00] messages roll in and they're like, "Okay, if things start to get worse, we're gonna come to your house."
I'm like, "Okay, I'm sorry. I, like, where were you when I wanted to make sauerkraut six months, uh, six months ago? Yeah, I got a freezer full of meat, but that's because I've been working on, you know, filling it and-"
April: Yeah. Well, you know, I always say m- that, uh, like sort of the mutual aid, um, angle is that- Mm-hmm
you know, stockpiling, you know, I'm, I'm not, I have, I have that tendency and- Mm-hmm ... and I certainly understand it and it comes in handy, but, you know, if I s- if I have a freezer full and a pantry full of stuff and nobody else in my neighborhood does, we're gonna all, we're gonna eat that up really quickly.
Yeah. Like, you know what I mean? Like, I always tell people, like, "What do you think you're gonna do? Like, shoot people when they're coming to your door?" You know, like, are you... That's not gonna help you. Like, the 5,000 people out your front door are- Yeah ... are, you know, who do- who didn't make those preparations are, are gonna come knocking really quickly, right?
Yeah. Like, um, so, like, you have to have a community system or you have to have an [01:03:00] ability- Yeah ... right, that's something that's, that's gonna buffer all of you, right? Like, it's about relationships- Exactly ... and, and skills and this ability that is affecting more than one person, 'cause one family can't shield themselves against- No
the collapse of everything out your front door.
Tiffany: No. No, and that's, that's why I, I've, I work really hard to try to, uh, help people and, and teach them not to be afraid of the outdoors and teach them not to be afraid to go foraging and make their own food and... I, my, my best friend, bless her heart, was raised in a house where, like, raw meat is just the scariest thing, and I, I got invited over to their place before Thanksgiving a few years back to cut up their turkey 'cause they were gonna, they were gonna brine it, but they wanted to break it down first, and the fear in their eyes when I was cutting it and raw meat was being exposed to the cutting board, and the second I, I pulled it out and put it in the bin, the, her mother was in there with bleach [01:04:00] spraying everything down, and I, like, I have to realize that not everyone, uh, grew up the same way I did, and not everyone has the same viewpoints I do, and I just gotta keep working to, to try to invite people into the fold to, to learn and wanna be included, but yeah.
I- I, when, when I work hard to try to help people and they rebuff my, my requests and then they come back and say, "Hey, I want your food," I'm like, "Ah," I said, "we're gonna have a conversation here." Um-
April: That happens in my own family where my, my husband has a lot of anxiety about, um, especially chicken.
Tiffany: Yeah.
April: Um, "Was there raw meat here ever?"
Yeah. Yeah. I'm like, "Uh, yes." Yeah. "But I've-- It's since been washed and sanitized." And I'm always like, "You know I teach ServSafe classes, right?" Like, you know, like... Um- Yeah. Anyway, uh, yeah, that-- But m- I [01:05:00] mean, that-- I feel like that, it's like you have to figure out a way, right, to have education that is empowering-
Tiffany: Mm-hmm
April: not education that is fear-based. That- Yeah ... because the fear-based is really about stealing that... It's saying you can't be trusted, right? You can't be trusted to cook your own chicken at home. Mm-hmm. You have to buy that already cooked, you know? Or you have to buy that processed in some way that's, like, more sanitary, safer, all, all these kinds of things, you know?
A- and, like, meanwhile, why is the chicken so toxic, right? It's, you know, like, uh- Exactly ... why is there such high levels of Salmonella on this chicken or whatever? Mm-hmm. Like, no, we're not gonna look at that. No. You know? Uh, I mean, I remember, I remember learning that, um, you know, we were, um... I remember learning that the reason that E.
coli became such, like, [01:06:00] this huge ordeal, like, in our childhoods or whatever- Mm-hmm ... um, was because it was the, it was because E. coli wasn't new. Mm. But the idea that E. coli in a cow's stomach could survive in a human stomach had never happened before. Hmm. Or I, I shouldn't say never 'cause I don't know never, but that was not normal, right?
