- Celebrating the Irish Seed Savers Association celebrations. We had wanted to be there…
- CAS-IP on how to “break” the Plumpy’nut patent.
- Cattle wild relative seen for first time in 10 years. Well, by scientists anyway.
- “Initiatives that merely codify cultural products without taking the social-organizational context into account risk becoming little more than ‘museums of production.'” Ouch.
- Millet domestication pushed back in time.
- Antioxidant properties of traditional wild Iberian leafy greens. Yes, I know, this medicalizes nutrition, but I thought it was interesting that these wild species are still used.
- “…a trait of the diploid species, which apparently looks undesirable, might in fact be highly valuable for the improvement of amphidiploids…”
- “Food? We don’t need no stinkin’ food,” say UN negotiators.
- UK ambassador’s observations on agriculture in Ukraine. Love the contrast between 100 ha fields of sunflowers and the table groaning under home-grown fruit and vegetables.
- In other news, the UK’s ambassador to Ukraine has a blog. And so do a number of others. Sorely tempted to subscribe to their RSS.
Nibbles: Irish Seedsavers, Australia, Trees, Wheat genome, Reforestation, Spices
- Irish Times does seed saving, well.
- Australia too considers genebanks. In depth.
- “[T]he largest private collection of wild trees in Britain.” All grown from seed.
- James and the Giant Corn gives you the straight dope on the wheat genome … so we don’t have to. Thanks.
- Swiddeners can help with reforestation?
- KIT tells us all about how to make spices sustainable.
The romance of the Pachino
I guess I always assumed that Sicily’s famous Pachino tomato, valued component of the Mediterranean diet, with its coveted EU-sanctioned protection, was grown exclusively by wizened, cantankerous old men bent rheumatically over the stony soil of parched ancestral smallholdings. Alas, thanks to my friend Amanda, who spent Ferragosto touring the area, apparently the southernmost point in Europe, and provided these photos, I now know better.
Itadakimasu!
Just before digging in, whether it be a seven-course dinner or a sample at a supermarket, it’s polite to say “itadakimasu” (I will receive).
In Japan that is. But does it really just mean “I will receive”? According to my source on all things Japanese a fuller rendering would in fact be:
Thank you to everything and everyone involved in providing this food to me — the sun and the earth and the water for making it possible, the plants and animals that grew to be the food, the farmer who grew them and the person who took it to market and the person who sold it in the market and the person who bought it and the person who prepared the food and the person who laid the table, and everyone who enabled these people to play their part.
Does any other culture heap praise on the whole food system in this way at every snack and meal?
Nibbles: FARA, Khat, Pepsi in Peru
- Another blog about FARA’s 2010 meeting, this post features our friend Ehsan Dulloo. (Where’s an aggregator when you need one?)
- Mikrokhan masticates the khat economy. Would it really not grow locally?
- PepsiCo invests USD3 million over 3 years in Peruvian potatoes. Why not use CIP?