Medicinal plants

March 8, 2022March 8, 2022

The three S’s of medieval salads

There’s a thread on the Twitter feed of The Delicious Legacy Podcast about that holy trinity of somewhat weird medieval root vegetables: skirret, salsify and scorzonera.

THREAD:
Skirret, Salsify, Scorzonera…
These are root vegetables, once popular, and eaten in almost every meal, in a pottage style stew mainly; it was the staple of many farmers…
What happened to them? Why don't we eat them any more?
1/x pic.twitter.com/V3iqLid9LZ

— The Delicious Legacy Podcast (@DeliciousLegacy) March 6, 2022

If you don’t like the bird site, check it out on ThreadReader.

I’m not sure I agree with everything in there. For example, potato and sweetpotato can absolutely have complex flavours, and I doubt any of these three admittedly now marginal roots could ever have been described as staples. But it’s nice to be reminded of crops which are going out of fashion, and could presumably come back into it, given a little push.

March 7, 2022March 16, 2022

Brainfood: Ukrainian edition

Characteristics of the resistance of spring wheat varieties to pathogens of leaf diseases typical for the zone of the Right-Bank Forest-Steppe of Ukraine. 3 of 19 varieties from the national genebank could be useful.
The adaptability of soft spring wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) varieties. 3 of 10 accessions from the national genebank had high general adaptive ability.
Investigation of the Carbohydrates of Camelina sativa (L.) Crantz and Camelina microcarpa Andrz. Levels of monosaccharides quantified in material from the national genebank.
Characteristic of morphological traits and biochemical indicators in Linum pubescens. A flax wild relative with ornamental potential.
Inheritance of productivity and its elements by hybrids and lines of common bean (Phaseolus vulgaris L.). Lots of interesting variation to investigate further among F1-F6 hybrids.
Combining ability of self-pollined sunflower lines – parents of confectionery hybrids. Tasty material derived from genebank accessions.
Оil content in chickpea seeds of the national collection of Ukraine. Could do with more variation among the 43 accessions tested from the national genebank. But the whole collection is pretty important.
Plant genetic resources of Ukrainian Podillia. Results of a 2019 collecting expedition by the national genebank.
Genetic relatedness of sweet cherry (Prunus avium L.) cultivars from Ukraine determined by microsatellite markers. Ukrainian cultivars combine genetic material of local, western European, and Caucasian origin.
Characteristics of different varieties of the pea (Pisum sativum L.) in the zone of the Southern Forest-Steppe of Ukraine. Some of 30 newly introduced pea varieties might be useful in increasing productivity.
Progress in Japanese quinces breeding in Ukraine. Since 1913!
Molecular diversity in the Ukrainian melon collection as revealed by AFLPs and microsatellites. 38 accessions fall into the 3 standard genetic groups.
The history of sunflowers in Ukraine. Not peer-reviewed, but anyway.

February 17, 2022February 16, 2022

Nibbles: Agroforestry app, Virtual grazing areas, Tunisian herbalists, India agrobiodiversity

An app to help farmers choose agroforestry species in India.
An app to keep cows on the straight and narrow in Epping Forest.
The herbalists of Tunis could maybe do with an app.
There’s no app to stop agrobiodiversity loss. Even in India.

February 9, 2022February 9, 2022

The real dope on dope

If you were not satisfied with my glib summary of the paper “Large-scale whole-genome resequencing unravels the domestication history of Cannabis sativa” last August, the indefatigable Dorian Fuller has you covered.

Bottom line: incomplete sampling and imprecise dating mean that multiple domestications of the crop in China at the same time as, or even after, those of millets should not be ruled out just yet.

January 25, 2022

Nibbles: Orphan crops, False banana, Kava, Old corn, Food museum, Yoghurt, Neolithic, Wheat breeding, Trees, Old clove, Monoculture history

IFAD paean to neglected crops.
BBC tribute to enset.
Threnody to unsustainable kava.
Hymn to a pot of ancient maize.
Toast to a new museum of food in the UK.
Jeremy’s duet with June Hersh on yoghurt.
Scientific American epic on the European Neolithic.
Rhapsody on saving wheat from climate change.
Collection of important tree species from ICRAF.
Panegyric to a clove tree.
A eulogy for monoculture?