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One of the most fascinating things about pumpkins and squashes is what people call them. The whole summer squash, squash, pumpkin thing is confusing enough, and that’s to say nothing of courgettes and zucchini, which I explored in a podcast a few weeks ago. One of the people I talked to for that was Harry Paris, an Israeli researcher who has done more than anyone to disentangle the rampant thickets of cucurbit history. While not strictly anything to do with zucchini, while I had him on the line, I asked him to shed a little light on one of the great mysteries of Italian fruit names.

The scientific, Latin name for watermelon is Citrullus, but depending on where you are in Italy, the Italian for watermelon is either anguria or cocomero which, to me, sounds way too much like cucumber. But the Italian for cucumber is cetriolo, and that sounds like citrullus, for watermelon. As for anguria, you better just listen.

   Huffduff it

Notes

1. Illustrations from a 14th century manuscript, Liber de herbis et plantis by Manfredi de Monte Imperiali.

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James William Greenwood (that’s him on the left) was a pioneering investigative journalist of the high Victorian period. He broke some sensational stories, most notably by spending a night in the workhouse to document the appallingly squalid conditions of the poor in Victorian London. Greenwood, however, wasn’t above a bit of sensationalism and, perhaps, even a touch of fake news. For example, he was unable to supply any authentication for one of his most horrific pieces, about a fight between a man and a dog. Nor was he above telling more humdrum tales, including three little pieces about sausages – which he referred to as “Veiled Mysteries”.

One of them concerned a sausage scandal centred on Epping, just outside London. I first heard about it in Jan Davison’s wonderful book English Sausages. We talked a bit about that story in the podcast, and it stuck with me. Then I found myself in Epping, which in the middle of the 19th century was justly famous for its sausages. People in London sought them out, and they were often in short supply; ideal conditions for creating counterfeits, which were given an extra veil of authenticity by seeming to be delivered direct from Epping itself.

Back home, I looked for the original of Greenwood’s exposé, published in 1883. Although he refers to “an individual of an inquiring turn of mind” it turns out that this person was not Greenwood himself, but someone else who had exposed the crooked purveyors of Epping sausages in the 1850s. Greenwood merely retold the tale in his 1883 book Odd People In Odd Places, or The Great Residuum.

There are two more sausage stories in Greenwood’s book. I think I’ll save them for 2017.

Notes

1. Jan Davison’s book English Sausages is published by Prospect Books.
2. The text of Greenwood’s book is available online.
3. There’s not a huge amount easily available on James Greenwood himself. Spartacus Educational, from whom I stole the picture of Greenwood, is an amazing resource. The Victorianist has adopted Greenwood’s nom-de-plume as his own, but does not appear to have considered the sausage scandals. I found a bit more in Secret Commissions: An Anthology of Victorian Investigative Journalism.
4. I lifted the music from The Victorian Web. It is played by Professor Derek Scott.

   Huffduff it

19 December 2016

Authentic food news

1. Interesting interview with “revered Irish chef Denis Cotter” on his approach to vegetables. Another reason to revisit Cork ASAP. Bonus: drawings by my 2nd favourite food illustrator, Johanna Kindval
2. From Australia, the by-now traditional tale of spices, empires and Christmas, through the bottom of a glass of gin.
3. Which reminds me, apparently you can make a pretty good gin to your own taste, at home, and you don’t need a bathtub. (I have not tried this myself.)
4. If you prefer eggnog, you’re on your own. But you may still be interested to learn why free-range eggs have cracked the market in Britain, with added hard-boiled puns, from the Economist.
5. Nothing specific on egg labelling, but Marion Nestle summarises a special edition of Food Navigator on food labels and associated lawsuits. Fun.

Regardless of how you feel about this particular holiday season (and I like it) the fact is that the world does tend to more or less shut down. Eat This Podcast is following that herd of reindeer. Instead of full episodes, there will be some smaller snippets over the next four or five weeks. I’m not sure how the Newsletter will go; I’ll still be reading whatever I can, so if there’s interesting stuff, I’ll probably share it.

Till then, happy whatevers, and thanks for all your support over the past year.

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Truth be told, I’m not really big on huge international conferences. I’ve been to enough of them to know the score; lots of talk, lots of platitudes, lots of good intentions, lots of inertia. Despite all my prejudices, however, I dragged myself down to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations recently to witness for myself the International Symposium on Sustainable Food Systems for Healthy Diets and Improved Nutrition.

I did so because the week before, the journal Nature had published two Comments that made a very good case for the need for a drastic change in the discourse about global food supplies and food security. Some of the authors, and many other luminaries, were due to be at FAO, and I wanted to see for myself how the discussions would unfold.

Of the need for change, I am more convinced than ever. As to whether it will happen, that’s another story.

Notes

1. If you want to investigate the symposium yourself, you can.
2. The Nature paper with Corinna Hawkes and Patrick Webb among the co-authors is online. It is a very good read.
3. 2024-12-06: Adding a rough and ready transcript just in case anyone comes here after I promote a new episode on food environments and food realities.

Eat This Newsletter 45

5 December 2016

Authentic food news

Thin gruel this week, I’m afraid, not least because I spent three days last week in the belly of the beast at FAO in Rome, at the International Symposium on Sustainable Food Systems for Healthy Diets and Improved Nutrition. Sure it’s just another talking shop, but some of the talk was rather interesting and may eventually amount to more than hot air. More on that later, maybe. So, here’s your meagre serving:

1. “When better food is affordable, people still have to want it. The food movement can’t just fix supply. It has to address demand.” The FAO meeting heard that malnutrition — of the overweight obese kind — goes up as people have more money. Silly people! This has always been a problem, and I only wish I had seen this article before the meeting.

2. Then there’s the question of people who choose not merely to eat things that may not be good for them, but to do so to excess. Sarah Loman’s “brief history of competitive eating” is a treat.

3. Cynthia D. Bertelsen continues to make her case that “southern” food in the US owes at least as much to the British as to other immigrants, in the run-up to reviewing a book on The British Table. I’m staying well out of the way.

4. So, why the hope for change in global food systems? A couple of rather interesting papers in Nature:

   • A new global research agenda for food: “Ten ways to shift the focus from feeding people to nourishing them.”
   • Fix food metrics: “For sustainable, equitable nutrition we must count the true global costs and benefits of food production.”