Untold Stories of a Farmers' Market: Secrets, Scandals & Fresh Food

Hey Sylvia, how are you doing this morning?

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I'm doing just great, just great.

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Well, I'm glad you're always doing great.

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Um, but speaking of great, I think we've got a pretty nice podcast here.

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wouldn't say nice podcast.

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I think we have a pretty great show and we're hearing it from others left, right.

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And maybe even under the table, right.

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a hidden gem, and it's getting known.

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I love that.

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is getting known.

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But on that note, we'd like to ask for your help at the table here.

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Would you please like, subscribe and share the show with your friends, your family and

anybody else that you know who likes food or tradition or has a family or maybe not, but

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family and friends come together at the table and the stories abound and we'd like to hear

yours.

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So just like and subscribe.

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You can do that at

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podcast.familytreefoodandstories.com or just go to your favorite listening show or or just

go to your favorite listening platform, ideally on Spotify and Apple and like and follow.

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Thanks for that.

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Now let's get on with our show.

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I know, but I love that.

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Yes, I want more people to share this with us and send us their stories.

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We love that.

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I know.

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I just heard from somebody the other day who said they shared the show with somebody and

they just, my God, it's their new favorite show.

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So thank you.

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yeah.

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I love that.

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I love that.

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But today, today, let's talk about something.

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In fact, you know what you do with used leftover Easter baskets?

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You take them to the farmer's market.

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No, you take them to the farmer's market.

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Like, what is it?

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Little go peep or something, you know?

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Yeah, yeah.

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And then, then you pick and choose.

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And if you think about farmer's markets, just think about like,

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up here anyway in the temperate zone, you've got like the early stuff and you get to kind

of pick and choose the early stuff like lettuces, the delicate stuff, right, that survive

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in the spring and maybe they're.

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uh So anyway, yeah, that's what I'm doing.

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Just taking my little Easter basket and skipping along as we talk about farmers markets.

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Oh, I can see you skipping along Sylvia.

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Okay.

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Yeah.

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With your bunny ears.

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Like maybe not.

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That's a little weird.

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Yeah.

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A little weird.

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Yeah.

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Put a bunny bunny, put your bunny tail on and we'll call Hugh Hefner to join you at the

farmers market.

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Heaven forbid.

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But anyway, let's start in ancient times.

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That's when they started, you know, I you think about Yeah, farmers or what was markets?

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I'm not sure they were so much farmers markets.

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That's kind of an evolution that took place in the US, right?

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Well, it became kind of hip and hippie and everybody was organic at the time, right?

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And then we became a little bit more cool about

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Yeah, but they started in, get this, in the 1600s by English settlers, the Boston market

started in 1634.

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Now you know a little bit about that part of the country.

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do.

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And actually there are two markets.

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There's one that was called the Faneuil Hall Market.

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And then there's the more, I think it's a more modern one, which is just over the border

in Little Italy.

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And when uh my folks moved us from Long Island to Massachusetts, I was a junior in high

school, mom and I and my sister went up to Boston to Faneuil Hall Market.

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And we thought we were going to see this whole big thing.

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Well, the market was just being rebuilt.

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The building had been

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in total disarray, but we saw the dome being put back on and it really didn't, it wasn't a

farmer's market in the long run when it was recreated.

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They were stalls of food and soups and other things like that.

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The real market was over just down the street or around the corner at the Italian market,

which is the true Boston farmer's market, which was fabulous.

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And my God, it was wonderful.

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at an Italian market?

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mean pasta?

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had everything.

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They had eggplants and lettuce and fish.

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And I would go there when I lived in Boston and just enjoyed it.

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You go down the green, the green line on the T to get over there.

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And there was my sister and I would go and I would laugh because there was one guy who

would pop out of the side door and he had this kind of Cheshire grin on his face.

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And he was a meat butcher and he'd just pop out of the door and he'd look at you and say,

wants some meat?

