Interview: Forging Food and Water Solutions

Though New Orleans has an amazing food scene, it also struggles with access for all to healthy foods and clean water. We talk with attorney Pepper Bowen about food deserts and swamps, lead pipes, and how people are working to make things better.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:06):
Hello, and welcome to Savor Protection of I Heart Radio
and Stuff Media. I'm Ann and I'm Lauren vocal Baum
and today we have another Savor interview for you. Yes,
and this this is one of my personal faves. Oh yeah.
This was one of our New Orleans interviews. We got
to visit the city of New Orleans in UH November November,
and while we were there, we talked with one Sean

(00:29):
Pepper Bowen, who is an environmental food and water attorney. Yes,
and she was someone that was recommended to us from
our first interview, and so it was a very like
it happened quickly, very quickly, and she was so kind
to take time out of her day and especially time
out of all of our busy and conflicting schedules to

(00:49):
make it happen. We ran late on our first interview
and it was a whole thing. We were meeting her
at this lovely cafe and snowbar called up Porsche out
on Browne Street and which was delight by the way.
Um y'all go out there get the I think Dylan
had the rice and beans and he was so excited
about them. He was. I think it was gone in
less than a minute just devoured, absolutely and the po

(01:13):
boys were terrific. But yeah, Pepper, she is a consultant
and culinary activist. She's the founding director of the Culinaria
Center for Food Law, Policy and Culture. And it was
just this amazing resource about the current environmental and legal
uh culture of how food and water happens in New Orleans. Yes,

(01:35):
and it was just a delight. I'm glad it worked out.
Oh me too, so absolutely so glad. So yeah, without
further ado, let us get into the interview. So I like,
I like to start these things off with the with
the simple question of HI, who are you? It might

(01:59):
not be no, no, no, it's just you know, we've
been talking here for twenty minutes, and which sounds like
many conversations I've had on the street car. My name
is Pepper Bowen. I am a food and water attorney
in New Orleans. I'm founding director of Culinaria Center for
Food Law, Policy and Culture. I am also chair of

(02:21):
the New Orleans Food Policy Advisory Committee, which is the
official policy organization for the City of New Orleans by
resolution from the City Council. What what Yeah, yes, Well
that's a major accomplishment for us, but I wear many
many hats. But anyways, Um, yeah, well so one of

(02:44):
the as you may have guessed, one of the many
things that I do with most of my time is
work on food law and food policy, and food in
general is very near and dear to my heart. I've
been eating all of my life, and I am very
proud to say that there are many of those meals
that have been amazing. The better stories come for the

(03:05):
ones that really weren't. But many of my conversations we
revolve around food. So now that we have all joined
each other at a table in our waiting for lunch,
we can talk about food and many other things. Um,
did you are you? Friend? New Orleans? I was born here.
I did not graduate from high school here. They don't

(03:27):
claim me I was. It's very true. It's a it's
a moment of distinction. I missed that window. I was
born at Charity Hospital with eight of the population. At
one point, that was a mark of shame because I
went to Catholic schools where everybody else was born at
a holy name or an our lady or a saint
somebody's hospital, and I was born at Charity. And we

(03:49):
came back to moved to San Diego when I was
little uh and went elementary school there, came back in
junior high, and I went to high school in Southwest Louisiana.
Hence the moment that was missed college the first couple
of years in northern California, and then I've been back
here ever since, lived here before, after and after Katrina.
UM did evacuate. And they promised me, they that means

(04:13):
the natives, the ones who did go to high school here,
that if I came back after Katrina, that they would
say I was from here. They have not, And it's
okay because I got over that a while back. But
I've lived here my entire adult life. My kids are
from here, um and as long as they graduate from
high school year they will continue to be from here.

(04:35):
I love the specificity with which people insist, oh yeah, yeah, yeah,
that's a distinction. And you know it was actually talking
with the guy yesterday who's from Seattle, and he was
saying that it didn't used to be that way in Seattle,
but now with so many transplants into the area because
of tech, they are also becoming a little bit more
personickity about who gets to call themselves a Seattle ie R.

(04:58):
What kind of food memories do you have from growing up?
So many? So many? So my personal favorite is again,
we were living in San Diego when I was little,
and every year we would come back, that was my
mother's vacation. We would take it at Marty Cras. Didn't
matter when Marta Graffel, that's when we would come. I
was an only child to a single mother. She was

(05:21):
working on our masters. I can only imagine that things
might have must have been difficult for her because San
Diego is super expensive now and my lifetime, I can't
imagine you the cost of living is troubled or anything.
But um, that meant she didn't cook a lot. And
when she did cook, she cooked meals that would stretch, right.
So the pot of beans. You New Orleans is famous

(05:42):
for beans on Monday. We would have those beans until
Friday and then wow, look at that Monday's right around
the corner. And so she would cook for holidays, but
it was, you know, just the two of us, and
so it was never anything amazing. And it wasn't until
we would come down for Marty Graw that there would

(06:04):
be home cooked meals. Now, and it wasn't throughout the
entire week. So please don't misunderstand. My grandmother had been
a cook when the when her daughter was growing up.
But you know, as you know, she got older and
it was just her and her dog. There was really
no reason to do the cooking, and so she would
cook a bit when we were here. Um. But what

(06:26):
she did do, which was also not earth shattering, but
what she did do was to make breakfast. And so,
because the air is later and she lived in an uptown,
two story double house, the windows of cractice a little bit.
There's always a draft because you just can't get them warm,
and you could smell the bacon and eggs and grits

(06:46):
and coffee just wapping up the stairs, and that to
me just felt like home. And so my food memories
are all surrounded by some random event, but my favorite
is a the smell of breakfast in the technically renter
of New Orleans. Back when I was a kid. How

(07:08):
did you decide to get into food law and policy?
As you're okay? So interestingly enough, I had kids in
my own and the first one, right, the one that
you take all the time with and you you well,
and I'm taype A so it would have happened at
some point anyhow, but but it became really super important.

