Welcome to FERN’s Friday Feed (#FFF), where we share the stories from this week that made us stop and think.
It’s farmers v. condos as temperatures rise and water recedes
FERN and National Geographic
Arizona’s farmers are facing a water crisis as the state diverts scarce Colorado River resources to booming population centers, reports Stephen R. Miller, in FERN’s latest story, published with National Geographic. To deal with the situation, farmers are drilling deeper into aquifers or selling off land, but pressures will only mount with climate change.
The lasting influence of Raji Jallepalli
Gravy
Chef and cookbook author Raji Jallepalli, who spent much of her life in Memphis, was “a renegade,” writes Mayukh Sen. “Raji’s nonconformity began with her choice to devote her professional life to food, a sharp pivot from the days when she incubated tissue in a microbiology laboratory. Her puritanical Hindu Brahmin family in the Indian city of Hyderabad had pushed higher education; they believed cooking to be beneath her birthright.” Since her death in 2002, Raji’s influence lives on with Southern chefs who were born on the Indian subcontinent and work today to meld culture and cuisine on the plate.
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Forget Impossible. China mastered faux meat centuries ago.
CNN
“[L]ong before the first plant-based patties hit the grill in the West, China had been sculpting and flavoring traditional meat-based dishes out of mushrooms, nuts and vegetables,” write Ben Westcott and Nanlin Fang. “‘It shadows and parallels Chinese cuisine … it is incredibly diverse and in every part of the country you have a different version,’ said food writer Fuschia Dunlop.”
With Popeye’s chicken sandwich, stereotype trumps segregation
GQ
“For many customers who live in predominantly white areas, the trip to Popeyes is a voyeuristic detour from Whole Foods and Au Bon Pain. It’s a different situation entirely for far too many black folks, who live in neighborhoods where Popeye’s deep-fried, heavily salted meat is one of the few options around,” writes Aaron Ross Colman. “This constricted, unhealthy food market is a direct result of racial segregation. And this racial segregation is what undergirds the sensational media hoopla around black folks and the Popeyes chicken sandwich.”
One farming family attempts to recover after a father’s suicide
The Washington Post
Chris Dykshorn, a South Dakota farmer, was struggling to get crops in the ground and facing a mountain of debt when he killed himself in June. His pain is felt by many other farmers suffering from low prices and wet conditions. “Here in South Dakota, the trade disputes and extreme weather have devastated farmers and ranchers — often isolated in rural areas, with little access to services,” writes Annie Gowen. “Calls to the statewide suicide hotline were up 61 percent last year, and South Dakota’s largest regional health system, Avera Health, launched a special hotline in January to help farmers and ranchers.”