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Want some uh

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Well, there you go.

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That's tradition, right?

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Going back to the same thing and sort of the persona.

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And it's like all farmers markets, like I know ours here in Lexington, you come and you

it's a socialization thing as much as anything you see people you get to know the farmers.

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uh You know, it's just it's just an experience.

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It's part of the experiential economy as they call it, right?

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also tell you, don't touch the fruit, I'll pick it for you.

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was like, but I wanna pick my own fruit.

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No, don't squeeze the tomatoes.

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Like, I'm not squeezing the tomatoes.

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Just like, me a nice one that doesn't have a bruise on it.

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anyway, but it was fun.

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was kind of the day.

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In the early days, I guess they did sell wheat, barley, sheep, cattle, things like that,

and then learned from the Native Americans to do things like corn.

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Corn was a big bartered product.

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In early days, it was bartering.

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wasn't cash and, you know, much later credit cards.

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And so it was uh

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I remember being over and seeing the market in Paris and you'd see chickens in the cages.

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And, you know, we're here in Florida and we see a lot of, well, I don't see a lot of, but

I'm meeting people who are raising chickens and butchering them.

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And, oh you know, I totally get it.

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I just, met somebody the other day at our local sawmill, peanut sawmill, who I just, I

love peanut, but um this gal was raising.

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hens, you chickens and quail.

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And she needed she needed to find a plucker.

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So was like, new term to mother plucker, right?

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I said, I will I will buy them from you after they're plucked.

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And I don't see a head on it.

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Thank you very much.

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know, you talk to people like uh a chef, one of our chefs at the restaurant was from the

Dominican Republic and he would in this just gorgeous accent talk about how grandma would

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send him out into the barnyard to get a chicken and twist its neck off, you know?

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And I'm like, I know intellectually I should care about where my food comes from, but I'll

just leave that part out.

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I know, it's a little TMI and understanding what needs to be done from skinning to

plucking to, you know, all that other stuff, gutting, it's rather interesting, but not

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what I'm frying up ahead on my stove top.

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I know, I know, I know.

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But you know, in the mid 20th century, groceries came into being.

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And that's when farmers markets kind of took a plunge.

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Like, I don't remember them much as a child.

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I remember farmers setting up by the side of the road, we would buy watermelons and beans

and things like that.

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But the actual organized farmers markets kind of took a uh dive because of, know,

transportation.

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and refrigeration came along and everybody liked those shiny new grocery stores that it

was convenience, right?

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And you always get the best corn by going down and finding the local farmer.

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There's a couple of corn places here that you know, when the corn season it is twice a

year here.

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But it's you get the fresh picked corn.

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It's always sweeter and the butter and sugar corn and tomatoes.

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But it seemed like tomatoes and corn were the things that you got on the local side of the

road growing up not not the rest of the stuff.

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You know, one of the things I really love at the farmers markets are heirloom.

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Like there's an heirloom farmer in Berea, Kentucky, which is a little ways away from

Lexington, but he has heirloom bees.

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These are early seeds that people have fended down through families and generations, like

starter for sourdough bread.

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And, you know, the heirloom seeds, I don't know if they are any better for you, but

they're knotty and not as pretty and all of that kind of stuff.

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Yeah.

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better when it's ugly, right?

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and such and the grocery stores don't want, They want pretty stuff.

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They want the pretty stuff.

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But I will have to mention the farm to table movement came into being and that started

happening probably around the mid 70s.

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And I know because I was a CEO of a statewide association and I almost got fired because

of the farm to table movement, okay?

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Now you hear all of that about, oh yeah,

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Every chef will tell you they are farm to table or, know, and all that.

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And that's kind of true.

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yeah, I will say this in the restaurant, you would have farmers.

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My chef had contracted with farmers.

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So every summer he would get the sweet corn from a particular farmer.

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So it was like a contract.

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So they would back the pickup truck there.

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But no, I was working with a very famous back.

