Cooking

July 19, 2010July 20, 2010

Multimedia cacao

A couple of days ago we Nibbled a set of cacao photos from Sustainable Harvest International. I thought at the time it probably deserved better exposure, and I’m happy to be given the excuse to provide it by the appearance on YouTube of a sweet little cartoon on the cacao tree, courtesy of Kew. And by the start of a series of posts on how chocolate is made, by Rachel Laudan.

And speaking of cacao, this just in: A London hedge fund last week took delivery of contracts for about 7% of the world’s cacao producction, according to a report in The Guardian. (h/t The Tracing Paper). Coincidentally, or not, the price of cacao has increased 150% over the past 18 months.

July 19, 2010July 19, 2010

Nibbles: Oil palm, Breadfruit, Barcoding, Guyana genebank, Wheat and heat

Palmhugger, an oilpalm advocacy group, likens Greenpeace to Goebbels. Who are they really? CIFOR is linking to them on Facebook, so they’re probably kosher, right?
Nice story on breadfruit in Hawaii.
More barcoding stuff.
Reader: We must have a bank of seeds of our fruits and vegetables. Minister of Agriculture: We do!
Australian wheat boffins: “Adaptation strategies need to be considered now to prevent substantial yield losses in wheat from increasing future heat stress.”

July 16, 2010July 17, 2010

Nibbles: Danone, Street food, Makutano Junction, Canberra, Africa, Markets, Veggies

Let them eat yoghurt. Danone targets the poor. h/t Tom
Eating Mexico City, one street at a time. Bookmarked.
It’s The Archers, Jim, but not as we know it. Soaps spread (agro)innovation.
The Crawford Fund Conference does biodiversity (in Australia)
New Agriculturist reports on a discussion of development in Africa. Is anybody listening?
Food markets freed! A little. In one US state.
Local leafy greens all the rage in Kenya. Yeah, yeah. No but seriously, one of the great changes in the past 10 years, and a major agrobiodiversity success story.

June 23, 2010June 24, 2010

Nibbles: Rhoades, Trigonella, Plant nutrition, Annals of Botany roundup, Vitamin A, Insect Week, yeast, Biocultural diversity online

Remembering Robert Rhoades.
Fenugreek 101.
Plant nutrition experts on why plant nutrition is important for development.
Nigel Chaffey rounds up botanical news. Best of its kind.
Lois Englberger and others comment on that provocative vitamin A paper.
Hey, did you know it was Insect Week?
Olivia Judson on yeast.
Welcome to Terralingua’s Portal on Biocultural Diversity Conservation!

June 21, 2010June 22, 2010

Nibbles: Haitian mangoes, Dog bones, Vitis in Georgia, Lavandula in Tunisia, Pistacia in Chios, Rice wine in Korea, Nutella, Mozzarella, Gloucester Old Spot, Cowpea

Buy Haiti’s Francis mangoes!
The Muge dog was, in fact, a dog.
Looking at the grapevine in its center of origin.
Need to fence lavender populations in Tunisia to protect them.
More Mediterranean stuff. History of the mastic trade in an Aegean island.
Making “drunken rice” in Korea. Sign me up.
Nutella to come with warning label? Jeremy says: We don’t need no nanny state!
Bluish mozzarella balls confiscated. Jeremy says: Ok, maybe we do after all.
EU makes itself useful and protects bacon pig of choice, with built-in apple sauce to boot.
“…finding how the physical and chemical composition of different cowpea varieties influence human health, reduce obesity and prevent diseases like cancer, hypertension and heart related ailments.”