Posts

Posted on

Black rice or blueberries? No contest!

An intriguing press release from the American Chemical Society says that in some respects black rice is better than blueberries:

“Just a spoonful of black rice bran contains more health promoting anthocyanin antioxidants than are found in a spoonful of blueberries, but with less sugar and more fiber and vitamin E antioxidants,” said Zhimin Xu, Associate Professor at the Department of Food Science at Louisiana State University Agricultural Center in Baton Rouge, La. … “If berries are used to boost health, why not black rice and black rice bran? Especially, black rice bran would be a unique and economical material to increase consumption of health promoting antioxidants.”

I like black rice, and I like blueberries, but berries have made all the running lately, what with Pavlovsk and everything, so I thought I would descend into genebank database hell in search of black rice. IRRI would be the obvious first stop in such a search, but I came up empty handed. 1 Next stop, the new kid on the block, Genesys. Fun!

IRRI has not yet supplied Genesys with data on hull colour, but the USDA has, and there were more than 300 mapped varieties of black or purple rice. (Click the pic to embiggen.)

Dr Xu says he’d like to see Louisiana farmers growing black rice, and people in the US embrace its use. Well, as a service to them, either go to Genesys to find the variety information, or play with the Google Earth file directly.

Posted on

The romance of the Pachino

I guess I always assumed that Sicily’s famous Pachino tomato, valued component of the Mediterranean diet, with its coveted EU-sanctioned protection, was grown exclusively by wizened, cantankerous old men bent rheumatically over the stony soil of parched ancestral smallholdings. Alas, thanks to my friend Amanda, who spent Ferragosto touring the area, apparently the southernmost point in Europe, and provided these photos, I now know better.

Posted on

Those Tarahumaran beans, again

Thanks to Elise Blackwell’s gracious comment on the true identity of the bean she once grew and that offered her such a strong connection with what was happening at the Pavlovsk Experiment Station, I was able to go and look for more information about Tarahumara Carpintero. A pole bean (Phaseolus vulgaris), it was originally collected by Native Seeds/SEARCH, and here’s what the NSS catalogue says about it:

Striking black and white Jacob’s Cattle bean. Originally collected in central and southern Tarahumara country, Chihuahua. This pole bean is prolific with a little shade in Tucson.

More is almost impossible to find, given that Googling “bean carpintero” results largely in information about Mr Bean and people who work with wood. “Carpintero Tarahumara” is not much more helpful. It will take you to Native Seeds/SEARCH and a couple of other places that are interested in the bean itself. One Canadian site declares that it is Apparently Extinct, which kind of ignores the fact that it is still available in the NSS 2010 catalogue (and which is where I got the image).

As for Jacob’s Cattle, there are masses of varieties, and masses of information. Some people say that Jacob’s Cattle beans are originally from Germany. Others that “it was a gift from Maine’s Passamaquoddy Indians to Joseph Clark, the first white child born in Lubec, Maine”. Most don’t bother to explain why the name fits, perhaps assuming that everyone is familiar with Genesis 30 (not the surrogate mother bit) and Jacob’s early experiments with epigenetics.

And the flocks conceived before the rods, and brought forth cattle ringstraked, speckled, and spotted.

The stories that varieties tell can be every bit as fascinating as their other qualities; names are often the portal into the stories. That’s why they matter.

Posted on

Local leafy greens go viral in Kenya

I continue to be amazed by the progress being made by — or, better, the resurgence of — indigenous leafy greens in Kenya. You can now buy managu (Solanum scabrum?) nicely packaged in supermarkets. Although it is also sold loose on the street.

And this is what the plant looks like.

I found it in my sister-in-law’s homegarden in Limuru, along with Amaranthus. She didn’t grow either of them until a couple of years back. Progress. More holiday snaps here.