Hmm. Because the digestive tract of a cow and the digestive tract of a human was so different, I think pH-wise is the big difference, that the bacteria couldn't survive in our digestive systems. But when we forced cows to eat corn-
Tiffany: Hmm ...
April: that made the pH of their digestive tract similar enough to a human digestive tract that now this deadly, um, pathogen can survive in our, in our digestive tract, and now we're vulnerable to that.
But I was like, "Wait, what?" You [01:07:00] know, like, like this is because of corn, like corn feeding cattle? Oh. Like I'd never heard that. I'd never heard anybody say that ever. Um, I mean, in the, yeah, like in the whole like the, all the dangers of raw milk, like they're all related to same thing. Yeah. Like grass-fed, um, milk is very different than corn-fed.
Um, anyway, so there's so much, um... And, and like saying those kind of things out loud in the, in the days of, in the days, in, in a, in this current political climate, you know? Yeah. Uh, like, uh, seems crazy. Like I'm very, I'm very worried about, you know, uh, about these types of things these days. But I mean, they're not telling the truths about that kind of stuff either.
But, but, you know, there, there are problems with the current like systems of industrial agriculture, and whether that means changing them, like the... It's that all these things are very hidden, like we're not [01:08:00] talking about them. Mm. And, you know, um, I think just h- that knowledge to me was, um, kind of mind-blowing because it just isn't, isn't common.
Like I think even people who study food don't know those kinds of things. I only knew this because it came up in a, um, in my pickle school where I had to take a, um- A class, um, on acidified foods from NC State, North Carolina State University. And, uh, yeah, one of the, like, it's run by the food science department at, um, NC State.
Mm. And one of the guys was talking about, um, E. coli because E. coli, you know, in, can contaminate all these different vegetables, and there were all these- Yeah ... um, uh, cases of E. coli outbreaks that were, um, being linked to, you know, cabbage, lettuce, spinach, all those types of things. Mm. And so we were kind of talking about E.
coli, and then that came up and, I mean, my mind was just blown, so yeah.
Tiffany: [01:09:00] Yeah, I, I like, I don't, I don't know how you solve it aside from just working to help people trust themselves. I mean, it, it's, it's obvious that our politicians can't really be trusted. The food system can't real- I mean, I... Like, we have a tin hat back here in the podcast studio.
I don't know if I wanna put it on or not, but, like, our systems are broken, and I think you just need to learn how to trust yourself, and then, then you can go from there 'cause I just- Right ... you don't know where to turn.
April: Well, you need, right, you need the skills. You need the- Yeah ... skills and the practice, right?
Yeah. You need practice, and then you build trust, right? Yeah. You build trust, trust in yourself. But, you know, I do think, you know, I always say like, "Oh, it's not my, it's not, I, my, I, I," like, I'm not a policy person. It's not my job to solve the problems. I'm telling the policy people the problems. But, but I do think that there's one thing that I have thought about.
It's like, especially in the US, I mean, like our, the terms for most politicians are like two years.
Tiffany: Mm.
April: And they don't ever have to be concerned about like long-term problems. So we are gonna have to have some [01:10:00] system outside of just these like two-year elections of, um, you know- Who are looking at long-term- Mm-hmm
bigger problems and change. So I-- that is, like, one thing that I feel like seems really obvious. If we're talking about systems change- Mm-hmm ... no one's gonna take that year. No one's gonna take that kind of risk for, like, a two-year term. You're gonna have to have coalitions that are stretched beyond those kind of, um, limitations if we wanna have, um, some kind of effect, some kind of change in, in food politics.
Which, because I'm saying this because I said earlier, like, we have these choices, and I think personal choices in the food system are extremely limited, and I think those were failures, actually, of, like, sort of the Alice Waters and Michael Pollan kind of approach to, oh, you know, buy with your pocketbook, da da da.
