Eye on the Triangle

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The views and opinions expressed during Eye on the Triangle do not represent WKNC or NC State. Student Media,

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Good morning everyone. Hope you're enjoying your day. My name is Emilia Rivadeneira, host of Eye on the Triangle. And with further ado, let's get into some news. You

0:38
Emily,

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hello and welcome to dolly King seas. I am the triangle, your source of local news, where we dive deep into the pressing issues affecting our communities. I'm your host. Emilia Reina, and here with me today is Shannon McGregor, Associate Professor and Director of the PhD program at the husband's School of Journalism and Media at UNC Chapel Hill. Thank you so much for being here today, Shannon. How are you doing?

1:12
I'm good. Thank you so much for having me. Yeah, for sure.

1:18
And so let's dive into just social media and its impact that just it has had on the elections in general, specifically just the the 2024 election. And my first question for you today is just kind of, what role do you believe social media plays in shaping the political landscape, especially during election season,

1:42
yeah. So we know that a lot of people, especially younger people, turn to social media to get political information right. So during a campaign, especially there's people are more interested in politics right when there's an election coming up, but also there's more information right, because campaigns are putting it out, news is covering it more, and all of those are reflected on social media. And that can be a really good thing if people are getting good quality information. And you know, in a lot of ways, sometimes simple little engagements on social media can lead to people becoming more interested, more involved in politics. But again, that can be good or bad depending on the quality that information, the type of activity, you know, what I mean, that they're getting involved in, and whether it's sort of, you know, on the more pro Democratic side based on real, true information, or if it's on the other side of things,

2:39
right? Yeah. And what are some of the key trends that you have observed in how candidates from each party are utilizing just social media in this election cycle?

2:52
Yeah, you know, in some ways, I would say it's looking very a little bit different between parties, especially at the top of the ticket, right? So thinking about the presidential candidates, the Kamala Harris campaign, Tim Walz campaign, have been very active, for example, on Tiktok, very active, you know, like their team is like, clipping videos, whether it's from their rallies or something that, you know, Donald Trump said, it seems like, in like, you know, a second and producing those very sort of short form I mean, there are longer videos than tick tock, but very much like the sort of short form videos, you know, from their campaign, and that seems to have done really well, right? Like they're getting a lot of engagement, and people are, you know, re sharing them, etc. I think the Trump campaign on social media has been much more active, certainly, of course, the candidate himself on his social media platform, true social, but I would say a sort of unofficial, but in some ways it seems official arm of the campaign has been Elon Musk and others on X, formerly Twitter. Since Elon Musk bought it, used to be a pretty bipartisan sort of, you know, social media site, but you know, now it's led by someone, it's owned and led by someone who is, you know, really associated with the far right. And that reflects the content of the platform now reflects that,

4:14
right? Yeah, and you brought something that I was going to ask about, and it's just like, yeah, for example, we see Harris and waltz using Tiktok. And there's also like influencers endorsement we have seen, like, I the big one that I remember always is just Taylor Swift posted her endorsement for Harris and waltz. And how does like the role of just like this, people this, like influencers, affect just the younger votes and like younger generations, kind of like talking about the turnout, because does it even have an effect or an impact? Yeah.

4:56
So we actually have some research just on social. Media in general, in terms of how it impacts turnout.