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to nature kind of guy.

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His name is Wendell Berry.

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Any of our listeners want to look up Wendell Berry is world famous writing about community

and all of that and small time farming.

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But Wendell and I conspired to host my annual convention of a thousand people on local

foods.

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And it was buffet style, which meant these people would come in and they'd pile their

plates full and we kept running out of the food because at that time

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There wasn't much farm to table.

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People just didn't know about it.

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And the budget went way over.

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And I remember my president sitting down with me and like, why did this budget go over?

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So that was a precursor to farmers markets too, because it's about fresh foods.

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But anyway, there you have it.

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I survived, but it wasn't the most pleasant experience.

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Yeah.

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you.

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When you think about farm to table in general, when you go to the grocery store, that's

fresh produce, but how fresh is fresh?

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mean, do you really consider that farm to table because the apples and the tomatoes and

everything else, no matter where in the world they're grown and brought in from, they

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still started on a farm somewhere.

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I mean, it wasn't like they were grown in a petri dish, right?

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So I think we have to look at, not that I'm...

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m

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I'm going against the local stuff, but the bastardization, I'll call it, of the farm to

table slogan, it still has to start on the farm.

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I will tell you a Florida story.

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don't remember, I think it took place at the University of Florida, but I'm not sure about

that.

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I'm just having a recollection here.

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And they did a test where they fed the students.

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Now these are young people, right?

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Maybe 10 years ago or something.

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Young people in college and they had them taste the tomatoes that had to be shipped in and

gassed to make them look fresh and more fresh than they were.

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and a farm-grown tomato, and the students chose the one that had been gassed to look

pretty.

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That's how their taste buds had been adjusted over time due to this, I think, this dip in

the 50s and 60s when grocery stores became the big thing.

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Now, you go to a grocery store and they actually have farmers' names under the corn and

all of that sort of thing.

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So it's sort of a change of the whole ballgame.

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But I thought that was interesting because a lot of food writers pointed to that as so sad

that young people would choose the lesser tomato because that's what they were used to.

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They didn't they didn't know I do have to say when I'm in the grocery store and buying

produce I will look at the country of origin of the produce and the fish and where it is

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so I do take it I do take a second look and em I Think that's kind of interesting.

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There are some places that I won't buy particular product from because I'm not sure about

the sanitary Issues, I mean you still washing things, but yeah, there's only so much You

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know, I'm not putting dawn dish detergent on my food.

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Maybe I should

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and you don't know how long it's been.

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I don't know.

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I hate to sound like a conspirator, but you don't know.

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We don't know what it went through to get to where it is.

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Although I, wait a second, one year we grew tomatoes and it was the little cherry tomatoes

and we, Bob and I had been fairly newly married and we were renting, uh renting an

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apartment in Western Connecticut.

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And the front field of where the house was had horses in it.

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And that field was so fertilized.

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my goodness.

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And had beautiful sun.

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So we planted these tomatoes and they grew.

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I mean, it was like Jack and the Beanstalk, right?

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They just proliferated.

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And every time I got home from work or every day got home from work, the first thing I

would do was run out to those tomatoes and the tomatoes never made it to our kitchen

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because they were so they were warm and they were.

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I got to find some I got to find some horse and cow poop here so I can plant some tomatoes

because they always taste better.

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Well, Nancy, you know, in the book, Family Tree, Food and Stories, which is our book, our

culinary journal, I tell the story of my dad who grew tomatoes and my flower beds.

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And it was like Jack and the Beanstalk.

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I mean, there's something about the soil being right, the hand that plants it being right.

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A nurturer, you're a nurturer, Nancy, and didn't know it.

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don't tell don't tell my husband because he doesn't believe that.

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uh Speaking speaking of nurturing, let's take a quick break and we'll be right back.

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Okay.

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So Sylvia, we are talking farmers market and we left off with my lack of nurturing skills,

but I'm really good with plants.