Like- Yeah ... that not-- you know, there are, there are fail-- you know, that, that didn't work for a lot of different reasons, but we do need a broader kind of [01:11:00] coalition, um, to achieve some of these bigger, um, changes that we need to see in the food system.
Tiffany: I, I'm, I usually don't read quotes, but I'm gonna read this one 'cause I really liked it.
Okay, it says: "Certain foods are of such significance to my identity that I am bound and determined to pass on a love for them to my son. He will love field peas. He will love cornbread. He will love okra and chicken and dumplings and boiled peanuts, and he will love sweet potatoes. These foods are not just important to me, they are me."
Now, like, I read that, I was like, "Oh my God," that I feel this in my bones. Like, I, I, I have two kids, and I want more than anything else for them to develop their own identity outside of me. Like, they-- I want them to grow into their own people with their own, their own stuff. But in regards to food, I, I don't feel that same way.
Like, I, I need them to, to appreciate and love certain foods that I have grown up with and appreciate and love. Mm-hmm. Like, do you-- Uh, how do you, how do, how are [01:12:00] you trying to ensure that your son appreciates all these, all these foods that are so important to you?
April: Um, yeah. I mean, to me, one of the most fun things that I've ever gotten to do is, like- Mm-hmm
is really kind of affect the ap- the palate of, you know, my child. I- Mm-hmm ... I only had one. I, but I could have had a, I could have had a blast feeding a lot of them, but I- ... I only got to do it with one. But I do try to feed, um, you know, my nieces and nephews and, um, you know, other kids as well. I, I love working on food culture stuff.
And, and how do you do it? I mean, I think the best way to do it is, um, you know, it really has to be sort of like, you know, um, pleasure-centered, connected to process, connected to stories and place. You know, it, it is that whole thing about meaning-making where, you know, when I, um, you know, when I'm serving my son, um boiled peanuts or whatever.
I'm telling the [01:13:00] story of how my dad used to have all of his friends over in the shed in the backyard and, you know, and cook these big vats of boiled peanuts, and then they would dump 'em over into this big cooler to cool off. And my sister and I would take the little shells of the peanuts and, uh, after we ate the peanut out of it, literally scoop up just like the br- m- you know, dirty, briny water- Yep
and slurp it up. And I literally thought it was the best thing I'd ever tasted in my life.
Tiffany: Yeah.
April: And it was basically dirt and salt water, you know, like- ... with a, with these peanuts. But I, I mean, I, I, it was one of the, you know, like the best food memories of my whole life. Um-
Tiffany: Yeah ...
April: but same with, like I take my son to visit my family as much as possible where we have, you know, there's still a lot of cooking outside.
My brother's a hunter. My, my... And my son, I send him off hunting with my brother and, you know, then they're like, you know, uh, dressing the deer, uh- Yeah ... [01:14:00] um, you know, cleaning fish, filleting fish, uh, making sausage, you know. And just like, for me, it's like having him just be part of that environment where it feel, there's a lot of just like good feelings around it.
Mm-hmm. There's a lot of, you know, whether it's, um, d- we're just all being together, it's sort of celebratory. Um, and then, you know, then there, we're all kind of participating, so you understand those kind of relationships and that feeling of contribution that we were talking about earlier. Yeah. So it's really trying to, it's not just about do you like boiled peanuts?
It's really you gotta give them that connection to somehow the process or the place or the people that these kind of foods come from. And then, you know, it's also like, um, uh, just delivering it with, you know, you wanna have this like enthusiasm and joy and, um, and just making That those foods and those people really, you know, be something that's really part of my son's, [01:15:00] you know, or our kids', like, identity.
They have to connect to it in some way. Um, you know, and, and, and I don't feel like you're gonna just, like, get that, like, whether it's, like, in a restaurant or, like, buying boiled peanuts on the side of the road. Like, that's fun and that's, that's fun to do, and you should still do that.
Tiffany: Yeah.