5:02
So,

5:03
you know, this is from a couple cycles ago. Obviously, talk about Facebook, but Facebook used to have a feature where you could, like, check in as having voted, and then if you were a person who hadn't done that, when you logged on, it would say, like, you know, 432 of your friends have voted. Have you, like, make a plan here, and it would link to, like, a place where you could see, you know, like, if you were registered in your polling place, and there was a research project on that, and showed that that absolutely increased turnout. So that sort of social pressure of like, you're seeing, that your friends, people in your social network, have done it, we know does increase turnout. So you know that I think is still the case with people posting, you know, still, like, kind of voting self pace. I feel like the version of that, at least on the left this year, is like the sort of Tiktok trend of, like, canceling out my, you know, Republican dad or husbands or whatever, even though, even though it's usually like, just kidding, he is not, but yeah, still, like, it's like, I feel like this cycles version of, like, the voting booth selfie, you know. But back to talking about, like, how it increases engagement when these influencers, you know? I mean, that's the goal, right? Is that, again, these are people in, you know, users, social networks, so we know that already can increase turnout. But then it's also kind of taking it up a level, right? Because it's sort of very famous or influential people. And I'll have to say like I think that's also the strategy that both the campaigns to a certain extent. But I would say the Trump campaign, even more, have adopted with podcasts as well. Across podcasts and social media, there's a concept in our field that we call a para social relationship that people can develop with. It's not someone they actually know, but it's like a TV personality or a podcast host or an influencer, where you feel like you know them, right? Because it's these sort of intimate spaces, and you are more likely to, you know, be into what that person suggests or does, right? And so, you know, we've, I think that's the sort of model with having influencers, you know, endorsed, share things about it. And that's everywhere, from Taylor Swift to like more of these, what you know, we might call, like, micro influencers, who certainly don't have the platform, right, that let Taylor Swift has, but are really influential within the community that you know they're a part of,

7:18
yeah, and talking a little bit more about just like local elections and like just state elections. Like, how, in your just opinion, like the social media, like, how does that affect just local elections? We have talked about the presidential like, both candidates now talking about like candidates, like the governors, just like they're them being using social media. How does that impact the elections as well?

7:50
Yeah. I mean, you know, it is certainly less financially expensive for a campaign to buy social media ads, to invest in even a social media team or a firm that helps you with organic content than it is to buy a television ad, right? You can target specific groups of people you know, that you may be trying to motivate to get out, you know, to vote and so, you know, especially for down ballot races, right, sort of state level races, that's, you know, a tactic that campaigns are, you know, certainly engaging in, I think because, because there's so much attention in the presidential year, sometimes that can have a harder, can be a little bit harder to break through. On the organic side of things, especially in sort of an algorithmic way, can be a little bit different with targeted advertising, because you're paying you know, what I mean is to sort of get in front of folks, but I think we've seen, you know, I think we've seen a more active advertising campaign in our governor race on the Democratic side than on the Republican side. But I think that's also a reflection of, well, both like the quality of the candidates, but also the amount of money that they've raised, right, which you know, really impacts how much you can engage in that as well, right?

9:09
And now, looking back at just like previous elections, and just kind of comparing the trends like now, I feel like with AI, there's the game kind of has changed regarding social media usage and like, just political landscape in general. So just looking back at like, for example, the 2020 election is there are any like, differences and like or even similarities in just like, how each candidate, like, just put themselves out there, or used social media that we're kind of like seeing, yeah.

9:47
I mean, I think there's some changes that you know sort of happen all the time, which is just, you know, different platforms become more popular or less popular, right? And so I think, you know, we've seen a lot more in. Engagement from candidates, for example, on Tiktok and this cycle than we did in 2020 because it's become more popular, because the user base has expanded. And so I think that's one of the changes, you know, certainly another change, at least at the presidential level, but this impacts other Republican candidates you know, down ballot as well is now we have this. We have both true social which Trump owns, which, you know, Trump, but also a lot of other, you know, Republican candidates are using to try and reach people and to try and get their message out. And the difference between Twitter and now x is also, you know, another platform right? That used to be a pathway that candidates from both parties would use, and now it's, you know, really not very effective, except for everyone you know, except for Republican candidates. There was a Washington Post story from a couple days ago that looked at the top 100 you know, members of Congress on the Republican side and Democratic side. And they found that, you know, Republican members of Congress we're getting way more engagement. Were, you know, clearly just being seen by a lot more people, but also it reflects the changing user base, right of that platform. And, you know, in the ensuing years since Elon, Elon Musk has bought it. So I think those are, you know, some of the changes at the risk of being, you know, saying too long of an answer. I also think it's really important to talk about what are some of the policy and team changes that have been made at a lot of the social media platforms Since 2020 so, you know, in the run up to 2020 even before the election, you know, the Trump campaign had been spreading this disinformation about voter fraud and the election not being, you know, safe and so as a response to that, you know, a lot of the big social media companies, Twitter meta properties, had not only policies against, you know, removing electoral disinformation related to, like, who can vote, how do you vote? You know, things like that. But they had really robust teams of civic integrity, sort of trust and safety teams who were, you know, involved in making some of those really tough moderation decisions about when to remove things and that, you know, in some ways, extended after we saw the can, you know, continued challenge to the peaceful transfer of power, the attempted, you know, insurrection on January 6. Since then, most platforms have either, like in the case of x, completely gotten rid of those teams and policies totally, or in the case of the meta, platforms have gotten rid of a lot of the people who worked on those teams. And so the enforcement of those is even more variable than it was in the past. And so I think that's a really different landscape that we're looking at in terms of the type of social media about the election, the type of content that's going to be that we're already seeing is available on these platforms.