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Yeah, I'm better with plants than I am with people.

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So uh next, we will go there.

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beg to differ.

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But hey, Nancy, what about the economics of farmers markets?

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That's kind of interesting.

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I think maybe a state of flux is in order here because you've got grocery stores.

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Yeah.

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produce and the eggs and everything and I love buying local honey from the farmer's

market.

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But yeah, it's not inexpensive to buy at the farmer's market.

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Yeah, and so you've got the economics of farmers selling now to big grocery stores because

they like to tout their credentials in selling local too.

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I mean, I go into our predominant grocery store chain and they have little kiosks now for

like Kentucky grown products, what we call Kentucky proud and they have all these things,

218

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lots of bourbon by the way, lots of bourbon stuff.

219

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and marionade, everything is bourbon right here, But corn, and sometimes we'll even have a

farmer's name in the height of summer when the corn is out and the beans are out and the

220

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tomatoes, and little recipes and things like that, so they've gotten a lot more personal.

221

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And so I think that's kind of interesting.

222

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And so I'm sure there is a huge set up and hierarchy of the farmers markets who actually

make more money

223

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at the farmer's market, but it takes a lot more of their time and it's not as steady,

right?

224

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Whereas you can...

225

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and you think from an economic perspective, is it worth the time and effort to sit there

for a day or stand there for a day to sell 20 bunches of carrots when you could take 20

226

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cartons of carrots and send them to the local grocery store?

227

00:16:33,244 --> 00:16:37,327

So I understand that from a business perspective on the farmer's side.

228

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Yet um there is something nice to be able to talk to the local farmer when you get the

chance to do so and you find somebody who actually is a local farmer selling their

229

00:16:47,364 --> 00:16:48,182

produce.

230

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not something that they picked up off the docks and brought in.

231

00:16:51,492 --> 00:16:57,756

Well, I know that you've looked a lot into this and there's a lot out there on is it

local?

232

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know, is the produce in a farmer's market actually what it says it is?

233

00:17:04,220 --> 00:17:10,063

And you and I talked about this that not always is that the case.

234

00:17:10,063 --> 00:17:12,785

It's kind of like they've taken it to a grocery store.

235

00:17:12,785 --> 00:17:17,157

Grocery store picked the litter, the pick of the litter, right?

236

00:17:17,305 --> 00:17:22,168

and then rejected the rest and the farmer maybe shows up to sell that stuff.

237

00:17:22,168 --> 00:17:28,921

Maybe it's ugly fruit, ugly produce, which the groceries don't want, which tastes

perfectly good, if not better.

238

00:17:29,322 --> 00:17:33,884

But that's kind of an interesting economic thing that's happening out there.

239

00:17:33,965 --> 00:17:44,991

And do you need, and some states have actually uh come up with regulations that require

authenticity, that it is a local farmer.

240

00:17:45,477 --> 00:17:55,405

whatever that definition might be, uh area-wide or exactly what, but that people are

actually selling what they say they're selling.

241

00:17:56,802 --> 00:18:05,315

Well, that's I think it depends upon what percentage it's like the cars manufactured in

the United States, all the parts or a lot of the parts are shipped in from overseas and

242

00:18:05,315 --> 00:18:06,545

they're assembled in the States.

243

00:18:06,545 --> 00:18:08,866

So and then they call it American made.

244

00:18:08,866 --> 00:18:12,787

So I wonder how that actually works when you're dealing with produce.

245

00:18:12,787 --> 00:18:15,348

That's kind of an interesting dilemma.

246

00:18:15,348 --> 00:18:23,910

But still, you know, the farmers market also has not just the produce we're talking about,

we're talking about fish, we're talking about beef, we're talking about cheeses.

247

00:18:23,936 --> 00:18:34,723

We see a lot of the Pennsylvania cheese is coming down, of the uh really, you know,

Pennsylvania and Appalachia type of cheeses that are being sold in this region.