(07:30):
Not only family, uh that you know, he knew whose
family was and where he came from, because there's a
very strong sense of identity that comes with that cohesion
a cross generation, but also that every experience was an
amazing experience. Right. So, there are very few things that
you actually do need to live. Food is one of them.

(07:51):
And there's not a whole lot that you can do
to improve the quality of a drink or the complexities
of drinks for infants. Uh, it's all right. Air just
kind of happens to be what it is, unless, of course,
you live next to some sort of petroleum plant, and
that's a different conversation. But food, food is the one

(08:13):
thing that is across culture, gender, hierarchy. Everybody eats, and
whether you are eating something that is amazing or something
that is just this side of trash itself is really
up to you. And so because every experience for this
little bundle of goo was going to be a new one,

(08:35):
I wanted for them all to be incredible. Right. So, Um,
when I was little, my my mother had this thing
for strawberries and we lived in San Diego, and so
one would think that strawberries would be amazing, But I
grew up thinking that strawberries taste it very much like
cardboard um, mainly because she, like many other people and

(08:55):
contents who did then and still do now, would our
had a tendency to I produce out of season. And
if you are buying it out of season, it is
certainly not at the peak of fractions. It's not a
peak of flavor. It doesn't have the peak sweetness or sucrows,
and so it's made eating fruit less appetizing as it

(09:15):
were um. And so I wanted for him to know
what it was supposed to taste like. And because of
my first child, who began eating with the seasons, so
going to farmers markets or even identifying when things grew
and when they when they taste it the past, so
that if you know what it's supposed to taste like,
then you have a frame of reference for what it's
not supposed to taste like and when you're not supposed

(09:37):
to be eating it, and how it's supposed to be
tucked and what what are these things? What are all
of these amazing components that make the dinners of of
any age, or any class or any people. Incredible. What
are these components? Um? And so that solidified my love

(09:58):
of food in and out of self. But um, I
quit my job as a project manager after a number
of years that I will not disclose. I decided I
was going to law school logically to be an immigration attorney.
And so so, yeah, that totally makes sense food immigration. Yes, well,

(10:22):
I do like to equip. Which is pretty true that
the British were colonizing for takeout. But I'm so sorry
I should have waited until you weren't drinking. Yeah, um,
but that is partially true. So but the thing was

(10:44):
that I got into I went into immigration for a
number of reasons, and that when I was in law
school the first year, I figured out that it was
um family law across international borders, and screwing up would
be just the thing that would never let me look
myself in the mirror again. And so I looked around
for those things that, as any business magazine will tell you,

(11:04):
find your joy, find the thing you love, you'll never
work again. Follow your passion. And my passion led me
to cookbooks in the kitchen, and food magazines and food TV,
and the fact that I even learned how to peer
wine because I wanted to have great dinner parties. And
so I figured, all right, well, maybe is food like

(11:26):
a thing? And I wasn't sure, But what I did
know is that food comes from the environment. And so
I got, uh, put myself on a track to get
certificates in international as well as environmental law, and then
did a little bit more digging and came to the
understanding that yes, not only is food law a thing,
but there's also such a thing as water law, which

(11:48):
is not necessarily municipal or drinking water, but it is
still a thing. And most of our litigation has been
at the root of it somehow around food one of
the and there are so many, so many nuances that
you can look at for food, Like when somebody dies
of some sort of food poisoning, is that criminal food law?

(12:10):
It could be this is actually a thing add soda joke.
When you are buying a salmon that may actually be
perched only dyed pink, is that food fraud also a thing? Um?
And you know, just something that's probably a little bit
more tangible for a lot of people is when you

(12:32):
start thinking about electoral property around the seed itself. So
the genetic makeup of a seed, who gets to grow it,
who owns it, and how it is that it can
that it continues to proliferate through the generations, and that
is UM. You know around mon Santo DuPont car Guild,
the large pesticide makers and you know all of the

(12:53):
pesticides that go onto the food itself. And so I
got into food law because as I drank the kool aid,
as it were, that I would never work again, and
I hear that if I was going to do it,
that doing it here in New Orleans are probably a
great place to do it. But then I sort of
stumbled back aass words into UM, a place that seems

(13:20):
to be a road less traveled, so more around policy
and how to make the rules as opposed to just
following them and writing laws and legislation as opposed to
just figuring out which ones we can avoid. So it's
a very long winded way to say, UM. Kind of

(13:44):
by accident, Yeah, no, I think that's where all of
us are. Basically, each choice got me closer. But I
don't really know why I was making all those choices.
It's not where I started. UM. A lot of the
people we've been talking to our discussing food as sort

(14:06):
of like we've been talking about it as a as
a cell, as a celebration, and as UM and of
course it is. I mean, it's it's a beautiful part
of all of our roots and communities and cultures. UM.
But it's also a necessity UM. And it's also a
thing that you know, like we just spent like a
hundred bucks ahead on dinner the other night, and that

(14:27):
is a ludicrous amount of money to spend on food,
and a lot of people don't have any yeah, any money,
any food, just any Okay, can you speak a little
bit to to to that to um to the policies
surrounding UM hunger and sure. So, food access, for those
who don't know, is the ability to get to food, right,

(14:49):
So that would be food, healthy food that allows you
to sustain life you and your family. Of food security
is the constant access to food. And what people don't
recognizes that it's it's it's distinguished from food access and
that it may be cyclical. So UM. For those of
us who have been to UH Institutes of higher learning,