12:53
Yeah, and that's another thing that I wanted to touch on, and was misinformation in general, like, again, like bringing AI just generated content. We have seen it like throughout this election season. And just I wanted to ask you, just like over the past few months and approaching now to like the election, just on Tuesday, how has this affected, just the political landscape and this election season, just misinformation being out there in general.

13:26
Yeah. So first to touch on the sort of part of it about AI. Certainly we have seen, you know, some examples of that. I think the most notable one this cycle was the Trump campaign using these sort of AI generated images to imply that Taylor Swift had endorsed him. But I don't think a I don't think that was very believable for a lot of people, so, like, it really broke through, maybe in the way that they were thinking it did, I'm not sure. But I think, you know, we really haven't. I think there were a lot of fears about, you know, generative AI related content and how it might be used to misinform people in this election. And I think we've seen actually, a lot less of that than people were worried about. In terms of generative AI content doesn't mean there's none. It doesn't mean it's not something we should think about. But I think that's been, you know, less of a concern, you know, in terms of deep fakes and kind of things like this than people were worried about. I think the biggest problem around misinformation in this election and on social media as well, although I would say it's not just a social media problem, is the disinformation related to the election. You know these, you know things that we know are not true, that election officials, both Republican, Democrat and non partisan are saying is not true. These charges that there are people who are not citizens, who are voting, that there are, you know that that election offices are changing. You know, the votes of people who have cast their ballot. A lot of that shows up on social media. A lot of that comes straight out of the mouth of Paul. Politicians you know, from the top of the ticket on down, in real life, you know, at a stump speech or on TV, but also on social media. But because this particular missing, you know, disinformation narrative has now been going well, we can go back in history, and it's really like a very, very long time in this country of trying to disenfranchise people through voting disinformation. But let's say, in our current era, you know, since 2020 people are really primed to believe that and look for evidence of that. So you know that means that you might see something that's a normal aspect of voting, but because most people don't, I mean, we don't vote all the time, right? And a lot of people only vote every four years, right? There are a lot of people only vote in presidential election years. It might look like something that feels not right to you, and so you think it's electoral fraud, but it's just something that happens. And, you know, it's this, not bad at all. It's just what elect elections look like, but you don't engage in them all the time, or people, you know, finding things that are small mistakes, which, of course, happens when 10s of millions of people are voting. But we have a system to find those, you know what I mean, and fix those. But because people are primed to believe, you know, some of these things and even look for them, it creates this, really, I think, unhealthy, you know, atmosphere and people are sharing these things on social media. There's a group that Elon Musk created on X that has, you know, over 50 or 60,000 people in it that are sharing what they see as examples of, you know, illegal voting or fraud at voting centers. And in the most cases, they're not. But if you look at it, it looks like, oh my gosh, there's all these things you know, going wrong in this election. And then you hear people that you trust right, the candidate at the top of the ticket, other leaders, saying that this is happening, and it really undermines, you know, the trust that people have in a system that does actually worked pretty well.

