Cooking

November 11, 2015November 11, 2015

Breeding locally for local cooks

I’m not sure if we’ve ever linked to the Culinary Breeding Network before. This is a bunch…

…of plant breeders, seed growers, fresh market farmers, chefs and produce buyers engaged in developing and identifying varieties and traits of culinary excellence for vegetable crops in the Pacific Northwest region.

It came to mind because they have a cool, very informative Instagram account, as you can see from a post from a couple of days back…

#tbt the #cbnvarietyshowcase With corn breeder Bill Tracy of Univ of Wisconsin-Madison and Maya Lovelace of Mae in Portland, OR at the corn table. In 2013, Bill began new efforts in developing non-sweet vegetable corns which now includes Chilean choclo corns (flint corn) and Mexican pozoleros and elotes. He is also improving many heirloom corn varieties for local production and identified two that have excellent corn flavor and nice texture – 'Early Golden Market' and 'Lindsey Meyer Blue'. Photo by @shawnlinehan with Bill holding his Chilean choclo (on left) and 'Blue Eyed Blonde' (on right) which @mayalovelace used in her featured dish.

A photo posted by Culinary Breeding Network (@culinarybreedingnetwork) on Nov 9, 2015 at 2:54pm PST

…and because of yesterday’s post here on how to measure diversity. As I tried to say at the time, sometimes, for all its faults, number of varieties can be a useful metric. And even when it’s not, the names of the varieties are often a lot of fun.

November 10, 2015November 11, 2015

Nibbles: Apple duo, Biofortified lentil, Wild sweet potatoes, African supermarkets, Trees on farms, Botanic gardens history, Funny honey, Spice trade, Byzantine bread, Seed longevity, Edible wilds

In remembrance of apples past.
What makes for an “outstanding lentil“?
Sweet potatoes finally get a taste of the wild.
A tree for every season: ICRAF pushing trees both local and exotic.
Can Zambian supermarkets support local farmers AND make money? Should get some of those tree products in there.
Touring the oldest botanical gardens would make for a great round-the-world trip.
Though I’d probably want to add a quick diversion to taste hallucinogenic honey in Nepal.
‘Twas pepper built Venice. That and bread.
Defence-related genes important in seed longevity.
What the heck are microgreens? And will they be discussed at the International Symposium on Biodiversity and Edible Wild Species in Turkey next November?

November 3, 2015November 3, 2015

Nibbles: Seed Hunter, Corn Palace, Rice domestication, Solomons cocoa, Simran Sethi book, Cucurbit diseases, Brazilian foodies, Ananas genome, GMOs in Argentina

Seed Hunter visits genebank. Not many people hurt.
I’d like to visit this Corn Palace.
Rice domestication: not once, not twice, three times. Well, really, who’s to say maybe even more than that? Maybe even in Australia?
Solomon Islands cacao wins award. Looking forward to tasting it one day. But is it certified?
Bread, Wine, Chocolate: The Giveaway.
Researchers hoping to science the shit out of threat to Thanksgiving.
Genetic resources and gastronomy in Brazil.
Pineapple gets a genome.
Sunflower saves soybean? What wizardry is this?

October 30, 2015

Nibbles: EATx Cali, Gourds, Armenian wine, Wheat chemistry, Genomics of domestication, Soybean breeding

Svalbard among things being discussed at EATx Cali today. Who knows, maybe other genebanks too?
The cucumber’s wilder relatives.
Armenian wine going back to the future.
Whole grains deconstructed.
Unpicking domestication in chickens and cattle. And the original paper on the latter, featuring the aurochs genome.
Breeders have bred omega-3 alpha-linolenic acid (ALA) out of soybeans, but are now going back to wild relatives to breed it back in.

October 29, 2015

A periplus to the geography of food

This Article Selection has been created in order to highlight some of the huge body of research on the topic of Food across Geography, Planning and Development journals. In recent years, we have published an increasing number of articles on this topic, from a very wide range of perspectives, and interest continues to grow today.

Great idea from Elsevier.