Category: Indigenous knowledge systems

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Iris in Japan and Tuscany

We went to the Hirishoge exhibition here in Rome some time ago, and very impressive it was too, but I don’t remember seeing this particular woodcut.

iris

I’ve in fact only just come across it, on Flickr, where there is this fascinating commentary:

In the village of Horikiri in suburban Edo, gardeners grew a year-round variety of flowers and were particularly famous for the iris shown here, “hanashobu,” well suited to this swampy land. In this print Hiroshige has shown three, almost-life-size, detailed specimens of the nineteenth-century hanashobu hybrids and in the distance, sightseers from Edo are admiring the blossoms. In the 1870’s the cultivation of hanashobu had begun to spread rapidly in Europe and America and the developed into a booming export market for the gardeners of Horikiri. The Horikiri plantations began to wane in the 1920’s and eventually turned over to wartime food production. After the war, one of them was revived and is now a public park, particularly popular in May when the flowers are in bloom.

Continue reading “Iris in Japan and Tuscany”

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Nibbles: Red rice, Drought squared, Slow Food, Coffee, Cassava, Horses, Wheat, Ketchup

  • Saving red rice in India. Note comment from Bhuwon.
  • India again: “We have not been able to sow rice. Our corn crop has been destroyed by pests. We have nothing to eat. We have nothing to feed our cattle.”
  • Morocco: “The farmers started using more subterranean water, but that has almost been used up, putting us on a straight line to desertification.” But, “[r]esearchers have also introduced new varieties of grain that in laboratory tests have proven resistant to water stress or drought.”
  • Another Slow Food interview. Zzzzzzzzzz.
  • Cuppa weird joe?
  • IITA and others save cassava in West Africa.
  • Nice photo essay on a thoroughbred stud farm.
  • Take the wheat quiz.
  • Where is our heirloom ketchup?
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Traditional tattoo dye to go mainstream

The report in FoodNavigator seemed pretty boring at first sight:

EcoFlora has developed a natural, acid-stable blue coloring for foods, beverages and cosmetics and it says the creation of a sustainable supply chain differentiates it from other colors on the market.

But then I googled the plant involved (“edible jagua fruit, which grows in the Chocó rainforest” of Colombia). It turns out jagua is Genipa americana, which is cultivated for its edible fruit, but also has other traditional uses.

South American Indians bathe their legs in the clear liquid obtained from the fruit. The liquid has an astringent effect. When the liquid oxidizes, it stains the skin black. These stains are permanent, but only color the top few layers of skin, and thus disappear after about a fortnight, when the skin is naturally shed. As South Americans Indians went into battle, they used to paint themselves with Genipa juice and annatto.

The active compound is called genipin. Apparently, there’s been a “recent explosion in the popularity of Jagua body art.”

There’s nothing in the FoodNavigator piece about where the idea for this “natural, acid-stable blue coloring for foods, beverages and cosmetics” ultimately came from. However…

EcoFlora says it is committed to working with some of the poorest communities in the region to harvest the fruit in a manner which is environmentally sustainable and beneficial to the local economy.

Well, that’s something, I suppose.

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Nibbles: Fisheries, Mangroves, European bison, Dormouse, Eating & drinking heirlooms, Apios, Kombucha, Organic and health