Neglected species

April 19, 2010April 19, 2010

Food technology: Life imitates Art

Run, don’t walk, to Nicola’s latest post over at Edible Geography, Multifunctional Desserts. I guarantee that you will emerge wiser and in a better mood than when you arrive, plus you’ll be able to fill empty moments in conversations with more fun food factoids, and other nuggets of information, that you had ever thought possible.

What’s it about?

Do me a favour, just go.

April 15, 2010April 15, 2010

Fairtrade quinoa vodka hits the stores

Oliver Morton alerts me on Twitter to the existence of a fairtrade quinoa vodka. The “first fairtrade certified vodka in the world,” no less. The quinoa comes from Bolivia, but the vodka is made in France as a joint venture.

The quinoa used by FAIR Vodka is cultivated by over 1,200 small producers in the Bolivian Altiplano and gathered within the Anapqui cooperative, the main association of farming producers in the country. With a strong focus on sustainability, FAIR is keen to build long-term relationships with their partnered cooperatives along with their communities in order to ensure their continued development.

A quick look around the intertubes did not reveal much in the way of other alcoholic beverages made from quinoa, apart from a reference to its use in making a type of chicha in Ecuador. Anyone know more?

April 15, 2010April 15, 2010

Nibbles: Museums, Urban trees, Maya, Research, Sisal

Better late than never, but tubes kinda dead today.
CNN rounds up food museums.
Extremely cool iPhone app maps NYC’s trees. And yet we still have genebank database hell.
The Maya buried their history in their homes. Now, can the boffins find seeds, do their whole aDNA thing?
French research boss explains What it will take to feed the world.
The history of sisal in Tanzania.

April 14, 2010April 14, 2010

Nibbles: Aubergines, Opuntia, Amazonian ag, Kenya, Swiflets, Coconut and Web 2.0, PROTA, Mexico, Fruit wild relatives

More either-or stuff from the Guardian on the Indian GM brijal story.
The USDA prickly pear cactus germplasm collection gets some exposure. And how many times can one say that.
Much better title from Discover on that ancient northern Amazonian earthworks story.
Kenyan foresters tell people to eat bamboo. Luigi’s mother-in-law politely demurs. On the other hand, she might like this.
Swiflet farming? Swiflet farming.
Really heated exchange on paper on coconut lethal yellowing in Yucatan develops on Google Groups. I love the internet.
PROTA publishes expensive book on promising African plants. Promises, promises. NASA promised us the personal jetpack. Where are we with that?
Nice summary of that Mesoamerican agricultural origins story we blogged briefly about a few days ago. So what exactly do you call hunter-gatherers who also grow crops?
First International Symposium on Wild Relatives of Subtropical and Temperate Fruit and Nut Crops will be held March 19-23, 2011 in Davis, California on the campus of the University of California, Davis. Book early.

April 13, 2010April 13, 2010

More backyard breeding: oca edition

Some call it plant breeding, but really it’s just vegetable eugenics. I get to create an all-conquering master race of ocas which will go forth and occupy vegetable gardens up and down the land. Megalomania was never so cheap, entertaining and – legal. I’m nothing but a Dalek in dungarees.

Rhizowen tells us where he’s coming from.