Plant People

In our final episode of the season, we sit down with Merlin Sheldrake, biologist and author of Entangled Life: How Fungi Make Our Worlds, Change Our Minds, and Shape Our Futures, to talk fungi. Mushrooms are a culinary sensation, but they’re also lifeforms that we’re still trying to understand. Join in as we learn how the grim work of fungi—death, decay, and “the end” of organic life—is key to the survival of all living things, and far from a foraging fad, mycology is at the root of Earth’s ability to function.

In this week’s episode, we’re joined by renowned culinary historian, author, and NYBG Trustee Dr. Jessica B. Harris, curator of the African American Garden at NYBG. Over the last three years, this important collection has used plants to tell the stories of migration, dispossession, and reclamation that inform so much of the African American experience—and define much of what American cuisine is today. As we take a stroll through the space, come hear about the ways the African diaspora has, over the course of more than 500 years, transformed the Western Hemisphere with its cultures, labor, and agricultural know-how.

We’re joined by renowned food journalist, author, and broadcaster Dan Saladino, who's been a host on the BBC’s Radio 4 show The Food Programme for almost 20 years. Recently, he published Eating to Extinction, which explores humankind’s relationship with food, including the world’s most uncommon bites and the communities that produce them—from rare cider apples on the brink of extinction to the vanishing Old Cornish cauliflower, and a variety of Indigenous plant-based edibles from around the world that many have never experienced. Together we’ll look at how stories of endangered plant cuisines have inspired Saladino throughout his career, and discuss the future of food security—and how the preservation of these endangered eats is integral to the health of our planet and humanity at large.

In this week’s episode, we catch up with Doug Tallamy, Professor of Agriculture & Natural Resources at the University of Delaware. As an expert in their Department of Entomology and Wildlife Ecology, he knows a thing or two about the benefits of planting natives, and feeding the birds and the bees is high on the list. Find out how healthy ecosystems rely on these plants to thrive, and how the home garden is just the start.

In episode 6, NYBG’s VP of Urban Conservation, Dr. Eric Sanderson, takes us on a quick trip around the landscape of New York City—both today and in the distant past. He’ll get into the sudden rise of catastrophic floods worldwide, and how our relationship with plants centuries ago is impacting our situation right now. Then we talk solutions, ecosystem restoration, and the ways that the future of fighting floods will rely on the well-being of plant life.