Cooking

Nibbles: Potatoes, Quinoa, Biofuels, Raisins, Cherokee heirlooms

If you have diverse potatoes, you need diverse potato recipes.
In 2013, knock ‘em dead with your profound knowledge of quinoa.
Biofuel news 1: they may exacerbate global warming.
Biofuel news 2: “Powerful enzymes create ethanol from agricultural harvest waste”. Could I just remind everyone, this isn’t “waste”.
Raisins from Kandahar prompt diplomatic dreams of developing Afghan agriculture.
Does heirloom corn prompt similar dreams for the Cherokee Nation?

New Year Resolution No. 1: Take the mashua survey.
New Year Resolution No. 2: Give the Food Programme a break, it can be not bad. As in the case of the recent episode featuring Irish Seed Savers and the only uniquely British veg.
New Year Resolution No. 3: Learn to appreciate hour-plus talks by CG Centre DGs. And other publicity stunts…
New Year Resolution No. 4: Give a damn about the next genome. Well, actually…
New Year Resolution No. 5: Try to understand what people think may be going on with malnutrition in India. If anything.
New Year Resolution No. 6: Marvel at new maps without fretting about how difficult to use they may be.
New Year Resolution No. 7: Do not snigger at the British honours system.
New Year Resolution No. 8: Disengage from the whole are-GMOs-good-or-bad? thing. It’s the wrong question, and nobody is listening anyhow.
New Year Resolution No. 9: Ignore the next lactose tolerance evolution story. They’re all the same.
New Year Resolution No. 10: Stop obsessing about beer. But not yet. No, not yet.
Happy 2013!

Had no idea there were so many Maya nuts around. Glad Jeremy reminded me. And some Central Asian nuts for balance.
The best of Afroculinaria.
The best of HarvestPlus. Oh for the time to do a mashup. Anyway, does this count? And what’s that you say? You have a paper you’re writing on the subject?
CIP genebank sees CIMMYT’s ISO accreditation (certification? whatever) and raises it a new piece of software. ILRI genebank doubles down.
One Data Portal to Rule them All. At FAO. Somewhat underwhelming, frankly.
Rice boffins target drought-stressed villages
New map of bioregions. In the Daily Mail?
Sustainable intensification debate gets nowhere. Pretty cynical note to leave you with, don’t you think?
Ok, so here’s something a little more festive. California caviar.
And some beer to go with that.

Cassava gets a makeover in Brazil. And another, of a different kind, in East Africa.
Revolution turns into Terror. Where’s our Napoleon?
Designating Costa Rican cheese.
Conserving poverty?
No poverty for bean breeders in the US.
The uses of Oregon Grape. Which is of course not a grape.
Chaffey Style.
Coconut water is a major conservation issue for 2013. It says here.
Fewer farmers, more fires. In the Amazon. It says here.
Yeah, what is balsam anyway?
So the Next Big Thing in African ag development is agricultural growth corridors. What could possibly go wrong? Will they learn from wildlife corridors? Will they be using these four apparently key technologies? Or bolstering extension? And will it all mean a decrease in bush meat consumption?
Heritage foods book. Yummie.
Like potatoes in Peru, I guess. And various street foods in West Africa.
Conference on native seed use in the US. Probably even some crop wild relatives in there.

BBC makes a meal of very old cheese.
Botanist in the kitchen dishes the whole history of gluten.
Food boffin reflects on UK Women’s Institute test recipes for Global Food Security.
Dewy-eyed farmer says you can’t eat agrobiodiversity, but so what.