248

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So it's not Florida cheese.

249

00:18:36,004 --> 00:18:47,032

But I understand that there's a big dairy market here in our state of Florida, which is

kind of interesting, as I kind of always thought of like Wisconsin as the cheese capital

250

00:18:47,032 --> 00:18:49,884

and the dairy capital, not Florida.

251

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But uh cows get a chance to live everywhere and

252

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be milked, I guess.

253

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You make me think of Charles de Gaulle who was a premier or prime minister whatever of

France ages ages ago.

254

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Some of our listeners wouldn't even know about that.

255

00:19:05,388 --> 00:19:07,910

They ask him how in the world he governed France.

256

00:19:07,910 --> 00:19:12,974

He said you don't govern a country that produces over 400 varieties of cheese.

257

00:19:16,918 --> 00:19:17,786

I know.

258

00:19:17,786 --> 00:19:19,386

know, goat cheese is another kind of cheese.

259

00:19:19,386 --> 00:19:21,347

So don't necessarily need to think about that.

260

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And certainly it's organic because well, it may be organic is also a label that's got this

sort of mystery around it.

261

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We don't understand what the true term of organic is around the confines of what they put

into that.

262

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And I'll tell you something, a lot of farmers do not go organic because they grow it well

and they don't use traditional fertilizers and such, but to go through the hoops to become

263

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an organic just increases the cost so much.

264

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uh

265

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And then you have the worry about the pests and the blights and the other things that you

can't, that really sort of nicks that.

266

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But it's very expensive to become a true organic farm.

267

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And you don't necessarily always produce the same amount.

268

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So that's, that's another challenge, right?

269

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you see that a lot.

270

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And a related program is community, uh CSA, Community Supported Agriculture.

271

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And that's the next generation of farmers market.

272

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That is where you order, you contract with a farm, you became a member of their, what do

want to call it, a co-op or whatever you might say.

273

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You can even work on the farm and you get a box of stuff and that can be eggs, meat.

274

00:20:36,871 --> 00:20:42,076

produce, just produce, just meat, and you get it and you know where it came from.

275

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You can go out, you can see it growing in the fields, and it takes away a little bit of

that community feel, but you get stuff.

276

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You get a box full of stuff.

277

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Now, I've heard people say, some of the stuff, I don't know what to do with it.

278

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Because they grow a whole bunch of different stuff, right?

279

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And you get the leftover sometimes.

280

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We've got something like that here, a couple of them.

281

00:21:05,831 --> 00:21:07,752

it's, there's just two of us.

282

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I don't know how much produce I could eat.

283

00:21:10,754 --> 00:21:13,515

That's in one box.

284

00:21:13,515 --> 00:21:16,437

It's a large amount and I don't want it to go to waste.

285

00:21:16,437 --> 00:21:25,722

And we haven't gotten our compost bin up and going, but still I don't want to buy produce

to throw in the compost bin if I can help it, but still.

286

00:21:25,722 --> 00:21:33,666

So there's a lot that goes on in the farmer's market that we don't understand, including

the fact that a lot of these farmers markets are now.

287

00:21:33,794 --> 00:21:36,856

I'll call them craft bazaars, right?

288

00:21:36,856 --> 00:21:39,337

So there's a few things that are going on there.

289

00:21:39,337 --> 00:21:40,317

Yeah.

290

00:21:40,838 --> 00:21:44,860

But I know somebody who's selling in the farmer's market right now and I'll give her a

quick shout out.

291

00:21:44,860 --> 00:21:47,162

And that's another Sylvia, Sylvia France.

292

00:21:47,162 --> 00:21:55,146

Sylvia has what she calls her Fred bread and that's a sourdough bread and it's absolutely

delicious, but it's right.

293

00:21:56,247 --> 00:21:58,638

Well, you know, here's the thing with sourdough.

294

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Most people who have a sourdough starter name their sourdough starter.