April: But really, it's like, you know, however it was that I connected to those things, anything that I can kind of give him that experience of, I'm really trying to do that.
And then, you know, as far as, like, when they're little kids and you're trying to get them to eat things, you just have to ignore what they like or don't like and just keep putting the same things out there, and just pretend like, "I didn't know." Like, "Well, okay."
Tiffany: You know, just-
April: Yeah.
Tiffany: Ignore the ki- ignore the kids menu.
April: Yeah, I always say, like, the worst thing that you can do for your kid- Yeah ... is give them the exactly what they want every day. Yeah. You know, like, just ignore them.
Tiffany: Yeah.
April: Just keep putting a lot of different things out there, and you yourself, like, they need to see other people enjoying it.
Tiffany: Yeah.
April: But without pressure on them, you know?
My, my family, they di- they never made us eat anything, and we all [01:16:00] eat everything. But, you know, but they weren't catering to us. They weren't... We didn't have, you know, endless supplies of snacks, and no one was afraid that we were ever gonna, you know, starve when there was food around us. They, we was like, getting what you weren't, what you wanted just was not important to my parents.
Like, or, or even my grandparents, you know? It's just like- Yeah ... uh, they'll eat when they're hungry, you know? They'll figure it out
Tiffany: It's funny how that's become a thing. It, it's so strange to me that that's become like ask your kids what they wanna have for dinner. It's like-
April: Oh my God, the pre- the, yes, the pressure It is And they said the psychological stress on like a child- What the hell?
to ask them what they want to eat is so wrong.
Tiffany: Like, who wants to eat what a five-year-old wants to eat? Like, I don't wanna, I don't wanna eat what a five-year-old wants to eat. No. I mean, I, I, I think I'm lucky. My, my daughter always wanted-- If she saw me eat it or my husband eat it, she wanted to eat what they...
She always wanted to be at the adults' table. You know, we, we would t- take her to a restaurant, and we had razor clams, so she wanted razor clams. We're like- Oh, yeah ... "Okay, well..." Uh, our son was not the same. He, he was work. Like, he didn't like [01:17:00] peas, so we had to-- I taught him how to grow peas, and then now he likes peas, right?
Like- Mm-hmm ... he needed that, he needed that personal touch. Like, he wasn't, he didn't really eat meat.
April: Mm-hmm.
Tiffany: We took him hunting, and he harvested his first deer, and then all of a sudden, he's like, he gets it. But- Right ... again, I don't know. Kids are fun. I
April: mean, I'm still losing some of the battles, but they're not over, you know?
Like, I'm not-- My, like, my son, the, the one thing that he doesn't eat is he really does not like peas or beans of any type except for, like, he loves, like, tofu and stuff like that. So, but, you know, if I make a pot of beans, he'll literally eat it. Like, it's so crazy. He'll eat, like, the rice and, like, all the other things, and then I just, like, you know, like-
Tiffany: Oh
April: put the gravy from the beans. Yeah. Like, he likes the flavor, but he has some block to it or whatever. Huh. And so for me, he, he's a very-- So some kids are very, um, you know, uh, they, they sort of are adult-focused. But my son- Mm ... is very peer-focused. So I'm always, if I, if he has a fr- like, if he [01:18:00] has friends whose families are good eaters, right?
Mm. I- I'm always like, "Shh, go, go eat with them," you know? Like- Yeah ... expose them. And, like, kids, especially by the time they-- My son's 15 now, and, and he eats almost everything, but he still does weirdly, like, kind of like, "No, no beans," you know? Like- ... that's still, like, where he draws the line. I'm like, "I'm made of peas and corn food."
You know what I mean? Like, you will not survive not eating this. So- Yeah ... you know, I'm always like, "Well, we gotta send him off to, like, Mexico, or we gotta send him somewhere where he won't survive," you know- Yeah,
Tiffany: they'll like- ...
April: without eating beans for- Yeah ... for long.
Tiffany: Well, is there, is there anything else you, you wanna chat about?
