“An anchovy, to get to an important point, is a larval sardine (Engraulis encrasicolus). Around Nice, anchovies are called poutines (not to be confused with fast-food from Quebec).”

This, from a writer I have long respected for their meticulous research, rang alarm bells. Nowhere, ever, have I come across the idea that an anchovy is a larval sardine. A sardine, I’ve always thought (known?) is a young pilchard. And an anchovy is … an anchovy. These days, though, you can’t be too sure, so I turned to the magisterial Mediteranean Seafood by the master, Alan Davidson (2nd edition, Penguin, 1981).

My worst fears, confirmed: Someone is Wrong on the Internet.

Davidson is clear. What people in Britain call a sardine is a young pilchard, Sardina pilchardus, though elsewhere many different species of small fish are called sardines.

He adds:

“Larval sardines and anchovies (p. 48) are known as poutine or poutina in the south of France, and bianchetti or gianchetti in parts of Italy.”

Could that be the source of the confusion? It is ambiguous. Are poutines larval sardines and larval anchovies, or are only the sardines larval?

In my opinion, that “larval” is misleading, because the larval stage for sardines and for anchovies is only a few millimetres long, simply floating along with other plankton. Perhaps the sentence would be clearer as “Anchovies and small sardines …”. At any rate, that’s how I read it.

Turning to page 48, Davidson correctly identifies the European anchovy as Engraulis encrasicolus and he offers a useful tip. “Note that the lower jaw projects markedly less than the upper one.”

Obligatory self-promotion: The Swedish Fish Conundrum (ansjovis are sprats, not anchovies) came up in 2024’s Christmas Special Sensual, Salty, and a Little Bit Spicy.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 40:25 — 37.1MB)

Subscribe: Google Podcasts | Spotify | Android | RSS | More

Pellagra — a terrible disease characterised by the four Ds: dermatitis, diarrhoea, dementia and death — was first noticed in northern Spain in 1735 and in Italy soon afterwards. Physicians had no idea what to do about it. They established that it was a new disease, and quickly worked out that it was something to do with maize and that it seemed to afflict only very poor people. In Italy, sharecroppers grew and ate maize at the expense of any vegetables. And in the southern US, workers in mill towns subsisted on ground maize imported from the midwest because all the local land was down to cotton.

The struggle to understand the causes of pellagra and how to cure and prevent it played out first in Italy and then in the United States, where 1906 saw a large outbreak in Alabama. Competing explanations were driven by large egos and expediency rather than evidence. That was true even after Dr Joseph Goldberger of the US Public Health Service proved that the disease was not contagious and that the deficiency could be quickly reversed with a proper daily diet or a tablespoon of dried yeast.

Notes

1. Pellagra and Pellagrous Insanity During the Long Nineteenth Century, by David Gentilcore and Egidio Priani is available under open access
2. Dana Landress recently published Famished for Freedom: Pellagra and Medical Clemency at the Mississippi State Penitentiary in the Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences.
3. I consulted loads of other publications; let me know if you want a source for anything.
4. Photograph of Joseph Goldberger from the Library of Congress.
5. Here is the transcript.

   Huffduff it

Quinoa is not a staple at our house. I like it a lot, but I don’t make it that often. If I did, I would probably already have negotiated a way through the ethical maze that confronts me. Should I buy quinoa from its homeland in South America, and if so should it be the morally superior stuff grown by small farmers on the altiplano of Peru and Bolivia, or the industrial stuff grown on the coast by greedy land barons cashing in on the mystique cultivated by the local people they despise?

(more…)

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 17:15 — 15.9MB)

Subscribe: Google Podcasts | Spotify | Android | RSS | More

Quite by chance, I booked a brief cycling holiday at an agriturismo based on a farm that is home to Quin Italia, an enterprise that aims to be the first supply chain for certified organic quinoa grown in Italy. The food at the agriturismo was excellent, as it usually is, but there were only two items on the menu that featured quinoa: a beer and a plate of deep fried croquettes that owed more to chickpeas than to quinoa. That was just one of the points I raised with Alessandro Biavati, chef and part-owner of Agrilocanda val Campotto.

Notes

1. Both the agriturismo and Quin Italia offer a lot more information on their websites.
2. Just in case anyone in Italy wants to support cycling, here’s the website for FIAB.
3. There’s a transcript, of course, with thanks to supporters of the podcast.

   Huffduff it

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 28:19 — 26.0MB)

Subscribe: Google Podcasts | Spotify | Android | RSS | More

Many countries have strict rules about who is allowed to give advice on diet and nutrition, but that doesn’t stop even qualified people from selling all kinds of snake oil. In this episode, I chatted with Tara Schmidt, a registered dietitian and lead dietitian for the Mayo Clinic Diet. We talked about fad diets, and how they are inevitably unsustainable. About weight-loss drugs and whether they are being oversold. About the frustration she feels faced with bad advice, and how the Mayo Clinic’s caution may make it slow, but also makes it sure. About her dismay faced with questions about singular foods and singular nutrients. I learned a lot.

Notes

1. Tara Schmidt hosts the podcast On Nutrition from the Mayo Clinic Press.
2. I was fascinated to discover how many official dietary guidelines exist, though I should have pursued my question further. I’m interested in why people don’t meet them, not whether they could if they wanted to.
3. Here is the transcript, with thanks to all supporters.
4. Here is my episode on Fad diets. There may be some others in the section of related links below, although the thingie that does that has been playing up. You can always search for “diets”.

   Huffduff it