Smithsonian Magazine has a long, wonderful piece this month about the breadfruit — and Captain Bligh — in Jamaica. It’s by Caroline Alexander, who wrote a book on the famous mutiny, The Bounty. People forget that after the Bounty debacle in 1789, Bligh eventually, doggedly went back to the Pacific and completed his original mission of taking breadfruit to the Caribbean. In 1793, the Providence finally delivered its Tahitian cargo to Jamaica. Its descendants are still there. There’s a companion piece on cooking with breadfruit which includes Diana Ragone’s (of the Breadfruit Institute) recipe for her tasty breadfruit nachos. You can become a fan of the Breadfruit Institute on Facebook, which is how I got to the Smithsonian piece.
Millennium Seed Bank on the BBC
And also at the BBC, “Banking On Life.”
In this study of the history and future of seed banks across the world, Richard Scrase takes a look at the largest such store in the world, The Millennium Seed Bank in Sussex, as it takes in its billionth seed.
Although Svalbard gets a mention too. You can also listen to the programme here. Not clear if it is associated with the summer exhibition of the same name. Have we had enough about genebanks on the media of late, do you think?
Five Farms: documentary series
It’s been a busy week, so although I noticed a BBC World documentary series about Five Farms, I thought, I’ll save that for the weekend. And I forgot to bookmark the page at the BBC. Now, when I actually go looking for it, I’m covered in confusion. Truth be told, the BBC, domestic and World, provides magnificent service, but it isn’t always easy to find what you’re looking for in its web sites. Anyway, I had enough nuggets of information to go searching for the motherlode. And here it is: www.fivefarms.org.
If you want to hear the programmes, which were made by the Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University, they’re most easily available in a variety of formats from WUNC, North Carolina Public Radio. And there are multimedia video clips.
I didn’t find it easy to subscribe to the podcasts, but I have downloaded the programmes to listen to as I find time. This page makes it relatively easy to do so.
Agrobiodiversity timelines roundup
While looking for something else, I came across an interesting food timeline. Perhaps a bit selective, but definitely worth exploring. Then by coincidence I stumbled on another timeline, this time of gardening around the world. Again, not a bad way to waste some time, although way too many links seem to be broken. Anyway, I naturally tried to go for the trifecta, but I could not find an even half-decent timeline of agricultural history. Maybe you can?
Nomenclatura
The NYT reports that most cultures use the same categories to classify plants, such as trees, vines, herbs, bushes. People also consistently use two-word combinations for specific organisms within a larger group. At least that is what Cecil Brown found after studying 188 languages. It would be interesting to compare the kinds of labels used for crops and crop varieties across cultures. Has anyone done that?
The article also says that we are “losing the ability to order and name and therefore losing a connection to and a place in the living world.” The other day, Jacob commented on “Los tomates ya no saben a nada” by saying that he has “had more and less tasty Spanish tomatoes this summer. The thing is that you can’t “see” taste when you buy (the variety is not indicated)” 1.
Should we try to get more variety names in shops, markets, restaurants? The slow/organic/local food movement puts a lot of emphasis on where things are grown, but less on what is grown. Also think Starbucks & co.: coffee from Sumatra, Ethiopia, Antigua; but what variety? And why always arabica? Can’t they serve a nice barako? 2