Cooking

April 9, 2009April 9, 2009

An introduction to buckwheat

My recent trip to Russia allowed me to get culinarily acquainted — albeit all too cursorily — with a bit of agricultural biodiversity I don’t know much about: buckwheat (Ð³Ñ€ÐµÑ‡Ð°). Russia used to be its largest producer. I saw it in its raw state in the market:

There was kasha for breakfast at the hotel. And I think I had the blintz too, though I’m not sure. Not spectacular, taste-wise, but pleasant enough.

April 9, 2009April 14, 2009

Nibbles: French fries, Maple syrup, Cooking heirlooms, Salmon, Ancient booze, Rice domestication

India finally arrives, gets french fries.
Sophisticated urbanites tap maples.
Raise a rare heirloom breed. Then cook it.
“Some might be hoping he will predict a return to the glory days of the “truly unique” strain of Petitcodiac salmon, which now likely exists only in a gene bank at the Mactaquac Fish Hatchery at this point.”
Boffins identify world’s first cocktail.
How people turned from nut collectors into rice farmers in China.
Hungarians sacrificed dogs.

April 8, 2009April 9, 2009

All you can eat

Is there any ethnic food concoction that says (agro)biodiversity quite like smÃ¶rgÃ¥sbord?

LATER: With vodka, of course.

April 8, 2009April 8, 2009

Nibbles: Maori nutrition, Curry summit

“For many Pacific people, the value of food is context-specific – from a resource of simple sustenance through to a symbolic observation of respect, love and appreciation, hospitality and the honouring of guests.” Yeah but it aint working, is it. Via.
Government asked to bail out curry joints. Now that’s something I wouldn’t mind seeing my taxes going into.

April 6, 2009April 6, 2009

Nouvelle cuisine

Idaho’s Treasure Valley Farmer-Chef Collaborative sounds like a really cool idea. It brings producers — including producers of some fairly unusual things for Idaho — together with the area’s top restaurateurs. The former get a lucrative market, the latter some interesting new ingredients with which to attract customers. Everybody wins. And speaking of interesting new ingredients, how about goat meat? Apparently, New Yorkers have just discovered it. Fuggedaboutit.

Fresh Nibbles

What has agrobiodiversity ever done for us? Kent Nnadozie of the Plant Treaty lays it out.
Michael Frei of the HealthyDiets4Africa project doesn’t need it laid out.
Neither do the people who awarded a prize to Charlotte Allender of the UK Vegetable Genebank.
What has the US National Plant Germplasm System ever done for anyone? The Guardian, the NY Times and NPR News lay it out. I guess someone in D.C. needs it laid out, but will it make any difference?
Everyone: Potatoes in Florida! Breeders: No problem. NPGS: You called?
Here’s The Guardian again, but this time thinking it is making the case for not putting seeds in the fridge, whereas in fact it’s making the case for the complementarity of ex situ and on-farm conservation.
Speaking of on-farm conservation, here’s a couple of pieces on community seed banks in Guatemala.
Speaking of on-farm conservation, here’s the heart-warming story of Welsh organic farmer Gerald Miles.
Meanwhile, the World Vegetable Centre opens a new genebank.
And Türkiye hosts an international, no less, olive genebank.
And genebanks can be so beautiful, like works of art. Former Tate Modern director Vicente Todolí lays out his citrus samples. I wonder what he could do with olives.
Botanic gardens are beautiful and often act a little bit like crop genebanks. Here’s an example from Portugal I stumbled onto recently, I forget how.
You know what I’d like to see? An international pepper genebank, that’s what. No, not the kind that might be in those Guatemalan community seedbanks or the WorldVeg genebank. This sort of pepper. Piper pepper.
I bet the ancient Egyptians had pepper. Egyptian archaeologist Mennat-Allah El Dorry lays out what else they had.
Maybe you could lay out world history using pepper. You can definitely do so using cacao and chocolate.
No, not using ancient DNA, but actually…

Published on April 4, 2025