Category: Neglected species

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Attack of the Giant Parsley

David Brenner, a curator at the USDA genebank at Ames, Iowa, has just grown what may be the world’s tallest parsley plant.

Brenner says the seeds for the record-breaking parsley plant were first collected from Hungary in 1983. Even though it resembles a large bushy weed, he says it’s a perfect example of parsley. “It also had big tubers,” Brenner says. “The roots are almost four inches across and in Europe, the roots of parsley are another food crop, almost like a potato, so it has a double-barreled purpose.”

The Guinness people have been summoned. The existing record is six feet and this plant is almost eight.

GRIN knows about six Petroselinum accessions collected in Hungary in 1983, from five different villages, and donated in 1987. However, they’re listed as “inactive.” Not for long, I guess. But with the news making it to the media and Guinness on the way, I hope Dr Brenner manages to regenerate a lot of seed. To find out which one of the six the giant is, we’ll have to wait for the characterization data to go online. Look for that “plant height” descriptor…

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In the soup

It seems only fair to point out that last week’s Economist column poking fun at certain menu items aroused the ire of certain readers. Do we care if they can’t take a joke? Of course not. But in trying to rub healing balm on aggrieved hearts, the writer accidentally, I am sure, touched a fire in ours. He loved sea buckthorn!

Even more striking was the dessert, concocted out of the lurid and astringent juice of the sea-buckthorn berry. This costly and vitamin-packed elixir was mixed before our eyes with liquid nitrogen, creating an instant sorbet with explosive effects on the tongue. Did someone say that east European food was boring?

Not boring, and not merely striking either, but good for you, as we’ve said more than once.

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Beer diversity on tap

Dock Street Brewery … announces the release at the West Philadelphia brewery and restaurant of Sudan Grass Sorghum Ale, a draft-only beer “inspired by the traditional fermented sorghum beverages found in Africa”. And that ain’t all.

Tony Knipling of Vecenie Distributing notes that the Millvale distributor has several interesting new brews, including “Pittsburgh’s first Slovenian import,” Lasko Club; Brasserie Pietra brews from Corsica, one brewed with chestnuts and another with with myrtle, strawberry, rockrose and spices; Scottish craft brews (including one made with guarana, kola nuts and poppy seeds) from Brew Dog; and Sah’tea, described as a “modern update of Finnish beer” brewed with black tea, juniper berries and other spices and hot river rocks, from Delaware’s always-edgy Dogfish Head.

Hot river rocks? Luigi will be sampling in due course.