Category: Featured

David Williams remembers Ed Percival:

Ed’s father was working for the United Fruit Company in Guatemala where he met and married Ed’s mother, a Guatemalan. Ed was born at the United Fruit Company hospital in Quiriguá, an archaeological site on the Rio Motagua, famous for its incomparable array of Mayan stelae, one of which is featured on the country’s 10 centavo coin.

There’s more, check it out.

This is just a teaser, the start of a long and interesting comment on grasspea from Fernand Lambein, a Belgian scientist.

I respect the authors for trying to put new live into Lathyrus sativus research and for questioning why two generations of efforts did not result in what has been achieved in other crops.

Don’t just take our word for it. Read the whole thing, and be amazed at how useful grasspea can really be.

We don’t get many comments on Nibbles, but the book Diane Ragone points to is definitely worth noting.

Check out Angela Kepler & Frank Rust’s new book “The World of Bananas in Hawaii: Then and Now”.

Dorian Fuller encourages the study of African rice.

Rice presents a fascinating opportunity to study parallel evolution in crop diversity, crop ecology and cultural traditions with the comparison of African O. glaberrima and Asian O. sativa. Sadly, at present the archaeobotany of most West African countries is a complete blank, and archaeobotany in Africa needs more researchers, but some exciting finds are coming out (see my blog for some recent examples). Asian rice has also attracted more historical linguistic research and discussion. Unravelling the cultural histories of African rice remains a good challenge to get to work on!

Well, what are you waiting for. Get to work!

Irish researcher Theresa McDonald has a request:

I am currently researching transhumance in the West of Ireland and would appreciate any information, photographs of this practice in the Mediterranean region of Europe. I am familiar with the Vlach shepherds of Greece and hope to visit the Pindus Mountains sometime in the future.

Can you help her?