Dear For The Wild Community, 

We are at the central point of our latest series, Fat of The Land, and we wish to thank you, our guests, for staying at the table with us through this banquet. A banquet that asks us to consider hunger, not just the physical that is satiated by good food, but the hunger that lingers behind those very ingredients and the generations of hands that have cultivated them for our plates.

But this week, we want to reflect on: What dreams linger? Are they the ones that are fulfilled or those left unfinished? Either by time, parenthood, seasons or the natural (and unexpected) rhythms of life, do you dream of the land? Of those who walked and seeded it before you, and in those steps, of those who will continue to nourish us in future days?

Episode Three: Women, Food, and Resistence

“Before I came here, I dreamt about this land” —Jessie Jowers

It’s the second main course of the meal. Often the meatiest, the richest, the one where we hope it may take the most time to digest before we move to the fourth… the fifth. In this episode of Fat of The Land, Ayana speaks with Jessie Jowers of Slow Life Family Farm and Deborah Zapparrata of Cooking Sicily. It’s a series of intimate conversations that ask us to consider what social and domestic roles do to us. What impact they may have on our ways of being, our desires, what foods we create and what mythologies (good, and bad) we associate with them. Focusing on women’s stories and histories, these conversations consider the complexities of  lived and inherited wisdom; how they might be at odds, and where they may be reconciled. When women are told what we should desire, what we should have, what our expectations of life and family ought to be, are our experiences reduced? 

Asking questions of the land, the trading of spices and recipes, of the myths about women (from making ricotta from their breastmilk to liberate their cities to goddesses worshipped on the Sicilian coastline), Ayana, Jessie and Deborah contemplate how these histories may have been inherited (or, at times, rejected) by contemporary women. 

Let this episode ground you in matrilineal connections that span generations, tastes and lands. 

This episode is brought to you by generous sponsorships from Ritū (use code FORTHEWILD25 for 25% off), Terra Elaÿa and Heyday (you can order their most recent publication, Compassion in Crisis, here or by following the button below).

Episode Three
“Digestivo”

Accompanying each public episode of the Fat of the Land series is a bonus mini episode. A Digestivo… something a little extra to contemplate, to ingest… to digest. In this Digestivo we welcome Guido Rasponi, of Barbialla Nuova, in a conversation about Ayana about the politics of the land. The economics of keeping it stable, ecologically minded while still serving the communities that work on the land for a living. How do we look at climate change through the lens of agriculturalists and land unions? How do we manage the health of the soil and our waterway systems to continue nourishing ourselves. 

You can listen to our Digestivos by joining our Patreon community. By joining us on Patreon, you get early access to all five Fat of The Land episodes as well as these exclusive spotlight episodes at the Herbarium level. There are several ways to join our community there and Patreon membership also gives you access to our zines, playlists, archives of extended episodes, and so much more.