Category: Cooking

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Rice in Italy

40869585_bdcd1db3d8_b.jpg No, not Condy Rice seeing the sights: rice the crop, and its future in Italy. It may surprise some people that rice is grown in Italy, but it has a long history of cultivation in the Po Valley, and an important place in the local cuisine, as anyone who has eaten risotto will testify. Unfortunately, the ongoing drought in the region is causing severe problems for thousands of rice farmers (among others) in the Val Padana. Some people are saying that’s the shape of things to come, with climate change and all. But here’s an interesting juxtaposition of news: it’s been announced that the Slow Food Foundation for Diversity, based in Tuscany, is to start marketing in Europe a traditional, organically grown, Filipino rice known as “unoy.” Isn’t globalization wonderful?

Photo from ciordia9 on Flickr provided under a Creative Commons license.

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West meets East for diverse recipes

Someone called Mythili, in the US, has been inspired by a conversation with her ((I know, stereotyping, but …)) grandmothers to concoct a series on traditional small grains of India. Mostly recipes, although she may be gathering other kinds of traditional knowledge too from her grannies. Be interesting to see where Mythili’s blog goes with this, but I think interviewing grandparents is a good way for children to get a feel for agricultural biodiversity.

Of course, if you don’t have the sort of relationship in which you can simply talk to older people (or, indeed, anyone) fear not. Help is at hand, in the form of something called an Earth Dinner. I kid you not. The helpful folks at Organic Valley have produced a set of cards you can buy that ask questions like “Describe a family recipe …” Could be valuable if someone were to collate all the results.

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Indian potato chips

Indian potato growers are turning to a new, low-sugar variety of potato because it is better for making chips (crisps if you’re British), for which there is rapidly increasing demand. Would be interesting to monitor the effect on “local” varieties, no?

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Coconut brandy

A bottle of brandy “distilled from the essence of the coconut flower and … matured for a minimum of two years” is going for sale for a million bucks. Talk about value adding!