(15:11):
I think finals right, so you are after Thanksgiving, your
parents are just like, I'm not playing you home twice again.
I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to anyway, You're getting
to the end of your meal plan, and you know,
you start pulling funds together, you and your roommate, and

(15:32):
we're really good friends. Because there's not enough money. That's
food insecurity, right, So it comes in waves. It's not
that you always don't have enough, but that at some
points you just really need to figure out some kind
of way to make ends meet. And fast forward that
into an adult life where it's you, maybe a partner,
a couple of kids, that becomes far more crucial, mainly

(15:55):
because the money that you're pulling with your partner, you're
already pulling that money where your partner and if there's
not enough to feed the family, then that becomes something
that's more dire. And that's when we find folks who
have full time jobs who are still eating at the
shelters or going to what people affectionately called soup kitchens

(16:16):
because they're just not making enough to to sustain themselves
and housing and shelter excuse me, shelter, food and clothing. Right. So, um,
the work that is being done here is multi faceted
and the reasons that they are multi faceted is because
we have finally gotten I hope, to a place where

(16:39):
we understand that food and in fact, no problem can
be addressed in a silo, and that they are all
interconnected in many, many ways. So you've spoken with a
lot of or at least sounds like you've spoken with
a lot of folks who work in restaurants. Um, beyond
the folks who own the restaurants, who manage the restaurants,
who maybe investors in restaurants, there's a lot of line staff.

(17:02):
There are folks who may wait tables, who may wash dishes,
who might mop the floor. These are folks who are
not pulling down Google gobs of money. Right, So if
you are, indeed, even after tips, and we won't even
get to my opinion on tips, even after tips, you guests, Yeah, right,

(17:25):
just exactly. Um, if you're not making a living wage,
then surely you find yourself in a position where you
cannot take care of yourself. And so that being one silo,
the access to food, being able to afford healthy food
is a whole different silo where we might find urban

(17:45):
farmers who are faced with the same issues. They don't
make enough to sustain themselves. And yeah, they might sell
you had a lettuce or a fancy bag of greens
for six dollars, but what is it cost them in
order to actually produce it, especially on a small scale.
And you know, to be fair to all concerned, they

(18:08):
have a tendency to grow the higher dollar items. So
they're not necessarily growing bell peppers that you'd be able
to buy at a grocery store three for a dollar.
They're buying. There's growing the things that you would spend
a premium for. And then we've also got all of
these other sort of bits and pieces of components around transportation.

(18:28):
So if you can't get to your job, how do
you keep your job? Um energy costs of electricity, costs
of heating when you have extremes and temperatures, even if
you can afford which is another silo, affordable housing, even
if you can afford somewhere to live, how do you
keep the lights on if it's ridiculously expensive to do so?

(18:50):
And so a lot of the groups that I'm working
with are working in collaboration and sharing information across sectors
so that there is a better understanding of how all
of these things tie into right your ability as a person,
just as a human walking around with inherent value to
support yourself and to sustain life. So some of the

(19:12):
work that we're doing is around access, and that would
be just the ability to get to fresh and healthy foods.
One of the collaborators that that we work with is
has been working on fresh food corner stores, where you
actually bring in fresh food to corner stores already in
the neighborhoods, so that folks who were there can have

(19:35):
access at a lower cost two foods that they ordinarily
would not be able to get to. UM. Also working
on larger policies that will allow people to be able
to will and then Jesus, there's a farm bill, which
is another thirty minute conversation if that UM that allow
us to understand how it is that we can make

(19:57):
food access far more sustainable for folks who are working
a living wage. So joining with people who are doing
or leading the charge on the fight for fifteen so
that folks will have money in order to spend. And
then I also spend a good bit of time educating
and explaining the folks that the idea of people living

(20:18):
in food deserts and now there's a food swamp, which
is exactly the converse, where you have a glut of
fast food restaurants that are in depressed areas for the
most part. And by depressed, they don't mean that they're sad.
I mean that they have a lower economic income level.
And this is across creed, culture, religion. It's just that
these are these areas. I spent a lot of time

(20:40):
at educating and helping people understand that the way that
we have been seeing food deserts and even food swamps
is through a lens of charity, and instead of thinking
about these poor people if they only knew better, that
they would do better, if we would get to a
point where we understood clearly that the death the initiative
of food desert is that you simply do not have

(21:02):
direct access to fresh fruit produced right So, whether it's
a fruit or a vegetable on a regular basis within
a mile from about a mile from where you live,
or where like a third of your neighborhood is on
a consistent basis, then if you happen to live in
a neighborhood where you have a lovely boulangerie, a butchery,

(21:23):
maybe a butchery, maybe even a wine cellar. The bottom
line is you are still in a food desert. You're
just in a really expensive food desert with a cheesemonger
next door. So so if instead of looking at it
again through a lens of charity, which is what I
and I love it when people are just like, oh, yes,

(21:44):
I get it, it's a food desert, it's like no, no,
Now what you get is that these you continue to
think that these people need to be educated. Right, So
what especially in areas like New Orleans where we do
have a consistent number of transplants, and these are folks

(22:04):
who are not necessarily coming from the north because they're
teaching school or because they were rebuilding houses. These may
be people who are coming from even as close as
four hours away, where they're living in rural areas and
they're just coming to the city in order to find jobs. Now,
this is not an uncommon occurrence that happens in most cities,

(22:26):
even though we jokingly say that New Orleans is just
a big town. The idea of these people coming from
a rural environment and then miraculously arriving in the city
and have forgotten all about how to feed themselves and
what it looks like um. And I know that we've
got some folks who are very well meaning, and I

(22:46):
respect that they want to help and do things that
are right and just and equitable for all. The problem
is that until we accept that many of the ways
that we discussed inequality and um inequity being not necessarily

