Lois Englberger of the Island Food Community of Pohnpei tells us that “Dana Lee Ling is doing some exciting work on conservation and promotion of Pohnpei banana varieties, along with his teaching at the College of Micronesia-FSM.” The College has an ethnogarden, which includes 14 banana varieties, among many other things.
Nibbles: Frogs, Noni, Cassava etc, Commons, Starch, Aurochs, Oats
- Frog porridge.
- Noni in excruciating depth.
- Caribbean seeks food security, turns to “cassava, sweet potato, bananas, yams and many others”.
- Uncommonly interesting article on commons.
- Nice summary of the amylase-gene-copy-number-and-starch-in-the-diet story.
- Dutch aurochs survived longer than thought.
- Yes, we have no oats.
Colonial farming brought to life
Slate reporter does stint as historical re-enactor at the living museum that is the Claude Moore Colonial Farm in Virginia — and waxes lyrical about some of her colleagues:
I was particularly entertained by the turkeys. These were not the tasteless, denatured modern grotesques bred to be so short-legged and heavy-breasted that they can no longer mate, but a heritage breed, Black Spanish.
Nibbles: Health, Fungi, Health, Pollan, Organic
- Nobellist praises biodiversity, ignores food.
- TED video on world-saving mushrooms.
- God: “Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in the which is the fruit of a tree yieleling seed; to you, it shall be for meat.“
- Pollan: “Vote with your fork, for a different kind of food. Go to the farmer’s market. Get out of the supermarket… Plant a garden… Declare your independence from the culture of fast food.”
- Rodale Institute: “Yield data just by itself makes the case for a focused and persistent move to organic farming systems.”
R&B
A large number of variations on one simple (and very nutritious, being as how one is a cereal and one is a pulse) dish: rice and beans. Everyone who’s anyone (at least in the pressure cooker world of US-based food blogging) is there, with some nifty ideas on that lysine-tryptophan feasteroni.