Literally, I mean. In China, the peanut (huasheng 花生) is an auspicious symbol because its second character (sheng 生) means “to give birth.” That’s why you can buy cute plastic peanut-shaped toys which open to play a jingle.
Conservation and vernacular names
Nibbles: Haitian mangoes, Dog bones, Vitis in Georgia, Lavandula in Tunisia, Pistacia in Chios, Rice wine in Korea, Nutella, Mozzarella, Gloucester Old Spot, Cowpea
- Buy Haiti’s Francis mangoes!
- The Muge dog was, in fact, a dog.
- Looking at the grapevine in its center of origin.
- Need to fence lavender populations in Tunisia to protect them.
- More Mediterranean stuff. History of the mastic trade in an Aegean island.
- Making “drunken rice” in Korea. Sign me up.
- Nutella to come with warning label? Jeremy says: We don’t need no nanny state!
- Bluish mozzarella balls confiscated. Jeremy says: Ok, maybe we do after all.
- EU makes itself useful and protects bacon pig of choice, with built-in apple sauce to boot.
- “…finding how the physical and chemical composition of different cowpea varieties influence human health, reduce obesity and prevent diseases like cancer, hypertension and heart related ailments.”
The history of farming in a few objects
We blogged before about the BBC’s A History of the World in 100 Objects. But that was some months ago and there’s a whole bunch more programmes on agriculture-related objects in the can now. Well worth a listen.
Nibbles: Maize, Millets, Pollinators, Ungulates, Drugs, Orchids
- Long article on the politics (and more) of maize in Mexico.
- Yet more on the slow comeback of millets in (parts of) India.
- International Conference on Pollinator Biology, Health and Policy on July 24-28, 2010 at Penn State.
- Hunted ungulates are semi-domesticated.
- “…psychoactive plant toxins were a mundane occurrence in the environments of hominid evolution, and our ancestors may have been exploiting plant drugs for very long periods of time.”
- “I was confronted with centrefolds showing downy, smooth petals and moistened, hot-pink lips that pouted in the direction of tautly curved shafts and heavily veined pouches.”