Browsing Princeton’s image library

A short note in Global Voices sent me to the Princeton Digital Library of Islamic Manuscripts in search of anything vaguely botanical or agricultural. I found a treatise on botany with charming watercolours of many different plants, some cultivated. Perhaps someone out there who can read classical Arabic can tell us the gist.

Roaming a little further around the Princeton Digital Collections I also came across the Western Americana Photographs Collection, which has some really fascinating stuff. I had no idea that Indians stored acorns in specially constructed caches, for example. But it seems to have been a common practice in the Yosemite Valley.

Rock salt and pond scum

A fascinating post over at Rancho Gordo discusses tequesquite. That’s a natural salt that has been used in Mexican cooking since pre-Columbian times, including for nixtamalization, a process that makes maize easier to process, tastier and more nutritious.

The post also mentions the alga known as tecuilayl (Spirulina geitleri). This was apparently an important food for the Aztecs. ((Alas, it doesn’t make it into FAO’s guide to the seaweed industry.)) Our resident expert on Mexico says it’s the perfect complement to a succulent steamed axolotl in chile sauce. Yummie.

Garden to the pharoahs reincarnated

Sennufer lived in the 1600 years ago and took care of the fields and vineyards of two Egyptian Pharaohs. Among his many titles were Chancellor to Amenhotep II, Overseer of the Granaries of Amen, and even High Priest of Amen in Menisut. He also created one of the first gardens, and left one of the first garden plans. Now comes news that Egypt might just be considering re-creating Sennufer’s garden on the east bank of the Nile at Luxor. Why mention it here? Because Sennufer, like all sensible gardeners, drew no great distinctions between the purely ornamental and the purely useful, and mixed flowers, vegetables, fruit trees and vines in a very modern fashion. Via.