Agricultural Biodiversity Weblog
Agrobiodiversity is crops, livestock, foodways, microbes, pollinators, wild relatives …
Wouldn’t you know it. That Kampot pepper link has rotted away. But you can still find the original thanks to The Wayback Machine.
This is a new one on me. Cropwatch “is an independent watchdog for Endangered & Vulnerable Natural Aromatic Products used in the Aroma (Perfumes, Flavours, Aromatherapy, Cosmetics), Herbal, Traditional Medicine & Phytochemical Industries.” All those capitals give a bit of the flavour of the site. Let’s just say it’s not really beautiful. But it is informative.
Straight.com ((Vancouver’s Online Source, no less.)) had a longish piece about GMOs a few days back. Normally I wouldn’t bother noting such an occurrence here. I’m bored with the whole debate, frankly. But the article actually strives for balance, which is too unusual to let pass without mention.
We spent the Easter holidays in Colmurano again, and, like last summer, it was a wonderfully bucolic experience. One of the highlights was definitely a visit to the Macelleria Giuseppe dell’Orso in nearby Loro Piceno. Giuseppe, otherwise known as Beppe Cotto, is an artist with meat. And a bit of a showman as well. He welcomes every customer with some vino cotto and a slice of the local salame.
He’s fond — ok, perhaps overly fond — of bursting into song or poetry at the thought of some of his products, all based on local produce and traditions. His salsicce al vino cotto are fantastic. Also his pâté, which includes cacao somewhere in the production process. It is great to see a young man making a living — and a name for himself — at a local agrobiodiversity-based trade, and really enjoying himself to boot.
