Extra Matter

Tasty morsels 003 Gleanings

 

May 11, 2015

  1. “Tsukushi, what I had thought was a regional wild vegetable foraged only in the countryside of Japan, was in fact horsetail, an unbridled New England weed. Years living in Japan had allowed me to see my own backyard anew. It was a revelation.” Eat weeds.
  2. “How can the wisdom around such a simple food get so universally bungled?” Cook polenta.
  3. “After the policies were enacted, trends in the prevalence of overweight-obesity leveled off among students attending schools in more disadvantaged neighborhoods but declined among students attending schools in neighborhoods with the highest income and educational levels, according to the study.” Regulate competitive food and beverages
  4. “Pigs have … been beset by snobbery, given that pork has regularly provided calories to the poorest members of society. After the Black Death carried off a third of Europe, demand for meat plummeted and so did prices. Peasants started eating pork; uppity nobles chewed on birds and beef instead.” Respect pork.
  5. “‘We try to adhere to a ranger dress code,’ he told me as we wended our way through the backroads of Williamson County, in Central Texas. ‘No mustaches, no beards. You can’t wear a black hat. Bad guys wear black hats. It’s an old Western thing.’” Catch rustlers.

You can have my selected links — and news of each new episode — delivered straight to your inbox by signing up for the email newsletter.

You might also like:

  1. A computer learns about ingredients and recipes What else would you put on a peanut butter sandwich? Perhaps you’ve heard about IBM’s giant Watson computer, which dispenses ingredient advice and novel recipes. Jaan Altosaar, a PhD candidate at Princeton University, is working on a recipe recommendation engine that anyone can use....
  2. Who invented dried pasta? It wasn't the Arabs, so who was it? The history of pasta, ancient and modern, is littered with myths about the origins of manufacturing techniques, of cooking, of recipes, of names, of antecedents. Supporting most of these is a sort of truthiness whereby what matters most is not...
  3. The evolution of food culture in Mali Where eating alone is unthinkable When it comes to cradles of agriculture, West Africa does not often get a look in. The Sahel is better known as a place of famine than of feasting, but it wasn’t always so, and even today the Bamana people...
  4. A partial history of the turkey Where and when were they domesticated For a nomenclature nerd, the turkey is wonderful. Why would a bird from America be named after a country on the edge of Asia? ...

One comment

  1. Pingback: Nibbles: Biofortification, NUS, Wakehurst Place, Cheesy map, Seeds2Zim, Food bibliography, Eucalypt genome, Oregano in the US, CFC, Rotations, Malaria drugs, Quinoa in Colorado, Pacific pineapple, Rhubarb event, Mango festival, Araucaria, American chestnu

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *