Today’s episode is an introduction to Juliana Duque as the New Worlder podcast’s new co-host. Juliana, or Juli as I tend to call her, was born in Colombia and now lives in Los Angeles. She is the author of the book Sabor de Casa and is a writer, editor, consultant, producer and many other things. She has a Ph.D. in Sociocultural Anthropology from Cornell University and for many years has been very involved in various development projects that relate to Colombian and Latin American gastronomy.
Juliana is someone that understands the magnitude and vastness of cuisine in Latin America, but also that gastronomy in the region is still very much developing. When I say developing I don’t mean commercially or that there are more fine dining restaurants yet to come, I mean the infrastructure to connect rural producers with consumers, to maintain foodways, preserve agricultural and cultural diversity and give people access to nutritious food that doesn’t destroy landscapes and give them terrible diseases.
When I started this podcast a couple of years ago, I really had no idea what I was doing. I still don’t to some extent. It was still the middle of the pandemic and I just started to have conversations with people and record them. I have learned a lot from the people I have had on. A lot of interesting things have been said that I think you won’t hear anywhere else. Maybe you are thinking this podcast is already perfect. That I’m perfect. That’s obviously not true and I’m actually quite bad in general at conversation, as you may have noticed. I think I’m a very good listener and creating an atmosphere that lets the guest’s guard down and allows them to open up, however, I often struggle with asking the right questions. Juli and I have very different backgrounds. Her work is generally more analytical, while mine is more about storytelling, so for this podcast I think we complement each other well. It's a new year, so this is as good a time as any to take this show in a new direction. I hope you enjoy what is yet to come.
Did you know you can also listen to the New Worlder podcast on Apple podcasts, Spotify, and most other podcast sites?
Episode #78: Juliana Duque