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.

1. 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.
2. 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.
3. 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.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 26:06 — 21.2MB)

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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

1. There’s quite a lot about quinoa’s various ups and downs over at the other place. This is a good place to start.
2. Bellemare, Fajardo-Gonzalez and Gitter’s paper is Foods and Fads: The Welfare Impacts of Rising Quinoa Prices in Peru.
3. Andrew Stevens’ paper is Quinoa Quandary: Cultural Tastes and Nutrition in Peru.
4. Bioversity International has lots of information about Payments for agrobiodiversity conservation services.
5. Lots more from Andean Naturals at their website.

6. 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.

12 April 2016

The internet ate my homework*

1. Eat more bread: Bloomberg News explains why agricultural prices have fallen for three years in a row: “We all bought into this thesis of having to feed nine billion mouths by 2050 … Unfortunately, at the moment global grain demand is not keeping up with the rise in production.”
2. Eat more kale: Why are some food prices seem never to come down: “as some become more aware of global inequality and … exploitation … they are … voting with their pocketbooks for alternatives they believe are more benign and deliver greater value to themselves, their families, and their communities.”
3. Eat more ice cream: is there anything left to say about gelato in Rome? “Her gelato base contains only milk, cream, sugar and flavors that come from whole ingredients such as saffron, hibiscus flower and lapsang souchong tea, to name a few.”
4. Eat more cultures: There’s a hooha brewing about food appropriation that I’m steering well clear of, but Rachel Laudan shares her experience: “I tell this story … so that I can use it to talk about how complicated the transfer of culinary knowledge actually is”.
5. Drink more coffee: I love my Aeropress, but I am such a nOOb: “Head [sic] water to 79 celsius; Add 60 grams of water; Turbulent wiggle for 15 seconds.”

* Honest; it was down here most of yesterday.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 14:42 — 10.6MB)

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At this year’s Amsterdam Symposium on the History of Food I talked to Jon Verriet, who’s been researching the history of the haybox. That’s an insulated container, into which you put hot food, which then keeps cooking thanks to the retained heat. Jon made the point that hayboxes often see an upsurge during times of war and hardship, when they can be promoted as good for the country because they save energy and money. Environmentally-aware types also like them, to save energy as they cook their lentils.

Researching the haybox myself, I came across its modern incarnation, the Wonderbag, which neatly ties those two motivations together. When you buy one, perhaps for environmental reasons, you’re actually paying for two, one of which goes to a poor family to save money, fuel, time, water, everything. I thought that was worth a follow-up, and so sought out Sarah Collins, a South African social entrepreneur who developed the Wonderbag.

Notes

1. The Wonderbag website tells the story and links through to the Wonderbag Foundation.
2. The University of California at Berkeley study mentioned in the podcast concluded that the Wonderbag saves 8–21% of the time family members spend cooking, 10–36% of fuel costs, and allows families to spend 36–60% more on food.
3. Banner photograph thanks to Annie Templeton at Goedgedacht Trust. Cover photo by Edrea du Toit for Netwerk 24.
4. The haybox through history episode, for convenience.

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