Tastemakers

How do you go about changing the food system? If you’re Kathleen Morgan, you make frozen custard. In this episode of tasteMAKERS, you’ll travel with host Cat Neville to Houston, Texas, and meet a woman with degrees in business and animal science from Texas A & M who is educating people about the food system one sweet spoonful at a time. She sources milk and cream as well as eggs and produce locally to produce a bevy of flavors, from fig and sweet tea to pear butter and buttermilk pie, that are on offer at local farmers’ markets and restaurants.

Heliculture, a fancy word for snail farming, is on the rise here in the US. In this episode of tasteMAKERS, come along with host Cat Neville and visit a tiny greenhouse in Cutchogue, New York, where tens of thousands of snails are being hand raised on foraged greens. Almost all of the escargot served in the US is imported either canned or frozen -- Peconic Escargots’ Taylor Knapp is one of a very few American farmers that produce fresh escargot and snail caviar. Chefs are taking note. Hugue Obraitis at M Wells Steakhouse and Greg Ling at Industry Standard Bar are creating dishes that highlight the mollusc’s delicate flavor.

In an age when we are beginning to truly understand the positive -- and negative -- impact food can have on our overall health, many are turning to fermentation. This ancient preservation technique turns out to have tremendous side benefits and in this episode of tasteMAKERS, you will travel with host Cat Neville to meet the team behind Edible Alchemy in San Diego, California. They vend at more than a dozen of the city’s bustling farmers’ markets and source directly from local organic farms, turning the region’s bountiful produce into healthful and totally delicious fermented foods, including kombucha, sauerkraut and coconut yogurt.

A biodynamic farmer approaches the farm as its own diverse organism, with each element -- plants, insects, animals and soil -- contributing to the whole. In this episode of tasteMAKERS, travel with host Cat Neville to Jack Rabbit Hill Farm in Hotchkiss, Colorado, where Lance Hanson is crafting biodynamic wines that express his biodynamic farm’s high desert terroir. To make eau de vie, cider, gin and other beverages that reflect the character of western Colorado, Lance sources apples, pears and peaches from local organic orchards where the focus is on building healthy soils to produce amazing fruit.

Over half of the proteins we eat come from the ocean, and we are harvesting seafood faster than mother nature is replenishing the supply. Farmed mussels, clams and oysters are a sustainable seafood choice and that’s good for you as well as the environment, so in this episode of tasteMAKERS, host Cat Neville takes you to Coupeville, Washington, to meet Ian Jefferds. He is on the forefront of sustainable shellfish farming. He’s growing and harvesting delicious oysters, clams and mussels that are beloved by the fishmongers at Pike Place Fish Market and Seattle’s best chefs, like Hot Stove Society’s Tom Douglas.

From deep-frying to a drizzle on salad, oil is a critical component in cooking. We are all familiar with the beautiful flavor found in olive oil, but there’s a world to explore beyond standard EVOO. In this episode of tasteMAKERS, you’re going to travel to Pitts, Georgia, to meet Clay Oliver. His cold-pressed, unrefined oils, made from sunflower seeds, pecans, peanuts, okra seeds and sesame seeds, have become one of the South’s most sought-out ingredients, with James Beard-winning chef Steven Satterfield among its fans.

In the rolling hills north of Kansas City, there is a dairy that develops flavor in its cheeses from the ground up. In this episode of tasteMAKERS, you’re going to join host Cat Neville and visit a farm in Weston, Missouri, that specializes in cheese made from rich and creamy sheep’s milk. Green Dirt Farms’ cheeses begin in the pasture, with well-tended soil that grows a range of prairie grasses which develop seasonal flavors in the cheeses depending on what’s in the field. That milk is turned into bloomy rind, washed rind, aged and fresh cheeses, which pair beautifully with local wine from nearby Terra Vox.

Vero Beach, Florida, is a town that is bisected by the Indian River Lagoon, which takes up more than 30% of the state’s oceanside and spans 156 miles. That lagoon is what makes this part of Florida one of the world’s best citrus-growing regions and in this episode of tasteMAKERS, you’ll come along with host Cat Neville to meet Alden and Val Bing. This couple is crafting sour beers that celebrate Indian River County’s farming history and make the most out of Florida’s humidity by pulling water for their beers from the air using condensing units.

As global populations increase and the pressure on farmland to produce more and more food rises, hydroponics are being considered as one way to efficiently and sustainably grow more fruits and veggies. In this episode of tasteMAKERS, host Cat Neville heads to Boston, Massachusetts, to meet the team at Freight Farms. They are building self-contained hydroponic farms from cast-off shipping containers that can be controlled with an app and make growing food anywhere, in any climate, possible.

Hunting is a time-honored tradition throughout much of the United States and in an era when we are seeking out free-range meat from animals that lived their best life, wild game should be on the menu, but it frequently isn’t. From his home base on Broken Arrow Ranch in Ingram, Texas, Chris Hughes travels across the state, harvesting game on Texas ranches in a humane, sustainable way. Those animals are processed on site using a mobile processing unit that was pioneered by his father. Strap yourself in. In this episode of tasteMAKERS, you’re on the hunt with host Cat Neville.

People have been turning soybeans into tofu for about 2000 years. It originated in China and is made by coagulating soymilk and pressing the curds, much like making cheese. In this episode of tasteMAKERS, you’ll head to Chicago with host Cat Neville to meet Jenny Yang, the woman behind Phoenix Bean Tofu. While the country’s third largest city may seem disconnected from Illinois, a highly agrarian state, it’s not. In fact, Illinois produces the highest volume of soybeans of any state and some of those beans make it to Phoenix Bean, whose tofu you’ll see on the menus of some of the city’s best restaurants.

Back in the day, America was dotted with mills. Many people grew their own corn and grains and just about every town had a mill on site, but as food became industrialized and centralized, those mills shuttered and flour processing was shifted to big processing plants. Today, freshly milled grain is making a comeback and in this episode of tasteMAKERS, you’ll head to Louisville, Kentucky, with host Cat Neville to meet Tom Edwards of Louismill and MozzaPi. He works directly with grain farmers to source wheat, rye and corn and that he stone grinds into flour and grits, some of which he bakes into breads and tosses into pizzas that are baked in his wood-fired oven.