Aquafaba is kind of what it sounds like; pseudo-Latin (or Italian) for “bean water”. And so far in the boonies is Rome that until this morning, it meant nothing to me. You know how bean water froths? That’s because it contains surfactants, and apparently vegans have been doing all sorts of things that make use of its surfactant abilities as a replacement for egg yolks. The latest commercial product, turning 20,000 gallons of hummus waste aquafaba into gold, is Fabanaise. Read all about it at Food52.
Where’s the latest episode? An explanation
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By rights, there should have been an episode last week, but there wasn’t because I was just back from New York and the James Beard Awards, and I just didn’t have time to put something together. Also, of course, I didn’t win — that honour went to Gravy, from the Southern Foodways Alliance — and richly deserved it was too.
If I had won, I’m sure I would have found time to record something, but it was an immense honour just to be nominated again.
So no episode, because nothing to say, but I have been thinking about the show, and the main conclusion is that I need to carve out more time for myself to make Eat This Podcast. To do that, though, I need to spend a little less time on paid work. And that’s the biggest change I want to make here.
After a lot of soul-searching, I’m going to put Eat This Podcast on the line and open a Patreon account. In case you don’t know about it, Patreon allows you to engage with people who are making things you like with a regular cash donation. You can do different amounts, and you can do it either per item — per show in my case — or per month.
Anyway, the point of this episode is to let you know why the show is late.
Next week, I will, definitely, for sure, have a new show — and details of how you can help me make more and better shows.
Eat This Newsletter 030
2 May 2016
Authentic food news
- The whole cultural appropriation story continues to weigh on me. I read Cynthia Bertelsen on “Peanuts and the cooking of West Africa” reflecting on my own pitiful atempts at a “Ghanaian stew” many years ago and wondering whether the twittersphere would descend on her. It didn’t, I don’t think, and the piece remains well-worth reading.
- Cynthia suggests that there’s appropriation of a different kind at work, with the peanut (from South America) embraced by the people of West Africa after its introduction by the Portuguese and then again by those same people transported to North America as slaves, as a substitute for their remembered local Bambara groundnut. Cynthia has written in detail about Bambara groundnuts too, but not (I think) about which groundnut was named first in English, and which appropirated whose name. Very intriguing, and something I’d like to research more.
- But how do I actually feel about cultural appropriation, given that I don’t really have a culinary culture? The closest I can come is my hatred for what the bagel has become, so often; a soft, unfulfllling bread roll with a hole. And being in New York, that’s doubly obnoxious. But who is baking the fabled New York bagels, which can still be found, today? Puerto Ricans until fairly recently, and probably all sorts of others, not necessariy even Jewish. More research needed on that front too.
And there I’ll leave it, for now.
Eat This Newsletter 029
25 April 2016
Authentic food news
Not much for you this week. I’m in New York, awaiting tomorrow night’s James Beard Awards dinner, and wondering what I’ll do if I win, and what I’ll do if I don’t win.
- The whole cultural appropriation story continues to weigh on me. I read Cynthia Bertelsen on “Peanuts and the cooking of West Africa” reflecting on my own pitiful atempts at a “Ghanaian stew” many years ago and wondering whether the twittersphere would descend on her. It didn’t, I don’t think, and the piece remains well worth reading.
- Cynthia suggests that there’s appropriation of a different kind at work, with the peanut (from South America) embraced by the people of West Africa after its introduction by the Portuguese and then again by those same people transported to North America as slaves, as a substitute for their remembered local Bambara groundnut. Cynthia has written in detail about Bambara groundnuts too, but not (I think) about which groundnut was named first in English, and which appropriated whose name. Very intriguing, and something I’d like to research more.
- But how do I actually feel about cultural appropriation, given that I don’t really have a culinary culture? The closest I can come is my hatred for what the bagel has become, so often; a soft, unfulfllling bread roll with a hole. And being in New York, that’s doubly obnoxious. But who is baking the fabled New York bagels, which can still be found, today? Puerto Ricans until fairly recently, and probably all sorts of others, not necessariy even Jewish. More research needed on that front too.
And there I’ll leave it, for now.
Wish me luck.
It is OK to eat quinoa The Andean superfood is good for farmers and for eaters
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Quinoa — that darling of the health-conscious western consumer — came in for a lot of flack a few years ago. Skyrocketing prices caused some food activists to claim that the poor quinoa farmers of the high Andean plains in Bolivia and Peru were no longer able to afford their staple food. Every mouthful we ate was taken direct from a hungry peasant. Some people even gave up eating the stuff. Other writers retaliated by saying that high prices were the best thing that ever happened to those poor farmers. And agricultural economists saw an opportunity to prove their worth.
The results are in. High prices are indeed good for farmers. And they had no impact on nutrition among either quinoa farmers or those who merely buy it from time to time. If you gave up on quinoa, you can take it up again with a clean conscience.
But that’s not to say all is perfect. In this episode, the impact of high prices on quinoa farmers, the problems to come and how western consumers can be part of the solution.
Notes
- There’s quite a lot about quinoa’s various ups and downs over at the other place. This is a good place to start.
- Bellemare, Fajardo-Gonzalez and Gitter’s paper is Foods and Fads: The Welfare Impacts of Rising Quinoa Prices in Peru.
- Andrew Stevens’ paper is Quinoa Quandary: Cultural Tastes and Nutrition in Peru.
- Bioversity International has lots of information about Payments for agrobiodiversity conservation services.
- Lots more from Andean Naturals at their website.
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The banner photograph I took in Cotacachi, Ecudaor. And the cover image uses a Wikimedia image by Christian Guthier – originally posted to Flickr as Homegrown Quinoa!, CC BY 2.0.