♪ music ♪ ♪ <Jim> From spiritual connection to a chance for redemption, how food is healing century-old scars while helping Appalachia rebuild and recover.

<Lora> There's a lot to undo here.

When we think about moving forward.

What does an economy built off of care and loving your neighbor look like?

<Jim> In this episode of The Food Principle.

For 20 years, I've used food as a catalyst to connect travelers with local culture around the world.

Yet, food does even more than connect us.

It also plays a pivotal role in some of our greatest challenges.

♪ Now, I'm on a quest to learn from leaders in the vanguard of these battles.

♪ All using the power of food to plant a better planet.

♪ I'm Jim Kane, and this is The Food Principle.

♪ ♪ ♪ Appalachia.

Is there any other US region that evokes such paradoxical impressions of breathtaking beauty and heartbreaking loss, of unrivaled biodiversity and utmost fragility, of rich culture and traditions, yet so poorly understood by others?

Appalachia's natural resources and industrious workforce helps fuel America's rise.

But two centuries of expropriation and exploitation have left this proud region scarred and skeptical.

A philosophical chef friend once said, "I like paradoxes on the border of seemingly contradictory elements.

On that border, perhaps there are solutions."

In our country's original culinary melting pot, food has always served as a common denominator.

Can food now help Appalachia in its process of healing and recovery?

And might it even offer a bold new economic vision?

One built not on extraction and neglect, but on cultivation and care.

In the smoky mountains of Western North Carolina lies Giduwa, the mother town of the Cherokee.

It's where I met Amy Walker, an elder of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians.

Amy's parents both survived Indian boarding schools, where native children were sent to "assimilate".

So while growing up, Amy was aware of the need for food for survival.

It was only later that she reconnected spiritually to her identity as an indigenous woman when she began farming on her people's ancestral homeland.

<Amy> This is a little part of the land of the Mother Town, the very first town and village of all Cherokee people.

<Jim> Why is it so important to you to express yourself through the growing of food?

<Amy> Well, if I go back to my early childhood, I hated to have to go pull weeds in the garden.

I wanted to go play.

I had my own things I wanted to do.

I was old enough to know that it was important that if the food didn't grow and we couldn't gather it and can it for us to have to eat during the winter months, that we wouldn't have food to eat.

But then, I went to college and got my education, I had a job and I raised my families.

And then in '98, I decided that I needed to get my hands back into the soil, and I learned more about the land, how important and how special it is to our people, and this is our traditional corn, this Selu.

Selu is our first mother in our culture.

I had grown into a place that I needed to nurture this part of me that I did not understand and know until I was 45 years old.

And so from that time on, that's what brought me back to the land.

And so for me, seeing the plant producing whatever it is, an ear of corn, one bean vine plant.

How much beans does it produce?

I would think about what kind of fruit does my life produce?

And I would compare it with the different kinds of things that I was growing and working with.

<Jim> One of the fruits in Amy's life that holds special meaning is passion fruit.

She adores the radiant flowers and moreover, the taste transports her straight back to childhood in her mother's kitchen, where passion fruit dumplings were an occasional treat.

<Amy> When you open it, it has this little... <Jim> That little membrane.

<Amy> Yes.

Yes, yes.

<Jim> Yeah.

<Amy> And then, here's the seeds inside.

It's a lot easier to open once they get ripe and you just pull it all out.

So I don't know- <Jim> I know it's a little early.

<Amy> If you want to taste that.

<Jim> I was going to say it's a little early, but (crunching) you opened it for us early.

A little tart.

We've got...It's got almost that lemony astringency, so I'm kind of puckering.

<Amy> You'll find out once we taste the dumplings.

<Jim> Yep.

<Amy> The final flavor.

<Jim> Great.

I can't wait.

♪ <Amy> This would've been our dessert after we ate our green beans and our tomatoes and our potatoes that we raised and gathered, or if my brothers had killed a rabbit or whatever, because that's what we ate was things from the forest because we didn't have any money.

You know how you make chicken and dumplings?

Well, this is the same flour made into a dumpling that would go into this juice.

<Jim> Into a savory dumpling, but you make it sweet.

<Amy> But the juice from the passion fruit is sweetened, and so I want you to try that and see what you think.

<Jim> Thank you, Amy.

<Amy> And maybe you will taste the flavoring of that passion fruit totally ripened, and I'll get me a bite.

<Jim> Please do.