Anything, uh, new coming up down the pipe for you?
April: Well, I mean, I do, I do feel like my, my, my work these days is, um, you know, front and center of that work is the work that I do at the People's Kitchen in- Mm-hmm ... in Philadelphia. And, um, I do think it's kind of interesting, um, sort of my-- I think of my life as sort of like, you know, [01:19:00] Mississippi, like, sort of in community, um, in this farming community, and then, you know, Carrboro-Chapel Hill, sort of the market version of, like, farming community or whatever.
And now being in Philly, in this, like, city of- It, it's really, um, where local food is very difficult, you know? Mm-hmm. Um, we're pretty far away from farms, even though there's all these really amazing farms. Not that far away, but the communities just aren't interconnected in the way that they were when I was, um, you know, living in Carrboro and stuff.
And it's just a lot harder for people, I feel like, to, um, you know, to shop at farmers markets 'cause they're, they're, they're harder to get to. The food's even more expensive.
Tiffany: Mm-hmm.
April: Um, but you know, there's all this, like, extreme waste that's just kind of... It's everywhere, but it's concentrated in cities, and you have all these amazing organizations, um, [01:20:00] who are working on kind of trying to solve those problems.
So a lot of the work that I'm doing these days is, um, connecting with like-minded organizations who are doing a lot of, um, uh, food rescue work. Um, and, and it's not, like, bad food, but it's food that's, like, in the wrong place at the wrong time. Yeah. So can we get the food that's, um, in surplus in one area shipped over to, you know, places like The People's Kitchen where we can take the food that was not needed in one place and turn it into, um, free meals?
And, um, and we're, we're doing that largely with, uh, volunteer labor in the form of mutual aid, this idea that, um, instead of having, um, people divided between, you know, the h- the givers and the takers- Mm-hmm ... you know, the, the sort of, uh, old model of, you know, Dickensian soup kitchen of, like, the food being pretty disgusting and the [01:21:00] people who are eating it being pretty desperate.
We're trying to make that a more, um, kind of joy-centered approach where you're actually building cultural community, um systems. And depending on, you know, where, where you are in your life at that moment, you may be able to be on both the, the giving or the taking side of that. You may stay in the giving end.
You may, you know, you n- you may never pick a side. Yeah. You may be, you know, uh, contributing and, and also, um, receiving, um, simultaneously. So this idea of... Uh, and I feel like that, to me, in a lot of ways, I'm getting inspiration for that from, you know, my, this sort of collective community that I w- that I grew up in of, um, where ownership was, uh, tamped down by this responsibility that we had, like, to each other.[01:22:00]
And so kind of trying to br- can we bring those ideas, right, to-
Tiffany: Mm-hmm ...
April: to a city, to a dirty old city like Philadelphia, you know? Yeah. Can we, can we build community? And, and to me, uh, I mean, the joy and the community that being, that ha- has been brought to me through all of these other people that I've met, through all the organizations who are, you know, like-minded and working on, um, you know, um, kind of trying to create these survival systems for people when, um, the institutions that, you know, they, they've relied on have largely failed them.
Tiffany: Yeah.
April: Um, uh, and I, I've been... I mean, it's been a whole new chapter of my life that I've been really excited about that I, um, really didn't know any, really didn't know much about at all going into it in 2020.
Tiffany: And how, how has the reception been with the people that participate with you in the kitchen?
April: Amazing. Yeah. Like, I just got back from, um, the Dublin [01:23:00] Gastronomy Symposium, um, that, uh, the, the theme this year was food in crisis.
Tiffany: Hmm.
April: And, um, over the past couple years, we've been trying to collect a lot of data about, um, the, um about our, about the work that we do with People's Kitchen. Mm-hmm. And when we were, we had a master's of, um, public health student who was, uh, did all these surveys asking people, you know, about, um, how effective that The People's Kitchen has been sort of at, like meeting their needs and things.