295

00:22:02,794 --> 00:22:03,758

sure.

296

00:22:03,999 --> 00:22:04,679

Yeah.

297

00:22:04,679 --> 00:22:09,321

My sourdough starter, which I tried, um, was, uh, think runaway Sally.

298

00:22:12,043 --> 00:22:13,398

Yeah, Sally ran away.

299

00:22:13,398 --> 00:22:14,535

I don't have her anymore.

300

00:22:14,535 --> 00:22:27,152

next they get, they, they think, but, but there's so much that goes on in the market that

we don't necessarily know what's happening, including a lot of the things that are

301

00:22:27,152 --> 00:22:29,574

happening with some of the big chefs out there.

302

00:22:29,774 --> 00:22:35,540

uh Anthony Bourdain was known for going to the farmer's market in all sorts of regions of

the world.

303

00:22:35,540 --> 00:22:37,041

Kind of interesting.

304

00:22:37,142 --> 00:22:39,514

And uh there really are like bazaars.

305

00:22:39,514 --> 00:22:43,068

It's where you meet people, you hear what the local gossip is.

306

00:22:43,309 --> 00:22:52,418

And I don't know, it can be delicious and also somewhat disturbing at times if you don't

necessarily know the details of what's happening.

307

00:22:52,583 --> 00:22:54,603

Well, and you know, these places are ancient.

308

00:22:54,603 --> 00:23:07,603

Whereas in Turkey is like 61, I see like over 4,000 shops, 61 streets in Istanbul are part

of this marketplace where it's almost like a permanent thing.

309

00:23:07,743 --> 00:23:11,723

And people go in and there's live animals, all that kind of stuff.

310

00:23:11,723 --> 00:23:21,407

I so fascinated by Anthony because he ate everything that he would go into a country, even

though it was like...

311

00:23:21,603 --> 00:23:25,746

had a lot of ick factor to it, you know, and he would he would eat.

312

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Yeah, I mean, you know, chicken feet.

313

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I mean, that's not the worst part.

314

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I mean, there are things.

315

00:23:32,712 --> 00:23:38,537

But I will say that Anthony, the giant snail, he ate giant snail.

316

00:23:38,537 --> 00:23:42,039

ah He ate bad muscles once because he's going to get bad food, right.

317

00:23:42,039 --> 00:23:44,541

But he said he would refuse.

318

00:23:45,803 --> 00:23:51,807

So but anyway, I loved it because someone asked him once, they said, Okay, you m

319

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So you are eating everything someone puts in front of you in another country because you

think that is what you need to do, even though sometimes it leaves you sicker than a dog

320

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for days.

321

00:24:03,532 --> 00:24:12,679

Well, it's a sign of respect to somebody serves you out of the kindness of their heart,

and they've worked hard to either earn the money to put that that food on your plate or

322

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they've grown it.

323

00:24:13,358 --> 00:24:16,359

It's it's disrespectful not to do so.

324

00:24:16,359 --> 00:24:22,919

I will tell you that when I spent three weeks in Japan on a fellowship, they asked me what

I would eat.

325

00:24:22,919 --> 00:24:27,959

And I said, because I'm not an adventurous eater, or typically wasn't then anyone.

326

00:24:27,959 --> 00:24:29,699

And I said steak.

327

00:24:29,699 --> 00:24:34,159

And they would serve me these huge steaks, which I'm not a big meat eater either.

328

00:24:34,159 --> 00:24:38,299

But then I had colleagues who ate things like dancing shrimp.

329

00:24:38,299 --> 00:24:40,579

Do you know what dancing shrimp is?

330

00:24:40,719 --> 00:24:43,459

It's a living shrimp.

331

00:24:43,599 --> 00:24:44,901

And you bite it.

332

00:24:44,901 --> 00:24:45,565

You bite it off.

333

00:24:45,565 --> 00:24:47,086

You bite its head off.

334

00:24:47,086 --> 00:24:48,058

Ugh.

335

00:24:49,896 --> 00:24:51,931

your teeth become a guillotine.

336

00:24:51,931 --> 00:24:52,933

No thank you.

337

00:24:52,933 --> 00:24:53,717

No thank you.

338

00:24:53,717 --> 00:24:59,792

but I do have to say Anthony Bourdain said, and he said, well, what foods would you avoid?

339

00:24:59,792 --> 00:25:02,245

And I'm like, what's he gonna say?

340

00:25:02,245 --> 00:25:08,351

Well, he said, never eat when you're on the road, don't eat Caesar salad, because you

never know what's got in it.

341

00:25:08,351 --> 00:25:14,536

uh Hotel buffets, which I thought was fascinating, and airplane meals.

342

00:25:14,902 --> 00:25:16,123

Airplanes.

343

00:25:16,705 --> 00:25:22,972

Well, until now, when we have uh Father Jim's Marie sauce on the airplane.

344

00:25:23,757 --> 00:25:24,348

That's right.

345

00:25:24,348 --> 00:25:28,183

yeah, you're to hear from about that.

346

00:25:29,005 --> 00:25:30,274

So you'll think twice.

347

00:25:30,274 --> 00:25:32,394

and food is a little adventurous.

348

00:25:32,394 --> 00:25:33,353

It's all kind of interesting.

349

00:25:33,353 --> 00:25:36,034

And I have one sort of last story before we go.

350

00:25:36,034 --> 00:25:43,514

And speaking about farmers, well, we're people I've said a couple of times that we're

actually planting olive trees on our property.

351

00:25:43,514 --> 00:25:53,334

have a total of 29 that 15 are in and the rest we're going to we're going to plant shortly

at once we clear the or cut down the fields so we can get them in.

352

00:25:53,334 --> 00:25:58,956

But one other thing that we thought this is my crazy idea is how we become a local farmer

in Florida.

353

00:25:58,956 --> 00:26:01,508

Well, I thought we would become snail farmers.

354

00:26:01,508 --> 00:26:05,610

It's like, how difficult can that be?

355

00:26:05,610 --> 00:26:11,923

Well, I investigated that only because snails or escargot are, they're delicious.

356

00:26:11,923 --> 00:26:14,575

I absolutely love them if they're done right.

357

00:26:14,575 --> 00:26:19,598

Although I had frozen ones that somebody didn't thaw properly, so that wasn't so good.

358

00:26:19,598 --> 00:26:26,892

But what I learned about the snail business is one, yes, it can be very lucrative, but

two, it is very challenging.

359

00:26:26,892 --> 00:26:31,406

because you have to make sure that those little critters do not escape.

360

00:26:31,406 --> 00:26:37,732

And if they do escape from your snail, I'll call it the snail barn, right?

361

00:26:37,732 --> 00:26:39,132

Snail barn.

362

00:26:39,633 --> 00:26:42,676

You can be held responsible because they're very invasive.

363

00:26:42,676 --> 00:26:54,782

They have these giant slugs or snails, because they're basically landslugs that are here

in Florida and they're incredibly invasive and a uh snail will eat, it's like a slug.

364

00:26:54,782 --> 00:27:05,999

They will devour a plant like overnight and the slugs that we had up north Yeah, anytime I

found the slugs they would eat our our leaves, especially our plants and The hostas they

365

00:27:05,999 --> 00:27:12,363

love the hostas i'd go out early in the morning with windex And spray them and wash them

all shrivel up.

366

00:27:12,363 --> 00:27:20,816

So okay guillotine shrimp with your teeth and a little like watching the snails I guess

i'm a masochist at heart

367

00:27:20,816 --> 00:27:24,377

I tell you an escargot story about Florida?

368

00:27:24,377 --> 00:27:32,499

I interviewed in Lake Wales, Florida and got the job in spite of this with a law firm when

I was newly minted lawyer.