(23:06):
meaning that we all have the same, but that we
are treated on a level that is give us. Giving
us justice in court systems and everywhere we go is
usually through a lens of color, patriarchy and all of
the things that we that we have been really against
as a society for at least the past two years

(23:27):
for reasons unknown. Uh. Then um, then we will continue
to walk down these paths where we are simply confused.
I had a great conversation with a woman who was
saying that she spends a lot of time working with
our on climate change, and there are many many things
that impact our food up to and including climate change. Right,

(23:50):
so if you don't know when it's going to rain
or if it's suddenly too hot this summer, um, it
was everybody I know who's growing corn, there was no corn. Um.
The squash leaves burnt up in the heat. But I
can produce watermelons. For whatever reason, the oakre took off.
But and ye know this is just a little garden, right, So,
I mean worse comes to worse. There's a grocery store

(24:12):
or three grocery stores within five miles because I live uptown. Um,
what about those folks who are relying upon the weather
and the soil in order to actually produce for a living.
And then things become slightly more complex, right, Um, A
lot of folks who are working on climate change are
looking at it from a metropolitan boop. Right, So, municipalities

(24:32):
are suffering with stormwater management and rising waters, and globally
where just increasing the temperatures and there's not really or
rather's not often a clear line that is drawn to
what does that mean? All right? So, so what we've
got an extra four degrees two degrees? What does that mean?

(24:54):
I'm just turning up the heat, I'm turning up the air.
What does this look like? Well for food, it is
clear that food is being impacted. And you know, even
if you're not, let's not even talk about food. Let's
discuss your wine. Yes, So suddenly those cool temperatures that
you need in order to produce just the right balance

(25:17):
that's off. And so instead of being able to charge
twenty of wine because twenty dollars a bottle, you're having
to drop it because now it's swill. It's three four
dollars a bottle. Now the two buck chuck that was
a great thing was one off. But that's a different conversation. Um,
these are folks who are generally young, they are well educated,
there from suburbs, and they're often white, middle class or

(25:43):
or something that somewhere in that vicinity. Right, So think
suburban kid who has just grown up watching things on
TV and not necessarily being up there on the front
rows or front lines. Conversely, folks who have been living
in the inner cities for generations, who could not afford
to leave when the white flight happened, who have scratched

(26:04):
out a living for you know, the past twenty years.
They are on the front lines of issues around food
security and food equity because they are the ones who
are most impacted. And what they're not seeing is that
there is a clear common ground. And as soon as
we get to a place where we understand that there
is a common ground, we can move mountains together by

(26:27):
building communities and organizing grassroots movements, entire movements that allow
us to see change. That is beyond just having a
grocery store. It is really more about having a an
echo system that is supportive for all of us. Yeah,
food is an infrastructure. We have a lot more topics

(26:51):
to cover in this interview, but first we're going to
pause for a quick break forward from our sponsor and
we're back. Thank you. Spot there, Let's get back to it.
Um So so yeah, so, so we've been we've been
talking about access to food and all of the different

(27:12):
layers and the infrastructure that food really is and should
be treated as. Are there other specific areas that you
are working in that our points of passion for you
that are important for humans to know about. Yeah? So, um,
I suppose you're a two things. So first is in
basis species. I'm a huge proponent basis species, not that

(27:35):
we should have them, but that we should eat them.
So think of Asian carp that is prevalent all up
and down the Mississippi River the states around the Mississippi,
and they have been found in fresh an salt waters,
great lakes all the way down to the practice waters
of our values here and for those of you who

(27:56):
are unfamiliar with Asian carp or silver fin as it
is now being called, those are the jumping fish, not
the California plant fish, but the jumping fish, the ones
that when you boat through an area that may look
very calm and you see a fish hurl itself out
of the water, that is an Asian carp or silver fin.

(28:17):
And the the way they do that is really you
evolutionary that there they have a rib cage that curves
under and so allows them compel themselves out of the water.
They are voracious eaters, so please, please, please, if you
ever see somebody who's got a giant fish, don't be
afraid eat it. Just pull out a fork and figure
out a way. So this is we did Best to

(28:39):
Buy Catch, which is a cooking competition, and I use
that within airports because it's not very much of a competition.
It's really more about cooking and eating Asian carp two
years and the summer at the end of June, we've
done those at the Southern Food and Beverage Museum. This
year it was to end the Eat Local Challenge because

(29:00):
is the Avisian carpet is an is an invasive species.
Which makes it a local food that can be found
within two hundred miles. See it will make sense, I promise.
We invite chefs to come in and prepare it any
kind of way that they want to. We have had
everything from tacos, fish cakes and boudin um. Yes, there
was indeed a chef who made buddin out of the

(29:22):
fish out of the fish um, and all sorts of
great interesting ideas which I think are terribly necessary for
things that are underutilized. Underutilized species there and so on.
That list of underutilized species and invasives are farrel hawks
and wild boor um. If you are ever bored, I've

(29:45):
written a couple of articles on those and you can
pull those up. But short version, long story is that
the Farrell hogs are the ones who just got away
right so there, maybe there is a big farmer abandoned
it for whatever reason, or the fence fell down and
they just lived in the wild and they're super adaptive
fince so they go wild within about six months. The

(30:08):
wild boar, on the other hand, are ones who had
been brought over for oh I cannot remember the name
of the entrepreneurs he brought them their way back when
and it was really just because he was trying to
entertain his guests, and it really Eurasian boor it was
imported in order to entertain his guests with hunting. And

(30:30):
we have been doing things as absurd since then. But
the point of the matter is that it's back in
the forties or so that there was a storm that
came through in the east on the east coast, fence
fell down and the boar got out. And so now
they've been, you know, having their own sense of manifest
destiny since. And the last thing is the Culinaria Water Project,

