Mainstream

March 30, 2015March 31, 2015

Listening to the fizmer

A couple of weeks ago we Nibbled an article by the writer Robert Macfarlane on his decade-long effort to rescue local words for features of the British landscape from oblivion. Macfarlane also has a piece on this obsession of his in the latest alumni magazine of the University of Cambridge — he’s Senior Lecturer in Modern and Contemporary Literature there, after all. This includes evocative photographs of some of the terms he’s collected. Worth a look (p. 35).

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March 14, 2015March 15, 2015

Nibbles: Old pretzel, Wine podcast, Nordic podcast, Tea history, Pacific pests app, Eating bugs, Chicken history, African superfoods, Gender, Access to seeds, Sorghum beer, Making mead, Cumin, Bolivian school meals, MLN, Hidden hunger conference, CIP & IK, Potato Park, CIP’s Sawyer, Saving wheat, Resettlement, Sustainable cacao, Deforestation map, Language map

Again, sorry for slow blogging last week. Work, you know. Here we play catch-up.

While we were away, we reached 6000 Twitter followers! Thanks, everyone!
And Germans found a 250-year-old pretzel. Wait, you can get those at Kamps every day though. (Bonn inside joke.)
Oh, and Jeremy talked to a wine expert about how to become a wine expert.
But he has competition from the Nordic Food Lab now. What are you waiting for, subscribe to both!
Since we’re on podcasts, Laszlo Montgomery’s monumental ten-part blockbuster on the history of tea in China recently came to a close.
Talking of iTunes, ver. 2 of the Pacific Pest and Pathogens app is out.
Don’t want to get into the whole eating insects thing? Feed them to your chickens instead.
There’s even an infographic about that now.
But what will it do to the poor old chicken?
Cooking up some African superfoods. No insects (or chickens) were harmed in the making of this article.
Yeah but who will be doing the cooking?
And where to get the seeds? Maybe African Seed Access Index will help, though I somehow doubt it. At least for baobab.
Oh well, there’s always beer I guess. (Though even that you can’t take for granted these days.)
Or mead, at a pinch.
I bet the Sumerians put a pinch of cumin in their beer. And mead.
What about Latin America superfoods, though? Bolivians put them in their school meals, that’s what.
Maize was a Latin American superfood once. Having trouble in Africa now, though.
Wait, what, there was a 2nd International Congress on Hidden Hunger at the University of Hohenheim last week? And all I got was this t-shirt? Any superfoods on the menu there, I wonder?
CIP on how it deals with traditional knowledge.
For example at the Potato Park. Where I’ll be next week, incidentally. Stay tuned… But again, I rather fear that blogging will be on the light side next week.
CIP has come a long way since its first DG, Dr Richard L. Sawyer, who sadly just passed away.
Modelling the effects of climate change on wheat. Again. Can never have enough data. Anyway, wild relatives the answer?
Mongolian nomads settle down. And not in a good way.
There’s more to sustainable cacao than productivity. Fortunately, some people are on that. Meanwhile, at the other end of the poverty spectrum…
Don’t think I’ve ever seen a nerdy interactive map like Global Forest Watch go mainstream. Hope for us all. Mash it up with this next?

March 8, 2015March 8, 2015

Nibbles: Berlin blueberries, Science hubris, Purple tea, Soil, Bushmeat, Maize breeding, Ukranian salo

Must get myself a blueberry comb come next autumn.
What do scientists do in response to GMO fears? “Trust us.”
Purple tea in Kenya? Must look out for it.
Real farmers do it on the soil.
Bushmeat can be good for you.
Private sector uses public sector genebank. You didn’t build that.
“Salo is when nobody fucks with you and you’ve got a bit of money.”

March 3, 2015March 3, 2015

Nibbles: Wine & CC, Native American food, Olives in Crete & Palestine, Adopt-an-Alpine-Cow, Landscape terms, Gates investments, African smallholder advice

Grape-ocalypse now.
Take the Healthy Roots Indigenous Wellness Challenge.
A Kickstarter to map Crete’s ancient olive trees. And why not? Maybe Palestine next?
Different sort of crowdfunding for Italian cheese.
Please, sir, what’s a ujleer.
Gates Foundation throws Big Fast Food under the bus.
African smallholders told to diversify. Like they don’t know already.
African smallholders told to link up with markets. African smallholders tired of getting advice.

February 27, 2015February 27, 2015

Nibbles: Genebank data, Edible smut, Edible bugs, Healthful bluberries, Mining Indian food, Funny spuds pix, Old grape pits, Old einkorn stash, Phylogeny & conservation double, Rhizobacteria, Rapid phenotyping, Plata periurban ag, BRICs in Africa, Chinese terraces, SMTA

GRIN-Global comes to Portugal. That makes two.
Eating fungi.
Eating bugs.
Eating Indian.
Eating blueberries is good for you.
Would you eat these funny-looking potatoes?
Veg ink.
Old grape seed in Israel.
Old einkorn seed in England.
Atlas of Living Australia to include phylogenetic data. Kew thinking along same lines too.
Grasses can absorb organic N. With some help.
“Today’s international scientific community is dominated by big mercenaries who change their teams’ research subjects to get on the cover of Nature.” But INRA isn’t like that, apparently, at least with regards to high-throughput phenotyping.
Argentinian periurban farmers grow varieties they like to eat. Well, it’s good to have the data.
Rounding up China and Brazil in African agriculture.
Meanwhile, back home, famous rice terraces are being used to grow maize.
SMTA 101.