<Amy> Because I haven't had this in years.

<Jim> How long has it been?

<Amy> Maybe since I was still living at home with my mom still alive, because she passed 34 years ago, I believe.

This does bring back memories for me.

<Jim> Good.

It's nice.

<Amy> It is.

<Jim> It's comforting.

<Amy> I want those seven generations from me forward, down the road that's not born yet, to at least to know who we are at this time and place, because I know that seven generations before I was born, they didn't experience what I'm experiencing here in this land.

But I want them to know that who we are and that we are connected to this land.

I am an extension of this Mother Earth right here, and I said I was raising food on the backs of my ancestors' graves.

I had been told that yes, our ancestors' graves are still here.

I walk softly on them.

because they are me and I am them.

(sniffles) <Jim> Thank you for sharing.

♪ music ♪ We might have some lucky lighting!

That corn's lit up like gold.

♪ music ♪ Driving the Eastern Kentucky, my thoughts slalomed between the exuberant beauty of the mountains, the small communities dotting the hills and hollers, and jarring reminders of the extractive industry that's dominated the region for decades.

At one point, I passed an abandoned lot overrun by kudzu and couldn't help see it as a metaphor for the perniciousness of misperceptions we're so often fed on the outside.

Left unchecked, both can smother and suffocate everything in their path.

I'd come to Whitesburg to meet Valerie Horn, a beloved community leader who founded Cane Kitchen in 2018 to scale up local food and farm products, and enlarge the agricultural footprint of Letcher County.

So Val, I've been blown away by the warmth, by the welcome, by the love that I've experienced in my short time here, but there are so many misperceptions about this region, and it seems to me those misperceptions are pernicious and grab hold, and kind of smother a place.

<Valerie> My mother - today will be one year that she's passed.

And the week before she died, she finished her story in the book, Red Buds Aren't Red.

Red buds are a traditional tree that we have here.

Beautiful in the spring, and we all look forward to that time of hope that it brings after the cold winter, but one thing about red buds?

They aren't red.

They're a beautiful color and they're in the red family, but they really aren't red, and her message in that book and with choosing that is so much about Eastern Kentucky ... that we just hear and assume is completely accurate, it's not.

And if you just looked, you could see that.

If you just visited, if you just had a conversation with someone from this community, you could see that.

<Andy Beshear (KY Governor)> This isn't just a disaster, it is an ongoing natural disaster.

We are in the midst of it, but let me say that, unfortunately, I expect double-digit deaths in this flooding.

That's something that we rarely see.

♪ <Jim> While capacity building was part of the mission, Val couldn't have foreseen just how critical Cane would become in the face of multiple disasters.

First during the COVID crisis, and again after the horrific floods that devastated the region, just weeks prior to our visit.

A women-led mutual aid network leapt into action, creating a free weekly farmer's market outside Cane Kitchen.

Neighbors could pick up $25 worth of fresh produce, which supported local farmers while nourishing the community back to health.

♪ <Valerie> The market is here thanks to the Lee Initiative and World Kitchen, MCHC, because there really are good people who care that we have good things to eat, and that they know that it makes us feel better and healthier.

We are struggling to rebuild from this, the flood.

In conversations with people who do this cleanup and work, they're saying it's close to the magnitude of Katrina.

It's not as easily visible because of the geographic layout and the large breadth of the counties that it covered, but it has been significant.

And what is hurtful is when stories about this happen and we see that, perhaps we voted for it.

Perhaps our lifestyles influenced it.

Perhaps our poor housing choices.

And my response that I'd want to get out to that is no one deserves this.

But I find the people here to be very strong, very resilient, not afraid of this.

The woman who cooked the first meal at Cane Kitchen the day after the flood had spent the night at ARH hospital because she had to evacuate her home.

She happened to be a restaurant manager/operator.

She could tell I was struggling in the kitchen because we were there as Dr.

Breeding had to let us know that it would be evacuating the Letcher Manor Nursing Home there.

So we knew our job was to cook, begin having food ready for people.

So she put on her apron, with her house underwater, and spent the next eight hours cooking for elders in community who needed soup.

When the first meal was served, and a plan for the second, she took off her apron and said, "I'm going to go see if I have a house."

Those are the stories that I think best represent our community and our people here, and they are very often tied to food and serving and caring for others.

<Jim> Tell me why food is at the heart of this mission.