(30:52):
where we are attempting to identify the impacts that leads
and heavy metals have on in water have on urban
grown and sus foods. And since the U. S d
A defines processing as anything from washing to actually butchering,
that gives a pretty wide berth. But we have an
opportunity to not only look at what the individual impacts

(31:13):
are on leads and or heavy metals in water, on
the soil, but also on the food and on the
people themselves. And the objective long term is that we
will bring the folks who are most impacted and not
most often divested to the table and so, and allow
them to share their ideas about how it is that

(31:34):
they want to combat the problem, whether it be through
law or legislation or really just by asking for people
to be nicer to um, whatever it is that they
want to say, than we will go to bat for them.
But it's all member directed and member sponsored. So yeah, yeah,
that's what we're doing. UM, that's those those sound like

(31:56):
great projects, um around around New Orleans. What are the
challenges or problems that you're working with here? Um, you're
trying to solve here that are different from anywhere else?
And or why New Orleans? Why why are you practicing here?
So New Orleans for better or worse at home? And

(32:16):
I say for better or worse at its home because
for a long time I was trying desperately to get out.
I wanted to be somewhere else more cosmopolitan, and it
just didn't work. So here I am in what people
often consider a cosmopolitan city who want to thunk it anyhow,

(32:38):
And so that's the reason why here. I it's why
here because this is where I live and this is
what uh, it's important to me to preserve. There are
not a lot of cities in the Continental US that
are as old as we are, have as deeper history
as we do, and who have held onto it as

(32:59):
well as we have. Now, there are many who would
say that we are not a part of the continental US,
but that we are the northernmost Caribbean city. And whether
that be true is I neither confirmed nor didn't I.
What I will say is that we are very in
tune with who we are as a people, and I

(33:19):
think that it's super important that we maintain that culture,
whether it be in food or music, or clothes, or
whatever the case might happen to be, and something as
simple as just making sure that everybody you know knows
how to make a rue. These are the things that
I really truly believe should be passed down from generation

(33:41):
and generation. There's so many things that are happening here
that may not be happening in other places, may not
be happening in other places because they may be situated differently. Now,
we along with Boston and Miami, are old, and we
are sinking, and so we have some of our challenges

(34:03):
around water and poverty, and so we are all resilient cities,
and you know, good better and different we find ourselves
in situations where we are combating the same problems. We
are finding that some of our problems are exacerbated by
many of our questionable choices around activities. So, whether it

(34:24):
be that we dump tons upon tons upon tons of
plastic beads into storm drains, or that we, in our
interest and intent to do the right thing by building
up the uh the streets so that cars could drive

(34:48):
on them, we have, as an unintended consequences in parts
of the city raise those levels of the streets so
that they are above the sidewalks and thereby above the
front doors. Folks live in neighborhoods, and so um. I
think that there are a lot of opportunities for us
to do better before it turns into something that no

(35:10):
longer has a soul. Um that and I mean there's
I am a huge fan of big Box for a
lot of reasons, but I don't want to live in
a place that's big box. I don't want to I
don't want to look back on New Orleans and see
what it used to be. I want to be able
to continue to walk to places and and see those

(35:32):
things as real time and right now. And I think
that there are more people than I would like to
think um, and that I would like to admit who
like the idea of the facade, but don't necessarily want
to get in and do the dirty work. And so
it's easier to either leave or to complain that New

(35:59):
Orleans is back words and we don't want any different.
And and that may be true in some ways, that
we really don't want to be a Hoboken. Maybe we
really don't want to be of Vegas. We don't want
to change in those respects. And I have also been

(36:21):
super critical of New Orleans for many, many years because
there's been the corruption and um malfeasance and a lot
of nepotism. But these are not crimes that are isolated
or distinct to this town or even to this state.

(36:42):
I think that we get a lot of a necessary
publicity around those issues because folks have a tendency to
think of the South in general as a place for
backwoods hicks, where we walk around with bare feet and
talk with a drawl, and we don't in New Orleans.
This has never been the place for that, um, because

(37:03):
nobody wants their feet slump just in the swamp. It's
just I swear, it's unpleasant and it smells funny, So
thank you. That's the that's the sound bite shoes, y'all.
So the again, the water project that we're working on

(37:27):
is really to avoid a similar issue that happened in Flint,
where they're there was enough information that could have been
given to the public in order to make a decision
about where the water the source that they were using,
what the implications may have been, and what the possibilities were. No, no,

(37:47):
they did not see all of us coming. They really didn't.
But give given the option between saving a couple of
hundred dollars or you know, however many lives, it seems
to me that it made more sense just to ask
these folks, well, what do you think, right, so we
could go up on your water bill and you know,

(38:11):
we kind of break it even we try this other
water source and I don't remember their water bills going down.
But that being another conversation altogether. We have, especially post Katrina,
we've had a number of challenges. Um there had been

(38:32):
some studies that came out about toxicity and the soil.
So many people when they saw the waters rise, didn't
seem to quiet realize that wasn't pool water, that was
flooding houses and standing for weeks upon end that it
was filled with things that might have been less amusing.