369

00:27:32,499 --> 00:27:38,131

They took me to dinner and Bernie had told them that I didn't like snails.

370

00:27:38,131 --> 00:27:40,622

At dinner, they said, Sylvia, eat this.

371

00:27:40,622 --> 00:27:42,442

This is really good.

372

00:27:42,462 --> 00:27:43,855

Well, I was being polite.

373

00:27:43,855 --> 00:27:45,915

I wasn't even going to ask what it was.

374

00:27:45,915 --> 00:27:47,998

And so I ate it and I said, this is really good.

375

00:27:47,998 --> 00:27:50,120

And they said, it's snail.

376

00:27:50,120 --> 00:27:52,002

It's escargot.

377

00:27:53,745 --> 00:27:55,734

But I got the job anyway, so there you go.

378

00:27:55,734 --> 00:27:59,277

Yeah, that was a sneaky, that sneaky thing.

379

00:27:59,277 --> 00:28:04,402

That's better than one company saying, tell me at later on that they played tricks on

people when they first hired them.

380

00:28:04,402 --> 00:28:05,228

And I didn't know it.

381

00:28:05,228 --> 00:28:08,606

And one guy from another department came, you're sitting in the dead guy seat.

382

00:28:08,606 --> 00:28:09,146

dead guy.

383

00:28:09,146 --> 00:28:13,850

He died literally from a heart attack the day before and I'm sitting in the dead guy seat.

384

00:28:13,850 --> 00:28:14,951

Okay.

385

00:28:15,832 --> 00:28:16,463

Yeah, yeah.

386

00:28:16,463 --> 00:28:17,414

Well, I did.

387

00:28:17,414 --> 00:28:22,700

I left that company after a year or so and it wasn't food related.

388

00:28:22,700 --> 00:28:31,324

But that said, snail farming, we did not go into sale farming and ah olives, I don't have

to worry about escaping and becoming invasive.

389

00:28:31,791 --> 00:28:34,541

I can't wait to see what you do with those olives.

390

00:28:34,541 --> 00:28:36,390

Well, let's see when we get our first crop.

391

00:28:36,390 --> 00:28:37,537

I'll send you some.

392

00:28:37,537 --> 00:28:38,942

But on that note...

393

00:28:39,017 --> 00:28:46,608

where Lucy and Ethel would like be stepping on the olives to squish them, juice out of

them?

394

00:28:46,608 --> 00:28:48,274

You know, like they go to plates.

395

00:28:48,274 --> 00:28:49,134

That was grapes.

396

00:28:49,134 --> 00:28:53,794

were being Italian, Italian, um, whatever grape stompers.

397

00:28:53,794 --> 00:28:54,514

Yes.

398

00:28:54,533 --> 00:28:55,474

Yeah.

399

00:28:55,954 --> 00:28:57,514

Well, you don't stop.

400

00:28:57,514 --> 00:29:00,874

You don't stomp olives with your feet.

401

00:29:00,874 --> 00:29:04,174

You, you get them, you, um, deep hit them and you brine them.

402

00:29:04,174 --> 00:29:12,534

But we'll actually, I think we'll have to do a whole olive show on something like that and

some interesting traditions on olives and food and what's going on in that world.

403

00:29:12,554 --> 00:29:14,062

But on that note.

404

00:29:14,062 --> 00:29:16,822

So we don't escape like the snails.

405

00:29:17,242 --> 00:29:23,222

We want to make sure that you like, share, and actually share your stories with us.

406

00:29:23,222 --> 00:29:30,602

Go to podcast.familytreefoodstories or go to Spotify and Apple and you can send a like and

share there as well.

407

00:29:30,602 --> 00:29:34,782

We hope that you've enjoyed this episode and that we'll see you again soon.

408

00:29:34,782 --> 00:29:35,682

Take care.

409

00:29:35,682 --> 00:29:36,486

Bye bye.