Nibbles: Yucca, Biofuels, Indian food, Museum collections, Priority traits, GM bananas, Geographic targetting

By Jeremy on March 19, 2010

Yucca flowers not at all yucky to eat.
Dept of Schadenfreude: First parasitic nematodes reported in biofuel crops.
“I’ve often thought about this return to local knowledge and food in India.” Had no idea there had been a move away from local food in India.
Biological collections porn.
Breeders’ wish list published.
First GM bananas harvested. Do they make good beer?
How to do Geographical Extrapolation Domain Analysis. Off you go now.

Breakfast Nibbles: Blueberries, Tomatoes, Coffee, Assorted seeds, African potato, Branding, Mobiles, Food, Myanmar

by Jeremy on May 27, 2008

Remember to eat blueberries to remember.
Darwin’s tomatoes? The genetic change identified.
Wild coffee conservation. Danny says wild coffee genes assessed at between 0.4 and 1.5 billion US$. Joe not available for comment.
“But if you don’t grow your seed, you lose your power.”
Amadumbe being sold to supermarkets in South Africa. Great. But someone please tell me: what the heck is it?
More coffee? More for coffee!
“Sometimes our expert is stumped.”
Mark Bittman makes the case for vegetarianism (and much more) on TED video. Money quote: “It’s not the beta-catotene, it’s the plant.”
FAO maps Myanmar agriculture.

{ 5 comments… read them below or add one }

Frank May 27, 2008 at 6:23 am: Amadumbe is an African word for taro, it could however be a selected strain, but I’m not really sure

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Luigi May 27, 2008 at 9:50 am: Thanks, Frank. That’s what my googling suggested, but you can never tell. Is the language Zulu?

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Bob June 20, 2009 at 6:24 am: The word is Zulu, but also is also anglicized as Madumbe as in Zulu the “A” is almost silent. The plant is a Taro species grown in Natal and Eastern Cape in South Africa and looks more like the common Arum than the tropical Taro, the corm looks like the Arum corm. Just boiled it is delicious, unlike the Taro which is rather bland.

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Luigi June 20, 2009 at 1:28 pm: It looks to me like a wild-type Colocasia esculenta.

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Bob June 21, 2009 at 4:38 am: I am currently based in New Zealand and have access to Taro in a few varieties , via the Pacific Island communities, one of which is the wild version, which has notably black stems. This is not true of Madumbi, which also has a flower very similar to the Arum. I would be very keen to grow the South African variety as it is a very different flavour to the common Pacific Taro which as previously noted is very bland. Here is a link to a picture of the flower flickr.com/photos/tags/amadumbe/

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