Podcasts

How the Irish created the great wines of Bordeaux (and elsewhere) Do tariffs count for more than terroir?

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Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 26:45 — 21.9MB)

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wine geeseI confess, quaffing a Lynch-Bages or a snifter of Hennessy, I have wondered how it is that such fine upstanding Irish names come to be associated with cognac and claret. There my wonderings ended, until a recent visit to Ireland, where, in Cork and Kinsale, I found answers. Starting in the 17th century an intrepid band of Irish emigrants set out first for France, then the rest of Europe, and ultimately almost anywhere wines are made. And almost everywhere they went, the Irish diaspora had an impact on wine-making that belies the idea that the Irish know only about beers.

The story is a complex one, built on tarriff wars, free trade and political union, with a touch of religious persecution thrown in for good measure.

Sound familiar?

Notes

  1. Chad Ludington’s book is called The Politics of Wine in Britain. A paperback edition should be available soon.
  2. The Wine Museum is housed in Desmond Castle in Kinsale, a lovely local bus ride from Cork.
  3. Want to know more about Kinsale? While searching around, I came across a blog post all about Kinsale.
  4. The Chateau Montelena story may be worth exploring.
Extra Matter

Eat This Newsletter 034

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4 July 2016

Authentic food news

  1. Let’s get the celebrations over. Simran Sethi warms up the story of apple pie.
  2. I refuse to think about Brexit, but I’m glad Martin Parr was at work documenting the threat to some British food.
  3. The lets-create-a-new-crop story surfaces again, in Western Australia. I’d love to see this happen, but I’m not holding my breath.
  4. Michael Twitty responds to Cynthia Bertelsen’s “deconstruction” of the myth of Southern cooking with some deconstruction of his own. This one will run and run.
  5. And to add a little substance, here’s a review of a book about rice in West Africa.
  6. A website I follow started a series on the transformation of agriculture in India, another story of what Rachel Laudan calls appropriation and imposition.

P.s. This was a bountiful couple of weeks. Supporters on Patreon will be offered four additional morsels. Please consider joining them.

Podcasts

Back to the mountains of Pamir A book about Pamiri culture and agriculture wins a global award

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Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 27:10 — 22.1MB)

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pamirs In 2007, Frederik van Oudenhoven travelled to the Pamir mountains in Central Asia to document what remained of the region’s rich agricultural biodiversity. Almost 100 years before, the great Russian botanist Nikolai Vavilov became convinced that this was where “the original evolution of many cultivated plants took place.” Soft club wheat, with its short ears, rye, barley, oil plants, grain legumes like chickpeas and lentils, melons and many fruits and vegetables; all showed the kind of diversity that Vavilov said pointed to the places where they were first domesticated. As he wrote, “it is still possible to observe the almost imperceptible transition from wild to cultivated forms within the area.”

What van Oudenhoven found was bewildering; incomprehensible diversity in the fields and unspeakably dull food on his plate. It only started to make sense when he began to talk to Pamiri people, and especially the older women, about their food and culture. The result was a book – With Our Own Hands: a celebration of food and life in the Pamir Mountains of Tajikistan and Afghanistan – by van Oudenhoven and his co-author Jamila Haider, which documents a culture that remains in danger of disappearing.

That book recently won the Gourmand International award for Best Cookbook of 2015, which is why I am now repeating the conversation I had with Frederik van Oudenhoven in July of last year.

Notes

  1. With Our Own Hands is published by LM Publishers and is available from them and other booksellers.
  2. For other notes, see the original episode notes.
  3. There are plans to make a documentary about the people and their culture. Watch a trailer here.
Extra Matter

Eat This Newsletter 033

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20 June 2016

Authentic food news

  1. There’s a new cheese mountain in town, and it isn’t in Europe. But it may be Europe’s fault, what with a weak euro, the end of production limits and pesky Putin’s cheese import ban.
  2. I picked up the copper-coin-in-the-bowl-if-you-haven’t-got-a-copper-bowl tip for better whipped egg whites when I first read On Food and Cooking in the 1980s. But I hadn’t realised there was a sequel: silver is apparently as good, and there are less expensive subsititutes.
  3. A strange piece asks “Celery: Why?” without once mentioning celeriac, Queen among difficult vegetables.
  4. A far-reaching history of rhubarb, which isn’t nearly as toxic as some people imagine.
  5. The attack by sausage-wielding thugs on a vegan cafe in Tbilisi, Georgia, has been heard around the world, but I’ve been hard-pressed to find anything like an original source. This will have to do.
Podcasts

Sweetness and light Sugar may not be the malevelent demon many people think it is

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Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 25:51 — 24.0MB)

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sugarBefore I read Christopher Emsden’s book Sweetness and Light: Why the demonization of sugar does not make sense I had no idea that the statistical correlation of air pollution and the epidemic of “diabesity” was stronger than the correlation with sugar. Or that among the indigenous people of Canada, those who still spoke their tribal language have far lower incidence of type 2 diabetes and obesity than those who have mostly lost their language.

Does that let sugar off the hook as a dietary demon? There’s no doubt that as a potent source of calories, sugar can be a problem. But as a specifically toxic substance, as many authors have claimed? Emsden makes a good case that there is more to blame for society’s dietary woes than pure, white and deadly sugar.

Personally, I’m not convinced there’s anything worse about sugar than that it packs a lot of calories into a small volume – but then so does peanut butter, even without added sugar.

Notes

  1. Order Sweetness and Light from Amazon.
  2. The media’s latest sugar binge began recently with an article by Ian Leslie in The Guardian.
  3. Katherine Docimo Pett, aka Nutrition Wonk, followed up with a lengthy response. You may find Marion Nestle’s summary easier going. Or you may want even more meat, from Nutrevolve or Sheila Kealey.
  4. Banner artwork by Lucy Clink.