Agricultural Biodiversity Weblog
Agrobiodiversity is crops, livestock, foodways, microbes, pollinators, wild relatives …
By the late 18th century, a ton of Mexican vanilla was worth … “its weight in silver.”
That’s just one of the fun facts I learned from Robert Krulwich’s rendering of the bittersweet story of the slave boy on the Indian Ocean island of Réunion who discovered how to manually pollinate vanilla. Or did he? Well, that’s the point of the story. If you read the whole thing over at National Geographic’s blogs, you also get the benefit of some really charming drawings.
And we’re back! While we were away…
Just back from two weeks in Kenya, where I was too taken up with work and family to blog much, but not nearly enough to neglect Twitter. And of course Jeremy has been busy over at Eat This Podcast, so I’m sure you didn’t miss me. Much.
I did manage to score some neglected species goodness in Nairobi. This is baobab fruit pulp. You soak it in boiling water, strain it, and mix it with milk (and maybe sugar) for a really tasty, pleasantly tart, drink. Some ladies from West Africa taught us the process. And also procured the raw material, which can apparently only be had in a Somali suburb of Nairobi called Eastleigh. But I see no reason why the juice shouldn’t be sold at Java, Art Cafe or other trendy eateries in more mainstream, let us say, neighbourhoods. Then all those factsheets might actually have been worth it.