<Valerie> Food is the common denominator here, and that's what I recognized early on with the Grow Appalachia work.

In the building, when we had our canning classes here initially before we had the larger space at Cane Kitchen, we might have someone from the Sierra Club who's with a mine operator, and they're making their pickles together and deciding how spicy they like them, how much pickling spice they want to put in them.

I don't believe that they would've spoken to each other had they met each other on the sidewalk, but they recognized that they both liked pickles, and they cared how spicy the other person liked them.

It's a safe place to begin conversations, to find commonalities, to recognize the humanity in it.

♪ music ♪ <Jim> A tireless advocate for Appalachia, Lora Smith works with impact investors to reduce the urban rural divide in philanthropic funding.

She shared her perspective of the challenges and potential as the region transitions from extraction to a more vibrant and equitable future.

♪ music ♪ <Lora Smith> This is a very resource-scarce region when it comes to, especially, philanthropic funding.

<Jim> Yeah.

<Lora> Places like San Francisco, New York, you have national philanthropies spending, on average, $400 per person.

When you get to a place like Eastern Kentucky, that number drops to about 36 cents <Jim> Wow!

<Lora> or below.

So we just have not had that type of philanthropic capital that a region, especially like ours needs in order to fund the good things that we need here.

<Jim> Yeah.

Why do you think there's such a discrepancy?

And then, why do you think the funding should be coming here?

<Lora> Well, there's a disparity across rural America, period, no matter where you are.

Less funding comes to rural than urban centers, right?

The trend has been a lot of extraction and wealth has been made from rural America, and that's certainly true here in the heart of the coal fields.

I mean, a billion dollars or more has come out of the coal fields that has fueled the industrial revolution and our development as a country.

Very little of that money has ever stayed or come back.

So, there's a lot to undo here when we think about moving forward, and I think what we have is an opportunity to reimagine what an economy of care looks like, and that's what I'm interested in moving forward, is what does an economy built off of care and loving your neighbor look like in this place?

<Jim> This concept of loving your neighbor could be seen and felt everywhere in the flood's aftermath, from the free hot meals and farmer's market at Cane, to clean up crews in Neon and volunteers rebuilding in Fleming.

But the acute need for care in Appalachia extends to another less visible crisis, every bit as devastating as the most extreme natural disaster.

Tell me more about some of those models, especially in the world of food.

<Lora> Gwen Johnson, for example, up at the Hemphill Community Center.

Gwen is amazing.

And with the bakery that she started there, it's a workforce development program, as well, for men and women who are in recovery or coming out of a recovery center, or formerly incarcerated.

<Jim> While the opioid scourge is a national issue, Appalachia is ground zero with rates of overdose deaths 72% higher than elsewhere.

Gwen decided to fight back using food, love and employment and opened Black Sheep Bakery, a safe space and second chance for formerly incarcerated and recovering addicts.

I'm really interested if that crisis with opioids, did it coincide with the decrease in co-employment?

Did it coincide with the increase in unemployment, let's say?

<Gwen Johnson> Well, it seemed to me that it was a strategic thing that the big pharma would dump tons of oxycontin into this region at about the same time.

Now, it was over a period of years that it escalated, but I read one study that said that there were 86 oxycontin per week for every man, woman, and child in our population here that made its way into these mountains.

So that was not a fluke.

So, I said, "Well, there's nothing cheaper than flour and salt and water.

Why don't we make bread?"

And so I volunteered to kind of spearhead that and see what happened.

We just celebrated our fourth anniversary of Black Sheep Bakery.

<Jim> Congratulations.

♪ music ♪ When I'm at home, I'm not sure how pliable this is.

<Gwen> It's pretty pliable.

<Jim> But I kind of put a fist in there and just kind of spin it around a little bit, when I'm at home, but I'm not sure how ... <Gwen> Do you throw it up and all that?

<Jim> Can't throw.

I can't throw.

<Gwen> Me neither.

<Jim> But I can kind of ... <Gwen> There you go!

You know it.

<Jim> We kind of back spoon it.

You guys do the same thing?

<Gwen> Yep.

♪ music ♪ All right, now begin to pull you pizza back a little bit.

Oh, you caught it on fire.

<Jim> Okay.

Should I bring it out?

<Gwen> Yeah, pull it.

<Jim> Oh, Lord.

Oh, God.

Oh, God.

All right.

<Gwen> Because it's hot.

<Jim> Would you do the honors?