(38:55):
But just as soon as those stories came out, they
seemed to have disappeared. There was no follow up with
what happened to the possibility that there was contamination of
the soil by the waters that were contaminated in themselves. Um,
what happened, because it's not like they know when he
came along with buckets and just you know, dumped the

(39:15):
water back into the river, that the it's subsided, it
was absorbed by the soil, and there had there was
a small study that was done and folks were told
that there were elevated levels of leads and heavy metals,
and you know, there were some toxins, but it was
nothing that was going to kill you. Right. But then
thegitality of the circumstances is that we have had a

(39:37):
number of really peculiar rises. Now these have correlated with
rises in public health over the country. Right, So if
you look at school children, there has been a rise
in the numbers of black and brown children who have
been suspended and expelled from schools, and this has set

(39:59):
up a and I don't know when it was coined.
But this has given traction to the whole idea of
the school to prison pipeline. UM. There has also simultaneously
been a rise in the number of children who are irritable,
who are unable to sit still for long periods of time,
who may have difficulty learning, who may even need additional attention,

(40:23):
and by happenstance, these are the same reasons that these
black and brown children are being suspended. So what happened,
we don't really know. But what we do know for
sure is that UM lead levels, when they present early
on set, those those are all the markers. And so

(40:45):
I'm not saying that we that all of our children
are contaminated with lead. What I am saying is that
it just doesn't make sense that out of the blue,
after fifty seventy years of educating children, that all of
a sudden, that black and brown children should have such

(41:05):
a large propensity of these same characteristics. But we're not
doing anything to fix it. We're incarcerating them, and we're
putting them out, and we're out of schools, out of
support areas. We're creating a different problem. It doesn't fix anything,

(41:27):
and we continue to send them through in this way
that again deserves another look. We need to start investigating
how these things are coming about and how it is
that would make more sense to unpack them because that
creates a more sustainable ecosystem as opposed to attempting to

(41:47):
continue to approach it in a silo. Absolutely, we have
a bit more interview for you, but first we've got
one more quick break for a word from our sponsor,
and we're back. Thank you sponsor, and back to the

(42:09):
interview with Pepper. Do you have any success stories, um,
from cases that you've worked on, policies that you've m well,
I can tell you that this is completely selfish. I'm
going to say it. Anyhow, I actually wrote a bill
that became law a couple of years ago. UM, and

(42:29):
I the so it was one of it was one
of two. Right, So my partner in this legal policy class, UM,
she was writing a bill that would raise the threshold
for uh uh food acquisition to go out the public bit. Now,
the objective was a farm to school pipeline that we

(42:52):
could make it easier for people who work at schools
who want to have fresh in the schools to be
able to get to it. But the reality of the
situation is that there's was at the time a fifty
threshold that once you got over fifty dollars, it had
to go out of a public bid, and small and
medium sized urban farmers simply couldn't keep up with that,

(43:13):
and so her portion of it was to raise a
threshold to the national threshold so that they would have
more room to maneuver. Then once you raise it, that's great,
but now what so my abortion right, so it's a
sister to it, was that we would create some sort
of a database where UM schools could register, EMBARM school register,

(43:35):
and they would be able to talk to each other
and see what's available, what do you need, and there
would be you kind of like a match situation. I
won't call it, I won't call it online dating, but
but what I will say is that the intention was
really more of a database structure where there would just

(43:58):
you you'd run a query, for lack of better way
to put it, and that has actually been implemented at
the state level. And um I'm speaking at some event
in Baton Bridge a couple of weeks back, the Louisiana
Farmena School Conference conference a couple of weeks ago, but
was it a month. Now, what day is this? It
doesn't matter, is it? Have you really well, I'm glad

(44:24):
because I didn't know. Yeah. So, UM, Louisiana Farmed School Conference,
and the idea is that there were local farmers who
were trying to get in. And my portion of the
talk was really about explaining to early childhood educators, UM,

(44:44):
the reasons that you would want to purchase local. And
the short version, long story is that buying local is
really just a way for us to preserve our culture. Right. So, Um,
if you don't use it, you lose it. And to

(45:05):
be very crass about the whole situation, if you allow
your culture to dissipate because you think something else is
more interesting, then it really leaves the door open for
someone else to come in and to tell you what
it is. And I I like driving that home by
reminding people of the curfuffle a few years ago when

(45:27):
Disney tried to make gumbo, and obviously somebody beyond me
remembers that, Um, it was un precedented. It was the
one time that I can tell you that there was
an outcry across the state Louisiana. It didn't matter what
your politics were, it didn't matter if you were from

(45:48):
North Louisiana or South Louisiana, we were all in the
same outrage or even what kind of gumbo you make?
True story, because it was whatever you make, it was
not that I mean for crying out loud, it's freaky
keen want at the end, thank you. I appreciate your

(46:13):
righteous indignation. I can't even eat gumbo, and I'm offended
as well. Everyone should be like, but yeah, it's I mean,
it's the same basic idea that when when you move away,
when you step back from the idea of what it
is that you are, who you are, where your people
come from, and there are like incredible dishes that come

(46:37):
from all over the world, but you allow somebody else
to walk in and say, okay, well it's now something else. Well,
one thing I found really interesting about our time in
New Orleans so far is um, this whole community thing
and neighborhood thing, because as I've said, I don't have that.
There's like no neighborhood where I am. Um And just

(47:00):
could you speak to have you experienced that? Is that
something like how does food relate? I feel like food
is very important to that whole Yeah, well, so my grandmother.
Um was originally from Plaqueman's and she moved here in
nineteen fourteen, nineteen eighteen. Somewhere in the neighborhood. She was

(47:25):
very very old. Um, No, that's not true. She well,
it was no, she really was very old. I'm sorry,
that's not the That wasn't true. Um maybe it might
have been the No, but it was before the before
the crash. It was just before the Stockholm Mars bash
for the twenties and so this was, you know, the

(47:47):
place to go, like I was saying earlier, for folks
who were coming from rural areas in order to um,
you know, get jobs or what have you. Um. She
used to live in the area that is now around
Union Square, so where the Amtrak station is and all
that jazz and that was torn down back in the fifties, fifties, sixties,

