An audio piece I produced mixing a traditional milling song from Cameroon with interview from Carolina Ground aired on APM’s The Splendid Table on May 22nd. See Earth Flavor 13 to read more about the women grinding grain at Carolina Ground.
Here is the original piece:
Or listen to the episode on The Splendid Table here. Milling song is from a compilation album called Nord Cameroun. Musique des Ouldémé (2001).
Rebekah Brown “Brownie” Lee talks and reflects on cultural and economic difference, race, colonialism, and the Peace Corps at her home in Ouidah, Benin, February 22, 2012. I am revisiting the interview now in honor of Brownie’s recent passing. As the Francophone African saying goes, “Que la terre lui soit légère.” Friend and mentor, you are missed.
Lee cites materialism and the extended family as two major cultural differences between West Africa and the US. She speaks of her own experience taking in children in the various countries in which she lived and worked, and shares her concern about the practice of psychoanalysis (“I came home from Peace Corps, and people were going to counselors like we used to go the the dentist.”). She concludes the interview with her favorite proverb: “The snake cannot give birth to anything short and fat.”
Brownie Lee joined the Peace Corps as a volunteer in 1962; she was part of the first group to serve in Togo, West Africa. She then served as a volunteer in Guinea (1964-1966) and had a long teaching career that spanned Eastern and Western Africa, the U.S. and Jamaica, before returning to work in varlous supervisory roles and program directorships for the Peace Corps in the 1980s and 90s, and finally serving as Peace Corps Country Director in Togo and Benin (starting in 2007 and 2009, respectively).
Interviewer Carla Seidl served in the Peace Corps in Azerbaijan from 2006 to 2008 and in Peace Corps’ Girls Education and Empowerment program (which Brownie was influential in starting) in Togo from 2009 to 2011. At the time of this interview, she was serving as a Peace Corps Response volunteer at the International Center for Art and Music of Ouidah (CIAMO), Benin.
Background noise during the interview is Lee’s adopted teenage girls doing housework and meal preparation.
Learn about about wild weed pesto, dandelion mead, fried dandelion flowers, and the wisdom of eating from uncultivated landscapes.
From Earth Flavor 15:
“…pioneers came to North America with dandelion seeds in their pockets, knowing the plant could help provide the health and sustenance they would need to survive in unknown territory”
“…foraging embodies an empowering philosophy of engagement that stands in stark contrast to the shackling consumerist attitude of never having enough.”
This story was also published in Mountain Xpress as “Dandelions for Dinner.”
“Seed equals food,” says Carol Koury, founder and owner of Asheville open-pollinated seed company Sow True Seed. And greasy beans are a true Appalachian specialty. Earth Flavor 14. Also in Mountain Xpress as “Cool Beans.”
Read Earth Flavors’ latest, on stone milled flour from Carolina Ground, in Mountain Xpress, or at earthflavors.net.
The Asheville mill Carolina Ground is reaching back to the simplicity of stone milling to take flour to the next level of taste, health, and community responsibility. Earth Flavor 13.
A personal essay related to family dynamics and the challenge of communication loss due to ALS featured in the latest issue of Schwa Fire.
See also, Earth Flavors profile 11.
Learning about natural fermentation, brick ovens, local whole wheat flour, and the art of a dark, flavorful crust at Flat Rock Village Bakery. Earth Flavor 12.
The eleventh Earth Flavors profile features sweet potatoes from the “Peace” garden at the Pisgah View Apartments in Asheville, NC — part of the project Gardens United, which seeks to empower residents of low-income communities through gardening.
Carl Johnson with freshly dug Beauregard potatoes