Stories of California History Through Food and Family

The California Report Magazine

On this week's show we're revisiting two stories about family, food and farming.

We start in the Central Valley where David “Mas” Masumoto says he farms with ghosts. On his family’s organic peach, nectarine and grape farm south of Fresno, California, Mas says the labor and lessons of his ancestors are in the soil and he’s passing these on to the next generations. Reporter Lisa Morehouse has visited Masumoto Farm for years, picking luscious peaches and nectarines in summer. For her series California Foodways, she returned to hear about a family secret at the center of Mas’ recent book, Secret Harvests.

Next we meet chef Crystal Wahpepah. She says she wanted to be a chef since she was 7 years old. Like her grandfather and mother, Wahpepah is a registered member of the Kickapoo tribe of Oklahoma. She remembers learning to make fry bread with her aunty and grandmother — and picking berries with her grandfather on the Hoopa Reservation where she spent time as a child. But while growing up on Ohlone land in Oakland, Wahpepah was struck by the Bay Area’s lack of Native restaurants, despite the region’s large Indigenous population and palette for diverse cuisine. So she decided to change that. It wasn’t just a matter of culinary representation, it was a matter of reclaiming Native food sovereignty. KQED’s Bianca Taylor brrought us her story as part of our series Flavor Profile, which features folks who started successful food businesses during the pandemic.

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