17:01
Yeah, and just what are some strategies that one can take, for example, to just get away from that unhealthiness that it's just like, you know, created in on social media, or just even during, like election season, with all of like this misinformation being spread around, what are some strategies that, like, I guess, us as just citizens, can take? Yeah,

17:34
so there's a couple things, I think, especially as it relates to social media, if you see any content that misinformation is targeted along lines of identity and emotion, right? So if it's going to be effective with you, it's because it speaks to your identity in some way, and it's effective. So if you see content that makes you feel really, really happy, like affirmed in some way, or really, really mad in some way. That's the kind of content that you just want to like take a little pause on before you re share it. You know, go look for that kind of information somewhere else, right? And see if it's true or not. Because the most successful disinformation does make us have strong feelings, which is why, you know, one of the reasons it's effective. So that is one thing to do makes you real happy or real mad. Pause, take a breath before you do anything else. And I think you know, as far as it goes, sort of more broadly, you know, there's, there's rightfully so a lot of people have a, you know, pretty considerable anxiety around this election. I think you know at the presidential level, but that, you know, certainly at the state, there's some state level, you know, reasons that people are going to feel like that as well, you know. And I, and I want to say two things. One, you know, I'm person who studies journalism and politics, and so I love it, and obviously think it's very important. But even I take breaks, and I encourage everyone to do that as you feel like you need to. If there's something really important, you are going to still hear that or find that information out. If you, you know, log back on tomorrow, you know. So it really is good and important to take some breaks for your your own sort of like mental health. And I also, you know, another really useful strategy for dealing with election anxiety, which I had already been telling people, and then I heard a psychologist share the same information on an NPR story yesterday. I was like, okay, good. It is to just do something right. Talk to your family members or friends about if they voted, help them figure out if they need to about where to vote. You know, text bank, phone bank, you know, whatever it is like. Because if you're feeling anxious about it, that usually comes from a place of we can't control on our own right. You know what's going to happen. And if you know this place of feeling like you're out of control. So do some things you can control, right? A. Um, you know, take some actions so that you have some agency in it, um, and I think that both of those things are, one's real active and one's real disengaging. And I think a good balance of those things can help people deal with their election anxiety. Yeah,

20:12
for sure, especially like on election day and like on election night, I feel like a lot of people are just waiting for the results, like, just just waiting on their social media, like just on their phones, like looking at, like, any information, and so like, this advice and like, it's really helpful actually, because to just kind of, like, disconnect, yeah, out of it,

20:37
and I would say especially about election night. I don't think there is an election night, you know, like that's something that we had really only for a small amount of time in our history, but because of both how close elections are now, but also because of changes some states have made that really slow down the voting process, or the the vote counting process in ways that I don't think are necessarily helpful, but nonetheless they have, you know, made these decisions. It means that we're probably unlikely to know on election night the outcome of the election. So I also think it can help people to just try and, you know, we can't change that expectation that's socially and culturally sort of built up. But to remind yourself, remind people, you know, it's probably not going to be election night. I don't think it's going to be quite as long as 2020 you know, some of that was obviously exacerbated by, you know, we were at the height of the COVID 19 pandemic. But I think it's very unlikely that we're going to have, you know, a clear idea of who's won the presidential election, at least the presidential election, if not some state races on election night. And so if you just don't have that expectation, I think that can also help ease, you know, the anxiety that you might feel around it like it's okay to go to bed because you are probably not gonna know tonight. Yeah

22:01
exactly.

22:02
Yeah for sure, and yeah. So this has been a really insightful interview, and I don't know if there's anything else that you would like to add about just like, you know, as we're approaching Election Day, related to just state politics, or just in general, social media and misinformation.

