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Good news from Fiji

While the extent of damage at SPC offices and project sites is yet to be determined, Dr Tukuitonga confirmed the globally-significant tissue culture collections at SPC’s Centre for Pacific Crops and Trees (CePaCT) in Suva are unaffected, as the building is intact and there is a back-up generator maintaining the temperature in the storage laboratories.

Good to know, as Cyclone Winston a week or so back was clearly a bit of a bastard.

And this from the genebank’s curator, Valerie Tuia.

CePaCT facility is all fine – and lucky we have a good backup generator…and the collections are all fine. There was a curfew but staff and us managed to get in to check on the facilities during the cyclone. Only our breadfruit plot is damaged with some varieties decapitated and some fallen over. We would start trimming and allow to regrow. So far getting back slowly and we hope power will back to our homes.

Very best wishes to Valerie, her team and all my other friends at SPC and in Fiji.

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Brainfood: Phleum breeding, Rice resources, US corn breeding, Ecuadorian trad foods, Mixed systems, Musaceae history, Berry nutrition, Alaskan cattle

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Looking for a good potato picture

Potato #345 (2010), by Kevin Abosch.
Potato #345 (2010), by Kevin Abosch.

Well, Kevin Abosch takes a pretty decent picture of a potato. I’m not sure it’s worth the million dollar price tag, but it’s definitely not bad, as far as I’m concerned. Not everybody agrees, though, and this has spurred an interesting discussion at The Online Photographer, which Jeremy alerted me to.

Mike Johnston, who runs that site, threw out a challenge:

…is a good potato picture a thing that just doesn’t exist?

Commenters point to a number of plausible candidates, including the series by Andrzej Maciejewski, which I like a lot but I agree with Jeremy is spoiled by the lack of variety names.

Any more suggestions?

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American vs European taste

Julia Belluz has a long article over at Vox on Why fruits and vegetables taste better in Europe. Compared to the US, that is. Here’s the bottom line. Or lines:

  • American farmers put an emphasis on yield and durability, not flavour
  • American shoppers favour access over seasonality
  • The US government regulates for safety — but not quality
  • Finding flavourful food is a matter of priorities

I’m really not sure whether like is being compared with like here, and, if it is, whether one can generalize to this extent anyway about American or European farmers, shoppers and governments. Ms Belluz seems to agree, in a tweet, that she might be winging it a bit:

I know, I know. No systematic reviews on this one. More a matter of perception and lowly anecdote

But read the whole thing for yourself, and join in on the discussion on Twitter.