Heritage Radio is the food-focused, listener-supported internet radio station that broadcasts from a studio attached to Roberta's in Bushwick. Every week, many of the big players in the food world host and appear on shows, and oftentimes they reveal interesting tidbits about their work. Here's a guide to five notable pieces of recent programming:
1) Your Chlorinated Chicken:
HRN beat reporter Laura del Campo digs into the common practice of chlorine use in commodity chicken processing, brought to the forefront in a recent Modern Farmer article addressing the seemingly disconcerting marriage of fowl and disinfectant. She spoke with a fourth-generation cattleman at White Oak Pastures, Will Harris:
The use of chlorine allows chickens to be processed very very quickly and with more careless handling than would be otherwise necessary if it weren't using such a strong antiseptic bleach…the efficiency of the system makes for the production of copious quantities of cheap meat. And many people want copious quantities of cheap meat. It's unfortunate that producing meat so cheaply weighs very heavily on certainly animal welfare, certainly on environmental sustainability, and some might argue, health, safety, nutrient density, and other nutrient densities.
2) Tom Philpott on Wage Discrepancy in Restaurants:
In a recent news piece, Heritage Radio Network reporter Bitsy Kipping spoke to Tom Philpott, journalist and founder of the sustainable food education center Maverick Farms, about the recent Mother Jones article discussing restaurant industry wages:
I think a lot of the discrepancy comes from the mechanization of a large part of the restaurant industry, and that would be in the fast food companies and the sort of corporate casual food companies that have deskilled work as rapidly as possible, and have made it east to pay people less, and then as far as the broader restaurant industry, I think there's a long history in restaurants…of it being really punishing work.
3) Patrick Martins on NYC's Fine Brisket:HRN Founder Patrick Martins weighs in on why he thinks the meat itself might have something to do with why the New York Times called New York one of the "Brisket Capitals of the US":
I was wondering if, you know, the brisket itself would have anything to do with it…and I think the ingredient plays a vital role in the final product, and sometimes everything else is talked about but that…it kind of got me thinking that not all meat is equal and that some of these meat distributors in the city might just get access to better brisket, and then perhaps population breeds competition, and therefore the best briskets in the US from the best cows come here to New York.
4) Private Chefs at Burning Man:Jack Inslee, Executive Producer at Heritage Radio Network, reports on the growing presence of private chefs at Burning Man, representing the wave of gentrification sweeping the indigenous Burner culture. Burner DJ Echo weighs in on whether they impact the greater vibe:
It's funny because Burning Man, Black Rock City, is a city of now sixty thousand people, and just like any city, if you don't go to a certain area, you are not going to see people, so ruining Burners experience, not by any meaning of that phrase, because you would really have to look for them, and they're missing out on one part of what Burning Man is.
5) Whole Foods' Northeast Forager Elly Truesdel:HRN spoke to Elly Truesdel about her role with Whole Foods, tasked to build the grocer's relationships with local sources for the entire Northeast region:
I am recommitting our company to [our local committments]…So much of the job is storytelling and finding a ways to deliver those messages about our supplier network, and so I just grabbed on to that really quickly.
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