22:25
The only thing that I would add is to tell everyone that if you are eligible to vote, to please vote. You know, early voting, the last day in our state is Saturday, and after that, you can vote, of course, on election day next Tuesday, and just vote. And if you need information about who you might vote for, how to vote, there's tons of resources for that. And you want to be able to say that you did it, you know, like, if you're going to be affected in some way by the outcome, and I'd like to say to everyone you will be then, you know, make your voice heard. Right. Take this opportunity to make your voice heard and

23:04
vote. Yeah. And one last question that I it just popped out in my head. It So, what are some a lot of people after the election, like, after just voting, think that like, oh, to make my voice heard, like, I just have to wait, like, for the next, like, four years. What are some ways like, I guess, like students or people can still be civically engaged in our communities, even, like, through social media, or just like, in general,

23:37
yeah. I mean, you know, there are all sorts of organizations on every college campus, you know, for example, that folks can get involved in. That are civic organizations. You know, some are along lines of certain identity groups, right, like advocating for members of your community. Some of them may be around certain issues get involved in those you know, if this is something that feels good for you, you know, like, get involved in that. I also think another way you know that you can get involved, not just every four years, is to get involved in, you know, get educated on, which is hard to do because we don't hear a lot about it. Get educated on, involved in local politics. You know, often what happens even for students at the you know, in your city or in your town and your county and in our state has a much greater impact right, on our day to day lives than what happens at the federal level, you know. So you can get involved in that, right, and find out information about it, and get involved with that. And that's something that's happening all the time, right? You know, cities and towns are making decisions, school boards, etc, year round, right? That impact people's lives. So that's not something they get to wait every four years to get involved in necessarily,

24:50
yeah, for sure. Um, but yeah. Thank you so much for being here today on i in the triangle. Um, yeah.

24:57
Thank you so much for having me. Um. Go vote. Everyone. Go vote.

25:07
Next on eye in the triangle, we have Minna Syed talking about the history of the North Carolina State Fair and talking with different banders at the fair about their culture and their diversity.

25:27
Hello, everyone. This is me now. Slade from eyes on the triangle. Today we're going to talk about the State Fair since it just ended, but we wanted to talk about the State Fair in a slightly different perspective. We want to talk about its history in general, how it started, and what was the purpose of it, how it also started in North Carolina. And then the other aspect that we're going to focus on as well is how diverse our state fair right now, and how how much it reflects the diversity in North Carolina. We're going to be visiting all of that in today's episode of eye on the track. To start with the history of the fair, we have to examine who is the first person and what was the original idea. The first person was electna Watson. According to insightloruvia.com electna Watson was a banker and a farmer in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, in 1807, Alex had the idea of raising sheeps, and he wanted to convince other farmers to raise sheeps as well. He was thinking how to gather everyone to convince them to raise more sheeps as their own animals. So what's the thought of idea of creating the first Berkshire cattle show in 1810 and that was the first time where people were gathering to see some sort of a show or even a commodity. And then it's funny to think that our kind of state fair right now is originated from this idea. What's an idea was successful, not only in Massachusetts, but in Hall of New England, where he was able to gather his fellow citizen to show an idea and also show the importance of the business of farming in its educational value. And that was a kick start for the State Fair in its original idea to not just spread in New England, but all over the country. Moving on with the success of the idea, New York held the first state fair in September of 1841 and following this, a lot of states in the Midwest and in the East Coast followed suit, and the state's fair maybe look different from what we know right now, but it was a space where a lot of businessmen and farmers can share their commodities, whether it's farmer, farming techniques, educational purpose to train other farmers, or automobile, solar, Homes and different ideas that flourished where people try to exchange ideas of their businesses. So it was more of a conference meeting to say then, and it looks drastically different from what we think right now. But it's also worth to invest in some time in seeing the history of the state there, here at our own very state, North Carolina. As for North Carolina, the need for an agriculture revolution was also presented, especially in 1852 where the agriculture journal editor, Dr John F Tompkinson decided that he wants to share the improvement of agriculture with North Carolina and teach other North Carolinian farmers to adopt new scientific methods of farming. Therefore, he worked on the North Carolina agriculture society to make a revival of this organization to help other farmers to share better techniques of scientific methods of farming. The group tried to think of many different ways to share these techniques, and they found that the state fair idea is one of the most important ideas and most successful one that can help farmers, such as it did in other states, to bring about change in to North Carolina, therefore, the group decided to have Another State Fair, where it was following the same theme of farmers sharing different ideas, different techniques, different machineries with each other. And the city of Raleigh helped in the society to obtain this through giving them fair grounds and helping them with other construction that will help them to exhibit for holding agriculture exhibits. However, after the Civil War and during the Civil War, it was difficult for the state fair to continue to happen, so it came to an end. However, four years after the Civil the end of the Civil War, former leaders have tried to revive the North Carolina State Agriculture Society, which. Was the group that was responsible for carrying out the State Fair. The State Fair was able to continue after four years of not continuing the civil war in 1869 where the first fair after the Civil War was opened again in the fairgrounds, and it was met with a lot of enthusiastic reception and a lot of welcoming from both the locals, publics in general, and the press. And that was thanks to Thomas im hole afterwards, he was also able to book a new large site in West rally, which the one we have today, which actually what we have today as our North Carolina State University campus, and later on, the fairgrounds were moved to to the current fairgrounds that we know it today in West Raleigh in 1925 this interesting history in North Carolina and in the state in general have showed us how it's very different from state fair that we know right now in our days partially started in Chicago State Fair, actually in 1893 where the mechanical rights that we always see and enjoy in the State Fair every year has been introduced, and was also the first place where the first wheel was first introduced, there, and it was a big success, and remained popular, as we can see today, for all the time. So it was very interesting to examine the history of the state fair and how it came to be the way it is right now. And I think it's important to also appreciate not only the evolution of the State Fair from being for farmers to share ideas and techniques how to farm better, to the beautiful dynamic that still includes farmers, and still includes different innovative ways of doing a lot of businesses, but also a lot of fun and a lot of rides, as We seed and good food and going on that, I think it's very important to also see how diverse has our state become since the first time we had our state fair. So in this episode, we'll be talking with a lot of diverse vendors who actually wanted to share their food, their culture, and represent how diverse is North Carolina through the State Fair. So please stay tuned for the interviews coming up. We're starting our first interview with actually, not a food vendor, but a merchandise vendor from Gambia, Africa, who wanted to share the amazing products that he's selling at NC State Fair, and also how happy he is sharing this culture with everyone.