(48:12):
somewhere in that neighborhood, perfore me. So I'm really just
going off of you know, anecdotal information. Obviously, she and
she and her her then husband god Rest his soul
owned a dry cleaner and a beauty parlor. And she
used to speak of the neighborhood right. So it's before

(48:33):
the housing project went in it's before the overpass went in.
It was back in a time where if you lived
a new community, chances are you had moved there voluntarily
and you were establishing a secondary family. Everybody was supporting you.
You just trying to get on your feet. It was
really all about community. And the city came in decided

(48:56):
that they were going to bulldoze that whole area build
Union Station. So she was moving. She moved farther uptown
into that same house and Jim Jenna between Liberty and
the South. At the time, she was the only African
American woman to be in that entire neighborhood. It was
Jewish and she used to sit on this stoop, which

(49:19):
is what it was called, even though there was a
whole porch and there was more than just the stairs
and do pop um that for those of you who
did not understand, that is door popping, which means paying
attention to somebody else's business. But every evening we would
sit out on the front porch and she would slather
me with avon skin so soft, and we would have

(49:39):
I'm Tommie, It's true. We would have big conversations. People
who walked down the street, they would either be walking
to the store from the store, um, and it was always, uh,
there was something that was in the kitchen. It was all.
There was always something in the kitchen. Now I don't remember,
I honest to God, I don't remember her ever cooking

(50:02):
up a storm. Right. So, as I got older and
we went to um to more family that was out
in southwest Louisiana, north the Lafayette, I have vivid memories
of the entire house smelling like whatever the catch of
the day was, or if they've gone hunting, you know,
if they were your grilling in the backyard and there

(50:23):
was you know, there were maybe deer ribs or something
like that, and it would come it was coming through
the house or um, maybe somebody had gone and picked
the cons and so they're making pies or whatever. I
don't have any of those memories of my grandma's house.
But what would happen is that whenever I would ask,
she would make um bread pudding, and on Sundays when

(50:44):
they would do their little old lady get together. So
she was always a little laid to me. So I
don't know if she was really a little lady, but
she was always a little lady to me, and for
our little old lady friends would cook for Sunday picnics. Right, So, um,
it was that sort of thing, and it was all
it was just the way it happened. It wasn't as

(51:05):
if it was constructed or it needed to be created.
They had been living in the same space for so
long that it just was. Um. I honestly don't know
that that is any different than any other part of town.
I can only say that based on my experience in
uptown in my family, that's what happened. Um. I can

(51:27):
also tell you that around New Orleans that depends upon
where your family immigrated from as to how it is
that you do make things. So what did you bring
with you when you got here? And we've always been
a a city that, for better or for worse, that
we are all about talking about food, just like you

(51:49):
long ago, Okay, anybody, you can stop anybody and you
have a long conversation about food. We talk about what
you're eating for dinner, over lunch, we talk about where
you where you got the best, the best that you
ever had of the same thing while you're eating it.
Because that's just it's very much a part of who
we are now. I personally think, and I have absolutely

(52:09):
no evidence about this up. I personally think that it
comes from not having food, right. So, Um, if you
go back far enough in any culture, there will be
a point where, and it's a different point for most
of us, Um, there will be a point where you
had to grow your own and you would be completely

(52:30):
dependent upon the weather and other conditions as to whether
it would actually survive. And even I can attest for
having a fig tree now in my backyard that I
am literally fighting with the birds. I never I used
to like them, and they were so cute they would
come and sit on my fence. And now I'm just

(52:51):
like I, I'm gonna have squab for dinner, apparently because
it's either me or this bird over these figs. So
so I think that, honestly, um, the sense of community
came from not having. And when you don't you don't have,
and I don't have. We pulled together and we can

(53:13):
make we can make stone soup. Um. What do you do?
What do you have going on? What do you see
in the future, What are you working on in the future.
What are we doing? So f bax So New Orleans
Fee Policy Advisory Committee, we are actually trying to identify
now what it is that we will suggest or recommend
to the city council. We are looking at things around

(53:35):
the Fresh Food f F Fresh Food Retailers Initiative f
r I grant, and there had not been a replenishment
of that grant at a city level for a number
of reasons. We just don't have a lot of grocery
stores and to meet that need, which is unfortunate at um.

(53:58):
For if anybody is looking at a list of grocery
stores in town, you will see that the ones that
survived could Trina, survived in uptown and the the original crescent,
so where the footprint of the city originally was. Over
time we expanded in and so it no longer looks
like a crescent. But the original footprint of the city

(54:22):
was just so right around the river, and so that's
the reason it was called the Crescent City. And this
and the grocery stores that survived and reopened quickly were
the ones that were uptown and around that original footprint.
The ones that were farther in now whether that would
have been all the way out in Lakeview where they
actually had to drain it because it was swampland or

(54:42):
whether it was just really sort of boggy and marshy
and they had to figure out some sort of way
to live on it. Those were areas that did get
hit by get Trainer and the flooding, and so it
took a while longer in order to get those back
up and running. But what that also means is that,
um these areas still are well some of them. I
won't say all because that's an overstatement. Some of these

(55:04):
areas are still having some problems getting a toe hold
and rebuilding their their access to food through grocery stores,
and so there looking at it a little bit differently,
instead of looking at opening grocery stores or even going
with a corn fresh food corner store initiative, that may
be partnering with existing, say dollar stores, where folks are

(55:27):
already going and putting some sort of access to there.
Maybe that's the way to go. And so what f
PACK is doing now again, it's really stepping back and
trying to identify what does it look like. Because we
have three working groups business development, Food production, and food access,
some of the objectives and mission um mission critical ideas

(55:48):
are overlapping. If we can figure out a way to
utilize maximize our resources in the respect that we all
work on a single initiative, then we can make it
happen that much faster. Could you talk a little bit
about the business development side. Sure, So we've got a