Okay, there we go.

It blew out by itself.

<Gwen> All right, now let that ... <Jim> Let it cool a little bit.

<Gwen> And don't put it up so close.

And you can cut off that burnt edge.

<Jim> Yeah, I will.

I think I'm going to- You know what?

<Gwen> Okay, so you're doing good!

♪ music ♪ Here you go, my friend.

<Jim> Thank you, Gwen.

<Gwen> You did good.

<Jim> You saved me.

(laughing) What have you discovered in your time?

What is it about food that helps with this idea of recovery, with this idea of healing?

<Gwen> Well, I believe that we all need a place to belong, and so we worked hard to make a free space here where everybody's respected.

Breaking bread is such an ancient thing, so to break bread with somebody is to converse with them as you eat to maybe gaze into their eyes.

How can you discount somebody after you've heard their story or you sat down and partook of a meal with them or broke bread with them?

I think food is so important, and one way that it's been important for all of us is it's a creative outlet.

Oh!

I thought y'all had them up on top.

♪ music ♪ <Mary> I was on meth and pills, and I got off because I got put in drug court.

So I've been out of drug court since April and I've stayed clean because I want to, because I've built a better life and I know what getting high one time, where it'll take me.

Losing everything again.

<Jim> You told me that you have three kids.

What do they think about what you're doing now?

<Mary> They're very proud of me.

Really proud of me.

I only talk to one of them, though, because the other two, they've not reached out yet.

But my son's very proud.

<Jim> You've been here for two years.

What do you feel you've gotten out of it?

<Mary> A lot of support, support that I didn't have before, you know what I'm saying?

Because Gwen, she's an awesome boss.

She'll do anything for you.

She'll work with your schedules and all that stuff, and friends, friendships.

<Jim> Nice.

<Jason> See me and Mary, we met through drugs, and then we both got clean at different times.

She had already been working here when I come back.

That was just awesome to walk in and see somebody I knew that was healthy and clean.

But around here, before the flood, the drugs was horrible.

You could walk to your neighbor and get whatever you wanted, but with this place, it has helped us all stay clean.

<Jim> And I can see from the time that I've been here, it seems to me it's helping the team not only nurture yourselves, but nurture others in the community.

<Jason> Oh, yeah.

We always greet to everybody with a smile.

Ever since I come off drugs, the people weren't too nice to me around here.

But here, they come in, they respect us.

It's a big thing to have.

And when you've got respect from people, it helps keep you away from the other stuff.

<Jim> What do you think this says for Letcher County?

For Appalachia?

<Mary> Everybody deserves a second chance.

She does a lot of help with all the community, not just with people in recovery and stuff like that.

With the flood efforts and stuff like that, she has not stopped.

She needs a break, you know what I'm saying?

She won't take one, but she needs one.

Anybody that needs help, they can come to her and she'll help them.

<Gwen> We've hired some folks here that people didn't want to come here and buy goods at the bakery because they were working here, because some of them made a big mess in the community before they got incarcerated.

We have to forgive each other and give each other grace.

That's the one thing that I would like to see people take away from this place is, "Hey, they didn't look down on me.

Maybe I shouldn't look down on them."

<Jim> That is definitely something we can all take home and think about.

Maybe try to incorporate ourselves everywhere, right?

<Gwen> Elementary.

<Jim> I love it.

♪ music ♪ (crowd clapping to the music) ♪ ♪ (crowd cheering) Appalachia's multifaceted challenges defy easy answers.

Yet by using food as a common denominator for healing and recovery, grassroots leaders here are embarking on a brave new path.

It's one that values forgiveness and grace over extraction, and in turn reaps the fruits of care and connectedness.

If we can check our misperceptions and see past the seeming paradox, lessons from Appalachia might even point to a more restorative future for us all.

♪ music ♪ (clapping) On the next episode of The Food Principle <Jim> All right, you ready?

Because this is going down.

<Ronnie Tartt> Okay.

<Jim> Are you ready?

<Ronnie> I'm ready.

My mama taught me how to cook, baby <Jim> Can I be one of your kids too?

(laughing) From grits to gold, and farming to food trucks, how a new generation of Appalachians are reaching back to their roots to show us a brighter road ahead.

<Mohsin> When you consider culture and biodiversity, they're the same thing.

And if you take the culture out of a region, it's like taking the biodiversity out of the region.

♪ music ♪ ♪ closing music ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