A blog post at Alcademics.com precipitated a very educational bit of surfing yesterday. I found out about the existence of E Clampus Vitus, a fraternal organization dedicated to the study and preservation of the heritage of the Old West, which of course includes its drinks. I found out that there’s a drink called pisco punch, which I now desperately want to taste. I found out that there’s a dispute between Chile and Peru over the name “pisco.” And I found out that the deadly Pisco earthquake of 2007 destroyed most wineries in the area, though the vineyards (the grape used to make pisco is mainly muscat, but there are other varieties as well) themselves largely survived. What I haven’t been able to find out is how the rebuilding is going. A year ago the news was not good. You can still find pisco on the shelves, so I guess the wineries are back in action. Or is it mainly the Chilean stuff?
Nibbles: Ginseng, Worms, Cities
- Biodiversity in cultivated Panax notoginseng populations.
- Worms add value to waste.
- Urban homesteading? Whatever next?
Downmarket
More on the effect of the economic downturn on agrobiodiversity. First, there’s a series of reports from markets around the world from the BBC. A couple include information on food. From Beijing:
In the face of the economic crisis, Ms Liu said Chinese people are going back to buying basic vegetables like Chinese cabbage and potatoes.
And from Crawford Market, Mumbai:
Even spice sellers are feeling the pinch. Jabbar Prajapati says the cost of saffron has rocketed from 60 rupees (£0.82 / $1.20) per gram last year, to 300 rupees (£4 / $6) per gram. “People are not ready to buy at those prices,” he says.
Also, The Economist has a story about “victory gardens” in Little Rock, Arkansas. The money quote:
Many gardeners are focusing on “heirloom plants” rare varieties from earlier times that do not appeal to agribusiness.
Millennial beans
Nice enough beans, ((And thanks to Bisse for letting me use her flickr pic.)) but is the story circulating about them really true?
The story of Anasazi beans varies, depending on who is telling it. In popular mythology, the beans were uncovered by an anthropologist, who discovered a 1,500 year old tightly sealed jar of the beans at a dig in New Mexico. Some of the beans germinated, and the new variety of bean entered cultivation again.
I tried to track the story down, and the closest I got to paydirt, I think, was a passage in Beans: A History by Ken Albala. But even that is pretty vague really. Archaeologists from UCLA somewhere in the midwest in the 1980s, or maybe 1950s, uncover a clay pot sealed with pine tar which they carbon date to 500 BCE. Some of the beans sprout and an intrepid businessman markets them. Yeah, right. To go back to the source of the previous quote:
Since most botanists agree that most beans are unable to germinate after approximately 50 years, it is more probable that the beans remained in constant cultivation in the Southwest, probably in Native American gardens, and that they were picked up by companies looking for new “boutique beans.”
There are plenty of companies marketing Anasazi beans now. But actually it is not impossible for legume seeds to keep their viability for more than 50 years — that’s what genebanks are for. And the dry, relatively cool conditions of an Arizona cave might just be good enough to ensure the survival of a few beans for centuries.
Nibbles: Rituals, Pig, Diseases, Beer, Hog, Fair
- The Green Revolution has messed with rice rituals in Bengal.
- National Pig Day is coming up. Bacon for breakfast at last!
- The Star Trek tricorder finally arrives, though only for plant diseases so far.
- Organic beer can be good. You had me at beer.
- Speakin’ of bacon, make mine endangered.
- Biodiversity Fair held in Bhutan “to recognise the farmers’ contribution …; create awareness … and encourage farmers …; promote in situ conservation and … ex situ (gene bank) conservation; and provide … opportunities to exchange seeds.”