Um, and one of the things that just kept happening over and over again was that people kept wanting to tell us about what the actual, what working in the kitchen, what volunteering had done for them. Yeah. And we were like, "We don't really have a slot for that." You know? Or like, "We don't... That's not a question any of these grant," you know?
Yeah. Uh, these people giving out the grant money, they're not asking us those questions. Um, and then m- for [01:24:00] me, just working in the kitchen, over and over again, I would, you know, always just having different conversations with volunteers, and they're always telling us, you know, "Oh, you know, I, I really, I just felt so isolated.
I had to get out of my house. You know, I just gotta stop doom scrolling." Mm-hmm. "I just wanted to be able to do something real." Um, you know, a- and you know, "Hey, if I get to learn how to cook in the process, you know, like that's just amazing." Yeah. And so, like we c- I just kept hearing all these like really inspiring stories about, you know, how we're not just helping the, the people who, who don't know where their next meal is coming from.
Tiffany: Mm.
April: We're helping this entire generation. Well, and it's not just a generation, 'cause that's the other thing about the, the kitchen is that we get people from all different walks of life. It is m- definitely multi-generational, you know, multi-class, multi, you know, everything. It's, it's very diverse group of folks who c- who come through the kitchen doors.
Um, but, but we realize that we're, we're helping people [01:25:00] who increasingly feel depressed and, um, isolated and, and extremely anxious. Yeah. Um, and you know, just self-esteem is low out there. People do not know how to do things. What we're talking about, about being divorced from your senses and, and, and you know, um, es- uh, estranged, that, um, people need, um non-judgmental, um, environments that they can, can learn and practice those skills.
Yeah. Um, you know, they need guidance. It's not like they can just-- That's the thing about, like, taste education and things like that. You can't really do it by yourself. Yeah. You have to have somebody who already knows, right? You're-- It's a-- 'Cause it's cultural knowledge. It's, you know, it's being passed. And I'm saying cultural knowledge, but obviously we have a lot of different cultures that are at work.
Um, the-- We're-- Our, our kitchen is located in the Passyunk Square, um, neighborhood of Philly. It's like r- part of the-- [01:26:00] It's just south of the famous Italian Market in, in Philly. Mm. But that area is, like, really diverse, both class diversity and, um, ethnic diversity. It has a lot of different immigrants. It has a lot of Asian immigrants.
It has a lot of Latino immigrants. Um, it has a lot of senior citizens. Um, you know, it has a lot of different types of people and, and many different languages. So there's all these barriers. Um, but we really are just-- We just do our best to-- Because we're-- Like, it's like this revolving door. We're like, if we, you know, um, if there's, like, a group of people that we don't, you know, that we're having a difficulty, um, you know, communicating with or whatever, we-- then, then we're saying like, "We gotta get, you know, we gotta get these folks into the kitchen.
We need to make relationships. We need to build, um, you know, connection." And, and, and that's one of the things that we've done. Like, we have, you know, a chef, um, Milo, who started out, um, um[01:27:00]
Who, who's now part of the kitchen, you know, who started out r- receiving meals. Um, same Rebe- another, uh, Rebecca, who's like a, helps us like, um, translate, um, like Mandarin, um, who same thing. She's-- I, I call her, she's like a, a scavenger in the city. She, she knows where all the different, you know, uh, uh, we have all these like community fridges.
She knows like what time the things go in in all the different community fridges. She like rides the bus around checking things out. She-- so she's, you know, knows the lay of the land- Yeah ... and, um, and is like a regular volunteer in the kitchen as well. So we're-- it's just like this, um, nice kind of, uh, system where we really do believe that, uh, everybody has something to offer.
Like-
Tiffany: Yeah ...
April: no matter like how long that I've been doing it, I, um, I don't have all the answers. Like you, we need all these different people to contribute [01:28:00] who make, who, you know, contribute both to our sort of knowledge base, to the culture, um, who can, um Teach us more about, like, what's going on, w- what the people, what people need, what people are asking about, um, what the different challenges are, um, and can-- You know, we're always trying to, like, refine different systems.