32:44
Hello. So we're here, joined by our vendor from NC State Fair. Can you please tell us, introduce yourself and what are you selling here at the NC State Fair?

32:52
My name is Haji, and we're selling like different items. We got like natural products, we got African clothing, we got beaters, we got healthy stuff. We got natural stuff, like say butter, whipped soy butter, African Black Soap, which is good for the skin. We got multiple choices for you to choose what kind of flavor of soaps you may want. And we got the say butter too, in different flavors. We got the organic kind of say butter also.

33:19
Yeah. Thank you so much for sharing this with us. I was wondering, is this your first year here at the NC State Fair? Or have you been here before?

33:26
For sure, we've been here. This is our second year, but this is our first time in this particular location, which is, which is the kiddie land. Last year we were at the main, how you call it, Midway, but this year they moved us here, which is also good. It turned out well,

33:42
thank you. And I was wondering what it means for you, like, representing African culture here at the NC State Fair with, like, everyone at North Carolina. Well,

33:51
it means well, because I'm representing myself, you know, I'm African. I'm from the Gambia, you know. So representing myself is great. So I'm proud of doing that.

34:00
Thank you so much. And we were just wondering, like, is, do you have any best selling item here? Like,

34:06
right our best sellers are the natural products, like the, say, butter. And also, we got the body oils that everybody love, young, old, black, white. It don't matter. Across the board, everybody loves our body oils. As you can see, I'm walking on some right now, which means they sell it.

34:24
Thank you so much.

34:25
It was so nice talking with Haji, learning more about his products and what he had to share with everyone North Carolina now with our next interview with new Mond restaurant that was also represented at the State Fair, with their special touch of mix between Lebanese food and North Carolina local products

34:44
from NC State Fair Hill. Can you please introduce yourself?

