Cooking

December 11, 2015December 11, 2015

Nibbles: Roots & tubers, Vegetables, Baobab sorbet, Grapevine breeding, Landscapes, CC & ag

Cassava in the spotlight.
Yeah but don’t forget your veggies.
Plus a tasty baobab dessert.
And of course you’ll need a glass of wine to go with such a nicely balanced meal.
Let’s bring all that together, shall we?
Before it’s too late.

December 2, 2015

Nibbles: Tree conservation, Seed fairs, Baobab powder, Simran’s book, Cheesy prince, Companies & CC, Organic breeding

Crowdfunding the Zero Tree Extinctions project.
Seed fairs for climate change adaptation in Zimbabwe.
Make mine a baobab smoothie.
Another great review of Simran Sethi’s new book Bread, Wine, Chocolate: The Slow Loss of Foods We Love.
Blessed are the cheesemakers.
Big Food taking fright?
Breeding the organic breeders of the future.

December 1, 2015November 30, 2015

Nibbles: Ancient faba, Ampelography double, S. African cattle, CIMMYT in Ethiopia, Seed pix, Heirloom pix, Trifolium genome

Faba beans came before cereals in Galilee.
Wine is not quite so old in Georgia, but still pretty old. But will they be able to genotype it?
South Africa is a cattle melting pot.
Getting improved wheat out there in Ethiopia.
These seeds are definitely ready for their close-ups.
Speaking of close-ups: Amy Goldman has a new book out.
First forage clover genome. More and more difficult to think of firsts.

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?