In May 2011, we set out across the country to tell the stories of real food in America with our series, The Perennial Plate. Since then, we’ve recorded seven terabytes of footage, traveled 23,000 miles across 42 states, and made 50 short films (one a week for a year). This video comprises some of our favorite moments from the road.

Asian Carp are quickly becoming the invasive species to beat. They’re taking over rivers and lakes across the country and threatening native species by competing for the plankton that forms the base of the aquatic food chain. We went out with a fisherman on the Peoria River and took some footage of his latest catch.

Co-operative work is central to many movements in Latin America. Nelson Escobar brought those ideas from his home in El Salvador to Louisville, Ky., where he coordinates a large urban farm that brings together a diverse community to grow, eat, and sell good food.

Jean-Marie herds goats within the Louisville city limits. He sells them to the growing immigrant and refugee populations. Goat isn’t yet popular with all Southerners, but it reminds Jean-Marie of his home in Burundi.

Backyard chickens are everywhere. But in many North American cities, keeping a flock of hens is still illegal. We met up with some unlikely outlaws while traveling through Tennessee who are breaking the law by producing fresh farm eggs in their backyards.

What’s the best way to get rid of invasive critters? Eat them, of course!

Over the course of 30 years, the island of Boca Grande in Florida went from having zero iguanas to over 10,000. This invasive species was making it impossible for native plants and animals to survive, so the island’s residents finally decided to do something about it, and called in George Cera. In this video we go on a trip around the island with Cera that culminates in an impromptu iguana tasting.

We made this short film in Immokalee, Fla., where nearly all the nation’s winter tomatoes are grown. We spent a day with Lupe Gonzalo, a tomato picker and organizer for the Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW), who opened up her tiny home and cooked us a meal. The Coalition is fighting to change the way our country’s tomato laborers are treated, as well as raise their wages by implementing a one-penny-per-pound increase for tomatoes harvested. Many companies (Whole Foods, Trader Joe’s, SUBWAY, etc.) are working with CIW, but some companies are still holding out (Publix and Chipotle, to name a few).

When our road trip took us through South Carolina, we asked Sean Brock (the chef at Husk and McCrady’s) about farmers to check out near Charleston. He recommended the Joseph Fields Farm. This piece of land has been in the Fields family for three generations and has gone from organic to conventional and back again. Joseph gave us a tour of the area and also a taste of his baby “squash, evangelism, and collard greens” philosophy.

We also cooked and collaborated on a multi-course dinner with Brock consisting entirely of grains from Anson Mills – one of the United States’ seminal grits and rice producers. But before we embarked on dishes like sweet bread and red fife ravioli, we spent a day with the man behind the Southern Food Renaissance: Glenn Roberts.

School garden programs have sprouted up in so many places they’re almost commonplace — but that doesn’t make it any less exciting to watch kids learn about where their food comes from. We spent this week’s episode with a group of students who were planting, harvesting, and tasting their very first radishes with teacher Ashley Rouse of Georgia Organics. Kids are in a lot of our videos – after all they’re cute and they are the future.

We are interrupting our weekly Perennial Plate episodes to bring you a quick adventure through the streets of Vietnam. Last month, we were invited to go on an Intrepid Travel trip to this fascinating country for two weeks. Our assignment was to document this food-focused journey across the country and we’re really proud of the video that came out of it. Also: Here is a winter version of a classic Vietnamese recipe.