MNN Extended Interview with Gloria Iacono

Transcript

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Marie Rock [ANCHOR]:  You're listening to Minnesota Native News. I'm Marie Rock.
This week, we bring you an extended conversation from producer Deanna Standing Cloud with Gloria Iacono about sugarbush and what it looks like to make maple syrup in urban environments.

Gloria Iacono: My name is Gloria Iacono. I'm the Four Sisters Urban Farm Manager at NACD.

Deanna StandingCloud: How did the collection of maple syrup come about in the urban setting?

Gloria Iacono: This came about because our food sovereignty work is all geared towards helping Indigenous people reconnect with traditional foods and traditional life ways and medicines within an urban setting. So we have a dense urban Indigenous population, and we feel that doing traditional food ways in the city is a great way to reach a lot of people.

Deanna StandingCloud: Is there any reactions to, like, the neighborhood or anyone curious as to what you're doing?

Gloria Iacono: Yeah, people have been excited about it. We've been tapping with a few different school groups. We're also working a little bit with Little Earth Farm. They just started tapping last week. And then Four Sisters' role is kind of just to collect the sap and figure out how to process it. So we've been doing, like, a few community boil activities at our urban farm. And, yeah, people stop by. People are really curious as to what we're doing.

Deanna StandingCloud: Well, that's so cool. I've lived in the Phillips neighborhood for so long. I grew up here, and this is, like, the first time I've heard of anything happening.

Gloria Iacono: King Park does a similar program where they have, like, neighbors tap trees just, like, in their yard and kind of pool the sap to boil it at MLK Park. So we're kind of taking a page from their book in some ways just with how the program operates. And so it is open for, like, if neighbors in the Phillips neighborhood have a tree in their backyard that they want to tap and they want to participate in this, that's totally welcome.

Deanna StandingCloud: That brings people together and, like, a sense of community and then a sense of, I think, pride as well. Because if they see the final product and just feel like they're a part of it, that's just really, I think it's really special.

Gloria Iacono: We don't think of an urban environment as land a lot of the time. You know, it's a very, like, human-centered environment. So the more that we can build those connections to place and to the land and to traditional practices within an urban environment, we can kind of show that that's possible.

Deanna StandingCloud: And it's, I think it's a natural thing. So once you kind of see how things operate, it's just kind of, like, inside, you're like, okay.

Gloria Iacono: Exactly. It's intuitive. Like, with most things related to connecting with the natural world, once you start to experience it, you realize how much sense it makes and it feels very natural.

Deanna StandingCloud: Yes. Yeah, that's a good way to put it. So, once the final product is done, how do you go about, like, gifting the final product to the community?

Gloria Iacono: So, the ratio of sap to syrup is about 40 to 1. And that's the best-case scenario with true sugar maples. So the maples that we've been tapping, I don't think they're all sugar maples. Or I know that most of them aren't. And so they probably have a higher, you know, maybe 50 to 1 sap to syrup ratio. I think all said and done, we'll probably get about a gallon of syrup. So we're going to bottle that and give it to definitely the people that participated in the program. And if there's any more, we'll just use it as, you know, a way to show gratitude to community partners and people that we work with.

Deanna StandingCloud: And it gives more of a perspective on how, when you produce food, like how grateful, you know, like gives you a more different appreciation for food you actually harvest and process for yourself.

Gloria Iacono: So, yeah, it's definitely a labor of love. I've had a lot of fun doing this. The syrup that we have gotten, I think, tastes pretty good. It doesn't taste exactly like maple syrup, but it's, you know, it's sweet. It's good. I was really grateful to be able to try out this project and I hope to do it again and keep doing it for years to come.

Deanna StandingCloud: And then maybe it'll just be something that the neighborhood looks forward to every time this year.

Gloria Iacono: Yeah, it was a great way to build community. It was a great way to connect with neighbors and kind of celebrate that, you know, the little bit of warm weather that we've been getting and kind of that promise of spring that's right around the corner.

Deanna StandingCloud: Thank you so much. I appreciate your time, Laura. you so much for all the work that you do.

Gloria Iacono: Absolutely. Yeah. Thanks for reaching out.

Marie Rock: That's all for this week's episode. Join us next time for more voices and stories that inform, uplift and shape our communities right here on Minnesota Native News.

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Marie Rock: Minnesota Native News is produced by AMPERS: Diverse Radio for Minnesota's Communities. Made possible by funding from the Minnesota Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund and the citizens of Minnesota.