(56:10):
number of different ideas around business development, meaning, uh, whether
it is that we are supporting small businesses that serve food,
namely restaurants, or are encouraging people to go into those
sorts of areas for professionally. One of the things that

(56:31):
we have been discussing for a very long time and
what feels like a very long time because we've had
so many discussions around it is opening up a commissary
kitchen work uh here in town. So what that means
for those of you who are just like, hey, a
commissary kitchen is where you go as a small food
pervade a small food business and you rent space, rent

(56:53):
time at a certified kitchen that allows you to produce
food to sell. Now, yes, there are cottage laws and
every state has him. And so if you don't produce
a type of food that um is high risk yeah,

(57:16):
has qualified by the U. S d A, then you
can make it in your house. And if you don't
make or whatever, your state's threshold is if you don't
make that per year, then you can continue to make
it in your house. But if you want to make
something outside of that that is more high risk, then
those things will actually need to be produced in a

(57:37):
commissary kitchen, very much like a restaurant style kitchen or
a restaurant based kitchen. Uh. The idea is that if
you are selling food that is being if you are
making food that is being sold for consumption, that we
need to be sure that there that that that it's
safe and that you don't have you know, the random
cat jumping on your countertop or people walking through with

(58:01):
a cigarette, but you know, just all of the things. Um, yeah,
now I have that cat. I know that kept very well. Um.
And the closest that we have to that, well, we've
got a number of places in town that range anywhere

(58:21):
from seventy five an hour in order to do those
sorts of productions. And if you can indeed afford to
go to those places and pay that that fee per hour,
than so much the better. Um. If you've gotten to
a point where you need to scale up one more time,
and maybe it's that you've got a great recipe for

(58:45):
pumpkin pie. Well, there's a pumpkin over there. You've got
a great recipe for pumpkin pie you can make like
you're you're just gonna give Marae Calendars a run for
her money. Um, there's not a place in town where
you can create where you can make those on a
larger scale. There's no place where you can do packaging.

(59:06):
So if you did have the next best sweetener or
an amazing sauce of some sort, you have to go
all the way out to Norco, which is not next door, right,
so it's just outside of the airport. And for anybody's
ever been here, that's like forty five minute dribe. And
this if so in looking at things, all things created equal. Right,

(59:27):
if you have a car, and if you are doing
this as your only business, if you do have a
loan that may sustain you, or if you've got a
family that will support you through this venture, then those
things are super easy to get to it. It's very
low barrier to entry. Conversely, if you are pedestrian, you're
working in hourly wage. If this is a you know

(59:48):
you're just trying to do this on the side. If
this is a food hustle. Right, if you're a bit
of an entrepreneur and you just want to you need
to sell something in order to make the bills, then
this becomes prohibitive. It is a barrier or entry, just
like just to get out to Norco. It is a
barrier or entry with the amounts that they charge you

(01:00:10):
to actually do the recipe modification right, because it's got
to be something that they can reproduce without you be
in there. And then there are all sorts of labeling issues,
so copyrights and trademarks and getting the labels, putting them on.
They're doing what nutritional values that need to be there
for for food, say for shelf stable stuff. Um. One

(01:00:33):
of the things that we would really like to do
is to have something that is in town, something that
is easy for folks to get to. And the reason
is because again we've got a lot of folks who
don't have this sort of access. Now, this is in
part because we do have people who have made careers
out of working in restaurants as waiters. And they to me,

(01:00:54):
it's amazing. I was such a crappy waitress. I did
not make it very long at all, But that these
people have made entire careers out of it, I think
is astounding and I applaud them for it. But um,
that means that we have folks who are not waiting
for something else to break, that they are working a

(01:01:17):
job that they fully intend to have for the duration.
And these are people that we need to be cognizant
of when we start talking about well o North Coast
not very far or um, we really don't need to
make any changes because to fifteen an hour is not
a lot of oh, I'm sorry, we'll call something else,

(01:01:39):
something else. So it's no, you're you're you're making ex
excellent points. And yeah, for for those of us who
are fortunate enough, because it is it does really come
down to a certain amount of fortune. Um, no matter
how hard you work, like there there are those barriers
to access that absolutely yeah. And so one of the things,
like I said, we were working on is trying to

(01:02:00):
to bring a commissary kitchen a U s C, A
f D, A approoped kitchen to town so that if
it is something that if you really do have the
next best recipe for hot sauce or um whatever or
tea even there is actually a guy from Pearl River
who has figured out a way to make tea. If

(01:02:21):
you really do have the next best thing, then we
can do it here in town, as opposed to trying
to gather all your things, hop three buses and get
all the way out to that part of town, which
is again prohibitive. And that brings us to the end
of this interview. We hope that you enjoyed it as

(01:02:43):
much as we enjoyed it, Oh goodness, yes, or or
even a fraction of the amount of the amount that
we enjoyed it, I think would still be high enjoyment.
It would be so. Yeah. If you would like to
hear more from Pepper, she has her own podcast. It's
called Green Pepper and Yeah. It discusses food policies and systems,
where those systems are broken and how they can be

(01:03:04):
improved in our communities. Yes, definitely recommend checking that out.
Absolutely yes, And if you would like to get in
touch with us, you can. You can Luken. Our email
is Hello at savor pod dot com and we're on
social media. You can find us on Facebook, Twitter, and
Instagram at savor pod. We do hope to hear from you.

(01:03:25):
Savor is a production of I Heart Radio and Stuff
Media from more podcasts from my Heart Radio. You can
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you listen to your favorite shows. Thank you, as always
to our superproducers Andrew Howard and Dylan Fagan. Thanks to
you for listening, and we hope that lots more good
things are coming your way.