But more than anything, it's like we're building relationships and building community and security, um, in that way, like what we were talking about before. Right. Um, that's like your most important, um, resource is really your, um, you know, your relationships.
Tiffany: I mean, it sounds a heck of a lot like how you were describing your family before, you know?
April: Exactly.
Tiffany: Uh, it's like it's- ... fully come full circle. It's, it's amazing. It's-
April: Absolutely.
Tiffany: It's such a massive problem. You don't hear about this much in, in other city... Like, I'm sure they exist, but this is like it-- It's, it sounds amazing. It sounds, like, incredible.
April: Yeah. I mean, I don't think-- I mean, I, I [01:29:00] do think, um...
I mean, I don't think many people are doing what we're doing. Mm-hmm. We're coming out of-- I mean, that also has to do with sort of my background. Like, when I was living in Chapel Hill, I was, like, part of Food Not Bombs, um, you know, which is like an anarchist, um, vegan free meals, uh, decentralized group that's been around, uh...
It was a response to the nuclear war movement, like, in the '80s.
Tiffany: Hmm.
April: So, um, so it's been around for a very long time, but just pops up in cities all over the country. And, but that kind of was the, you know, the groundwork where, um, it's really, uh... You know, we, we operate-- We have s- we have some paid staff, and we are a 5013C, but we still very largely operate on this egalitarian, horizontal, you know, mostly, like, operate through a Discord server- Mm-hmm
uh, you know, and, like, and, and volunteers. Um, and just, like, this crazy little ragtag, uh, [01:30:00] group of people who- Yeah ... just, like, kinda miraculously, you know, through just, like, communicating, like, values-based, um, culture and this, like, alternative to what I call, you know, um, the, the sort of we don't care if you're dying in the streets version of capitalism that we're, like, living through.
And I think that being in a city like Philadelphia is like you see that alternative, right? You see that. Um, you see how bad things can get and, you know, um, you don't really have to, you don't really have to talk about the- shortfalls of capitalism with people who see them. You know? Yeah. They, uh, we're not having to convert anybody to, you know, uh...
So that, that's a nice thing- Yeah ... about being, you know, in a, in a city with a, with plenty of problems like Philadelphia.
Tiffany: Yeah. I mean, I, I live in Vancouver, so I think it's- Yeah ... we have a very [01:31:00] similar thing. It's just, it's, it's so interesting seeing where you flip the dynamic. There's not a coming in and looking down your nose, we have to save these people.
It's everyone has something to offer, and- Exactly ... it, when you describe your family, everyone has a role, everyone has a responsibility, and, and there's confidence that comes from that, that you don't get by being on the receiving end.
April: Right. Right? And, and just like in a family, you don't have to love every single thing about every single person- Mm
in order to work with them either. I feel like that's also part of kind of getting over yourself, you know? Um, whether it's, like, w- in your family model or in your community model. It's like, you know, um, there's tolerance and, um, you know, that, that's part of it too. Um, which I, I think is really important 'cause people have w- you know, it's really easy to get wrapped up in all kinds of ideals when you're talking about this kind of work.
Tiffany: Yeah. I bet. It's, it sounds like you guys are doing amazing work. I, I think it's fantastic. I like, I, I've really, really enjoyed our conversation today. Absolutely. I'm gonna, I'm gonna put [01:32:00] some links, um, for people to check out your book and the rest of the books in the series too, 'cause they, uh, uh, it's amazing, uh, as well as, as where you're working in Philly and, um, your Substack.
Any, any other, any other things that you'd like to see people look at, check out for you?
April: Um, uh, that all sounds great. Yeah? I am at, um, preservingthesouth on Instagram. That's probably where I post the most. Yep. And preservingthesouth on Substack, and then the last, and yeah, uh, People's Kitchen Philly, um, I post there as well on Instagram.
Tiffany: Thank you so much. I really appreciate talking to
you.