Category: Cooking

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Nibbles: Trevor Williams, ICRISAT genebank, Irish seedbank, Domestication video, COP27 genebank webinar, Pasturelands, Big Food report, Mesopotamian cooking

  1. The late Prof. Trevor Williams, one of the pioneers of genebanking, in the news.
  2. The President of Niger visits a genebank, makes the news.
  3. Irish seedbanking in the news.
  4. Dr Mark Chapman on how to study domestication using seeds in genebanks.
  5. COP27 webinar on using seeds in genebanks for climate change adaptation.
  6. Pasturelands: sometimes genebanks are not enough. Though even then I bet they can help.
  7. Big Food still not doing much to support genebanks, despite reports such as this.
  8. A book on ancient Mesopotamian cooking. Who can think of the best link to genebanks?
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Nibbles: Edible Memory, Tomatomania, British apples, Turgovian pear, Climate & crops, Food systems buzzwords, NTBG jobs, World Food Day 2022

  1. Edible Memory for free, for a month. Heirloom tomatoes and more.
  2. Speaking of heirloom tomatoes… Tomatomania! The podcast. And the website.
  3. The ritual autumn BBC story on heirloom apples. Anyone for applemania?
  4. Would you settle for pearmania? Perrymania actually.
  5. Mania or no, crops have taken a hit this year.
  6. The truth behind some buzzwords in food systems discourse from IPES-Food. Spoiler alert: agroecologymania.
  7. Some cool breadfruit etc. jobs going in Hawaii at the National Tropical Botanical Garden.
  8. Kent Nnadozie has a pretty cool job at the Plant Treaty, here’s an interview with him on the occasion of World Food Day.
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Nibbles: Tree planting, Restoration genebanks, Breadfruit Summit, Rice diversity demand, Irish Seed Savers, Jordan bread, Peanut recipes

  1. Rules for tree planting.
  2. Where those trees will have to come from: thousands of seed banks.
  3. Not if the tree is breadfruit, but that’s ok, there’s other ways to conserve the stuff.
  4. The impact of a single seed bank on rice improvement measured.
  5. The impact of Irish seed banks recognized.
  6. No need for genebanks to save heirloom wheats in Jordan.
  7. Lost opportunity to mention peanut genebanks, but that’s ok there’s other ways to conserve the stuff.
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Nibbles: New cassava, Community seedbank double, Rwandan beans, Knotweed et al., Seed systems, Adam Alexander, Uruguay genebank, Kelp biobank

  1. There’s a new cassava in town in Kenya.
  2. I wonder if it will end up in a community “seed” bank.
  3. …because they swear by them in Zimbabwe.
  4. Cassava is not the only American crops that’s important in parts of Africa: the cultural appropriation of beans in Rwanda.
  5. Some American crops didn’t make it very far out of America.
  6. Be it beans, cassava or sump/knotweed, what’s needed is a Quality-Declared Seed (QDS) system. Right?
  7. Well you also need someone to go around collecting the stuff in the first place.
  8. But don’t forget to back everything up in Svalbard, like Uruguay is doing.
  9. Well maybe not everything.
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Nibbles: Old olive, Silphion, Heirloom watermelon, Calabrian chili, ICARDA genebank, Jamaica genebank, Tamil community seedbank, Forestry seeds

  1. Really old olive tree in the gardens of the mosque-cathedral of Cordoba is a lost variety.
  2. Long extinct medicinal spice plant not extinct after all?
  3. The next nearly extinct heirloom on our list is a watermelon from Virginia. Who knows, it may originally have been grown in Cordoba or Cyrenaica…
  4. And moving in the opposite direction, a really hot Calabrian chili pepper beats the heat.
  5. The ICARDA genebank is trying to find stuff that will beat the heat too.
  6. Jamaica is looking to beat the heat by establishing some new genebanks.
  7. Tamil Nadu going the community seedbank route, and why not? Jamaica please take note.
  8. An alliance of forestry outfits is pushing for a global seedbank infrastructure to support woodland restoration. Nothing if not ambitious. And much needed.