This week’s compost opens with a request. I have been hired to cook three breakfasts for a singing workshop being held in a monastery. Naturally my thoughts turned to what could be menu items at such breakfasts. Yes, cold porridge. But I am wondering if you good souls out there have more innovative and interesting suggestions that can be put together from the food sources of an Australia reasonable sized country town – commercial, local farm etc. Any thoughts?
Celebrity chef Pete Evans' paleo baby cookbook put on hold over health fears
‘The recipe, called the "DIY baby milk formula", is a chicken liver based concoction containing no milk products, which the book claims "mimics the nutrient profile of breast milk". The recipe is marketed as a "wonderful alternative" to breast milk and the "next best thing" when breast milk is not an option.’
When is pate not pate? Apparently when it is baby froth.
Prehistoric Britons love flat bread
From New Scientist 7 March 2015.
‘Prehistoric people living on the British Isles were more than hunter-gatherers: they were bakers, too. They seem to have been eating wheat 2000 years before arable farming started on the islands. Tobin Allaby at the University of Warwick, UK, and his team found wheat DNA dating back some 8000 years in mud at a now submerged Mesolithic shipyard near the Isle of Wight...But no pollen turned 8p, which suggests that the wheat wasn’t being grown there....and was instead imported as flour. The closest wheat farmers at this time were probably in southern Europe or the Near East.’
But Pete Evans, what’s 5000 years between mates, eh.
Going Against the Flow: Is the Flow Hive a Good Idea?
When I first told Barbara Sweeney, bee keeper, about the Flow Hive I posted about in the last edition of This Week’s Compost she gave me some background on the system that is not presented in the video doing the rounds and which I directed you to. I was excited then when Barbara found the following and sent it to me. I think it does raise interesting questions about the honey-as-product centred approach to bee keeping and a bee-centered approach. While perhaps not wanting to anthropomorphise as much as the article does, I think it does pose questions that are worth discussing, not least in the lack of clear information in the crowd funding video for the Flow Hive about its construction material and form. I suspect that most people who may have donated to the project haven’t done the research into the details that this article does, and I wonder then about issues of informed decision-making and crowd funding. Where does the responsibility lie? How do you parse which views to go with? I am interested in the comparison in the article with egg production; can you compare the Flow Hive to factory farms or do we draw a line between animals and insects when it comes to ethical practice? I welcome and will circulate any and all comments.
http://www.milkwood.net/2015/02/26/going-flow-flow-hive-actually-good-idea/
Extreme-aged steak: the gourmet world of meat with mould on
‘Cross sees his 150-plus-day steaks – so far only served to guinea pigs – as a future tasting menu item, which will be served in small portions with, say, a few pickled blueberries. “For me, this is not a competition,” he says. “The ageing is driven by one thing: a quality eating experience. Meat that age is a sensation overload; a couple of mouthfuls is adequate.”
Couldn’t you just eat meat from a really really really old kine?
Food and Public Gardens at Sustainable House, with Michael Mobbs
‘I perve on water’
The inimitable Michael Mobbs in a delightful video that is as usual totally subversive. An oldie but a goodie...the video too J
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SHkMh8wwlXY
China’s Long Food Chain Plugs in
‘Joyvio is taking on a bigger challenge: the entire food chain. Started in 2009, it is now the largest provider of kiwis and blueberries in China. It controls everything, picking what seeds are planted, then tracking and collecting data each step of the way. Its nurseries are the stuff of science fiction. The room temperature and irrigation schedules are automatic and can be controlled remotely via a mobile phone or a computer. Seeds are grown in greenhouses, and plant tissue is cultivated in research labs.’
As you all know, I love a good counter narrative, and this is a beauty given the current frenzy over a small number of people getting Hep A from Chinese processed frozen berries (never mind that the vast majority who consumed these berries have shown no signs of Hep A whatsoever). No, I am not suggesting there isn’t/wasn’t a problem, but I was fascinated how a lot of media elided the Chinese berries with incidence of a half dozen people getting mild food poisoning from some –shock horror- canned fish from some other off-shore producer and how no counter narratives about action to ensure safety along the food chain was being taken in the countries the media was so quick to damn.
Will Food Sovereignty Starve the Poor and Punish the Planet?
‘These results indicate that, at the global scale, and contrary to what is often claimed, the objective of food sovereignty is consistent with that of minimising environmental agricultural pollution. ‘
The hidden question in the claim that is questioned in this paper is to whose benefit is it to promote the claim. I suspect the answer is Big Food i.e. the multinationals with a vested interest in globalising food.
A foodie’s guide to salo: the Ukrainian delicacy made of cured pork fat.
‘At first glance it could be a hard sheep’s cheese or a smoky mozzarella. But the slabs are actually cold, white pork fat – Ukraine’s national dish, known as salo. It is best served covered with garlic, onion and pickles (or something picante), and almost always washed down with a shot of vodka.’
Ta John Newton for this fab info. Ich bin ein Ukrainer totes! J
KFC to launch edible scented Scoff-ee coffee cup
‘The new cup is an attempt to address consumer concerns about the environmental impact of packaging, as well as their desire for simplicity. "This type of edible packaging is definitely aligned with the global consumer mindset in terms of sustainability and simplifying their life," said Shilpa Rosenberry, senior director of global consumer strategy at Daymon Worldwide, a consulting firm that works with many food companies.’
Hey I can see this going places. I reckon they ought to make a cup like this out of potato fries and fill it up with gravy, for example.
Paul van Reyk
253 Trafalgar St.
Petersham 2049
PO Box 221
Petersham 2049
Ph: 0419 435 418
Email: pvanreyk@optusnet.com.au
‘"You must never lose your beautiful sense of outraged injustice. alright? Keep it informed and challenge it, but never lose it."
First Dog on the Moon