34:47
My name is Abdul Lauren table. I'm the director of operation with Newmont Mediterranean. We have been a part of the fabric of the triangle for almost 50 years now, and we've been. Been serving customers at the State Fair for about 30 ish year. We're also a bread vendor. Our bakery is a bread supplier for the vendors at the fair. We have our essentials. We call them kebabs and falafels and shawarmas and Miss Betty here always make some tweaks to introduce to the community, and they're very well liked. This year's special called kale. Misha warma, it's a fried kale. It was really influenced by the theme of the State Fair. So it is the home grown the crops that are grown in North Carolina, but into a Mediterranean style. So we have kale, we have sweet potato, we have beets, we have Pomegranate. Pomegranate is not North Carolinian. This is the Lebanese ingredient into the recipe. It is a bowl with sweet potatoes, like I said, beef and lamb, shawarma, fried kale and pomegranate, beet dressing, and, of course, our famous Bouza ice cream that Miss Betty, introduced about three years ago to the fair, and it's been going viral.

36:05
Wow, that sounds amazing. Like what? Also other like dessert or special that you're highlighting here in the fair today.

36:13
As far as specials we've been serving Lam now shows for the past, think, six or seven years. That was meant to be one year thing that was a special back in 2019 we couldn't stop. And now, as you can see on the top of the booth, it says, Neil on and loaded now lamb now shows right next to it. So became, we became known as the Lamb. Now chose booth, and we started introducing the lamb idea and doing some specials with the lamb desserts. We did not introduce anything that's new, except we do the booze a little bit different here than we do it at the store. At the store, you have the ice cream pre packed here, you have it portion, and you have Lebanese cotton candy on top of it. So that's what makes it special at the fair. So what

37:01
it means for you to be sharing like Lebanese and middle eastern food here with everyone in North Carolina, through the restaurant or through like the vendor here there.

37:10
So we always refer to ourselves as ambassadors of our culture, and what's greater than food to represent your culture and your heritage. We've taken this as a mission. We've sold it our lives. We take it very serious and not only to share the flavor, but really to share a whole honest ingredient with the community. And we always say what we serve is what we cook at home.

37:37
Thank you so much. We're also curious about the Bucha here, I was trying also to explain, like, what is Bucha? And I think if you can help us explain a little bit like, to everyone who doesn't know, yes,

37:47
Bucha is a Lebanese style, actually, not just in Lebanon, but the Levant countries. So it's a stretchy ice cream that is made up of, you know, mastic gum and orange blossom rose water. And it's just made very authentically. I practiced for 11 years at home before I introduced it to the community, and it's been like every time I would go back to Lebanon, I would have it, and I would say, My gosh, I would love to be able to make this for my family. And that's what happened. I started making it for my grandsons and my grandchildren, and they are the ones that said, you know, theta, why don't you, know, think about making this at near mon and that's what drove the whole idea. Yeah,

38:46
that's amazing. I feel like it's something that everyone is familiar with, being an ice cream, but the flavors are being totally unique and totally like Malaysian Lebanese and Levant in itself. Well, I just want to thank you so much for joining us for this in short interview. And yeah, wish you all the success. Thank

39:02
you so much. Thank you.

39:03
Thank you. Nice to meet with you. To enjoy,

39:07
wow, really. Listening to this interview makes me hungry again for some of their lamb nachos. It was really good. However, we can stop here, so we'll be also listening to our interview with La Casa del sabor, who taught us a lot about what it means for them to present Cuban and venezuelan food at the fair.

39:27
Hello, we're here joined by our vendor today at the fair. Can you please tell us what food are you having today in the fair?

39:34
Hi, my name is Carlos benucci. We sell Venezuelan and Cuban food. This spot is from La Casa del sabor, the food trailer located in Raleigh. And they sell all our all Cuban plates, Cuban sandwiches, bread with pork. They sell cafecito too, and I'm Carlos, and my food truck is a Venezuelan truck, and I'm all around. On the triangle, doing, say, different places. And we sell venezuelan food, empanaza, repas, cachapas, now here in the fair, we're selling empanas, sugar beef and sugar chicken, and the Cuban guys are selling Cuban sandwiches.

40:14
Wow, that sounds amazing. Yeah, a lot of stuff we wanted to know, is this your first year at the fair? Or have you been here, like, multiple years around Yes,

40:21
it's our first time in the NC State Fair. We're so proud to be here, because I think is the is the first time that the venezuelan food is safe present in this fair, and also the Cuban also the cubica said I never seen that before. So we're so proud to bring our culture, our our food, to this fair and everybody's great. We're receiving good reviews. We are receiving good good comments from the people, and we're so happy to for that.

40:52
Thank you so much for highlighting the diversity here in the triangle. Thank you so much. Thank

40:56
you. Thank you guys for for coming record and everything. Thank you

41:00
coming up last but not least, an interview with Safari east, which is a food truck by a chef from Mombasa, Kenya, who has a beautiful blend of food that his wife described as the following, so

41:15
infused with Indian and Arabic, and that's the same feel that you'll get in the food. It's like that community effect of, you know, just different cultures coming together, and the food, you know, just speaks to that.

41:27
After hearing her description of the food, I knew that we have to listen more about what do they have and what do they offer in their truck. So I hope you enjoyed the interview.

41:38
Hello. So we're now joined by our vendor here from the fair. Can you please introduce yourself and let us know, what are you having in selling at the fair?

41:45
My name is Andrew Lamba with Safari eats, and this my wife partner with me in life and everything. So we are here at this State Fair this year. It's our first year to be at the State Fair, and we are so delightful, so thankful to be given this opportunity to to share the delicious mother's land food. Yeah,

42:08
so what are you selling so far? Like, what is and what is the best selling item me.

42:12
So as I said, a delicious motherf mother type food is our cuisine is Afro infused. So I'm from Africa. I'm from Kenya, and my wife is from Indiana. So we have the mix cuisine whereby we do American and Kenyan. So our delicious meal is a buffalo Mac and ball, which is saute colored greens. We don't boil our collard greens. We saute them with onions and garlic. And we do have a grilled chicken cooked in a way we do back home in Kenya. And then to bring the infused we do a mac and cheese on top with a buffalo sauce. That's the selling one. And then the second one is infused, which is a dessert. It's the biggest sell is the Simba dessert. So the Simba Desser come on a flatbread culture party, baked apple vanilla ice cream with a caramel sauce on top to garnish.

43:07
Wow, that sounds so delicious. I was also wondering like, is this your first year at the fair, or have you been here in multiple years before?

43:15
This is our first year at the North Carolina State Fair?

43:17
How does that feel like and what it means for you to, like, share part of the culture and the fusion here with everyone in North Carolina.

43:24
It's amazing because we know how long it takes vendors to get into the North Carolina State Fair. So he went home to Kenya in July and said, Oh, I'm gonna apply for the State Fair. I'm like, we're not ready for the State Fair. And after two months, she called and said, Hey, you guys want to get into the North Carolina State Fair. We were like, what? It's amazing. So we're very grateful to be here. Yeah,

43:46
grateful that you guys are here. So we also wanted to ask, How would people find you outside the stair fair if they want to enjoy your food further?

43:58
So we we travel around to different breweries all over it, all in the area, Research Triangle area. We go as far out as Sanford Roxboro. You can find out where we're going to be on our website, or we also post on Facebook and Instagram and as well as Oh, street food finder shows all of our calendar where we're going to be each week. Great.

44:22
Thank you so much for talking to us.

44:25
So this is it for our interviews with the diverse vendors at the NC State Fair. I hope you enjoyed it, and I hope next time next year you're at the fair, please try to listen closely to some Afro beats music mixed with Arab music mixed with Venezuela music, just in the Appian so the fair mixed with all these amazing smells of food that will be there next to traditional fair food. I hope you enjoyed the episode. This was mine outside or eye on the train. Thank you.

45:21
This is with your host, Emilia Rivadeneira, thanks for listening to Eye on the Triangle for back episodes of the show, go to wknc.or/podcasts music in today's episode Is Krakatoa by Noah Stark, licensed under creative commons.

45:37
You

Transcribed by https://otter.ai