Hello

It’s good to be back on the usual schedule — alternating podcasts and newsletters weekly — as it gives me a little more time to seek out interesting articles to share that aren’t obviously produced by a stochastic parrot. I hope you enjoy what I’ve found.

Botanists: in the newsletter

The Botanist in the Kitchen is actually two botanists, Jeanne Osnas and Katherine Preston, who have been treating readers to their erudition and kitchen savvy since just before I started this podcast. Now they’ve decided to embrace modernity with a newsletter. Gather and Sow will, they say, come out monthly, which is very good news for those of us who enjoy a modicum of science with our food. This month’s issue offers insights into chocolate, natch, that are far more interesting than you will find elsewhere at this time, along with a botanically-infused recipe exploration, and a round up of recent research. I’ve subscribed.

Diversity: in the field

I was delighted when my compadre Luigi cast aside his customary laconic style to expand on the connection among four recent research papers on crop diversity. You don’t actually have to read them to get what Luigi was getting at.

[C]onserving and deploying species diversity in fields and landscapes is not merely an ecological virtue, but a nutritional strategy, one that translates more diverse seeds in the soil to more nutrients on plates to fewer people in hospitals.

Milk: in the cupboard

One more slug of science for you. I had some questions about long-lasting milk and turned up this article from BBC Futures on The milk that lasts for months. OK, it dates to 2017, but nothing up-to-the-minute adds anything, and it did explain how they make it and why I don’t really like the taste of the stuff. It is a bit sweet, and definitely too white. In tea, in an emergency? Yeah sure.

Georgia: in the news

Luigi is probably already familiar with an article from UNEP describing how In Georgia, ancient grains and grapes are restoring farmlands – and traditions. It’s all there. Diversity on the land revitalising soil health, improving the environment, strengthening social ties, and bringing tourist money into the local economy.

Admittedly there’s nothing about human health; that’s not UNEP’s brief. You could argue that it should be, that the plethora of separate fiefdoms competing for the same dwindling pot of money is part of the problem, but I’m not going to do that here.

Olives: in the ground

Not to come over all gastronationalist here, but there seems to be increasing evidence of olive cultivation and processing on the Italian peninsula before the Greeks and Phoenicians apparently brought the knowledge and skills here with them. This I learned from a survey of olive archaeology in Italy. The article explores discoveries that document the transition from wild olives exploited somewhat haphazardly 6000 years ago to the vast production of the Romans, who used olive oil for medicine, ritual, hygiene, and cooking.

I have only one quibble. The author says that “olives provided edible fruit”. Taking him literally, I can only assume he has never tried one straight from the tree. I have, and the knowledge to turn that into a delectable edible — like so many stories of food processing — is strong evidence for alien educators.

Rice: in the bank

The reverence of Japanese people for their rice is well known, but can the World’s Best Rice really justify a price tag more than 30 times the market average? CNN Travel recently told the story of Kinmemai Premium: the world’s most expensive rice, and while that story is fascinating in all its details, it doesn’t really answer my question. Like so many perfect Japanese foods, the rice “is often given as a luxury gift, used to mark special occasions or impress corporate clients”. In other words, the eye-watering price is the point, which is precisely why it exists.

CNN’s story explains that the president of the Toyo Rice Corporation dreamed up the idea of getting into Guinness World Records as the world’s most expensive rice in order to “better appeal to the international community about how great Japanese rice is”. It also explains how Kinmemai comes to be, based, as ever, on extremely rigorous selection of the best rice from the best rice farmers, which is why, apparently, it makes no profit despite its price tag.

Take care

P.S. A lacklustre article about pellagra has been doing the rounds recently. Immodesty permits me to link to this episode instead: Pellagra