Greetings from What is California? HQ, where the Christmas tree stands alit and ornamented, and neither snow nor rain nor sleet nor gloom of night nor congested supply chain nor 70 marooned cargo ships off the coast of Los Angeles nor the Omicron variant could keep the Christmas lights off my house in 2021. I hope you’re also getting in the spirit however you do, and however you observe.
In this penultimate episode of Season 1, I spoke to David Mas Masumoto. Mas is a brilliant writer, thinker, speaker, and farmer who has spent most of his life growing stone fruit and raisin grapes on his family farm in Del Rey, just southeast of Fresno. His acclaimed 1995 book Epitaph For a Peach tells the story of his decision to save his farm’s juicy, flavorful Sun Crest peach trees despite their impracticality as a mass-market fruit. That choice set Mas—a third-generation family farmer (and early adopter of organic farming)—on a path to advocate for California’s small farms and their proprietors, as well as the customers who patronize them.
It wasn’t always going to be this way for Mas. Growing up and attending Cal, he thought he might be a lawyer or journalist. But there was something about the land that drew him back to Del Rey, and there’s something about growing food that drives him to tell stories. I really enjoyed hearing Mas share his hard-won perspective from 40+ years of working the land, and I have to admit: His optimism is infectious.
A brief programming note: The Season 1 finale of What is California? drops Dec. 9 with a very special Year in Review episode featuring special guests from up and down the state. Listen to this week’s episode for more information about those guests and what to expect, and please save the date! We’ll be on a brief break through the holidays and early 2022, returning to your feeds in late January.
Meanwhile, thank you for your ongoing listenership and readership! Please continue to share and refer folks to the show, and if you feel like chipping in a few shekels to help keep the lights on and the cat fed at What is California? HQ, you can become a supporter at Patreon. I’d be terrifically grateful.
Enjoy the show, and remember as always: Keep your eye on the bear! 🐻 ❤️
Episode Notes
David Mas Masumoto is an author and farmer at Masumoto Family Farm in Del Rey, CA.
Industrial agriculture didn’t care about story. The work that I did---the work that Sun Crest [peaches] sort of launched---was, “No, there’s story behind every food that we eat--every bite. And that story is part of the meaning of food. Let’s find out more about that story.”
Notes and references from this episode:
You Won't Believe it's Vegan Pumpkin Pie, by Gena Hamshaw, Food52
Masumoto.com - Masumoto Family Farm
Country Voices: The Oral History of a Japanese American Family Farm Community, by David Mas Masumoto
Epitaph For a Peach: Four Seasons on my Family Farm, by David Mas Masumoto
Op-Ed: Feeling the drought on my family farm, by David Mas Masumoto, LA Times
William Saroyan biography, The William Saroyan Foundation
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