1. I like the odd cocktail, but I didn’t know that they began as a way to make nasty alcohol palatable.
2. Reflections on Gingerbread, with a recipe for a gingerbread cake from a Jewish perspective.
3. Ken Albala, a frequent guest on Eat This Podcast, published one of his Food Rants on Cultural Appropriation, Authenticity and Gastronomic Colonialism. I didn’t find it at all ranty.
4. What with all the big breweries swallowing craft beers, what’s a committed craftsperson to do? #SeektheSeal, apparently. I vaguely prefer the underground artist’s approach, first brought to you in ETN 041
5. And speaking of previous ETNs, it seems that if your biscuits are bad, it might not be because you bought the “wrong” flour, at least according to The Salt at NPR.
6. What makes the deadly pufferfish so delectable. No question mark; the scientists are telling us it is down to twelve taste compounds. Another two make it even more so. I’ve never tried fugu so I couldn’t possibly comment.
7. The EAT-Lancet report – Food in the Anthropocene – has already been everywhere, eliciting mostly predictable comments. I’m not linking to any of them, for now.

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Today’s guest, Michael Victor, has spent the past 16 years living in Laos and getting to know its farming systems and its food. To some extent, that’s become a personal interest. But it is also a professional interest that grew out of his work with farmers and development agencies in Laos. Most recently, he’s been working with The Agro-biodiversity Initiative, funded by the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation. The idea is to make use of agricultural biodiversity in a sustainable way to reduce poverty and improve the livelihoods of people in upland regions. One thing the project has done is to collect all the information it can about agricultural biodiversity and make it available online. When Michael visited Rome recently, I grabbed the chance to find out more about Lao food and diversity.

Notes

1. The Pha Khao Lao website is available in English and Lao.
2. I think that the restaurant Michael mentioned is Thip Khao in Washington DC. Duly noted for next time. Any reports gladly received.
3. I seem to be way behind the times on riverweed. A couple of years ago even BBC Good Food had tried it. (Scroll down.)
4. Banner photograph by Periodismo Itinerante from Flickr

   Huffduff it

Happy New Year, if it’s not too late for that sort of thing. I was away for about 3 weeks and it is 4 weeks since the last newsletter, so prepare for a bumper edition.

I know I complain too often that way too many of the things I find originate in the USA, so let’s start with some things from all over:

1. From Deptford, in London, the closure of a pie and mash shop signifies far more than the closure of a pie and mash shop.
2. From northern Tanzania, where some hunter‐gatherers do not eat a palaeo diet. Maybe they didn’t get the memo.
3. From Ireland: The rise and fall of bread baking as a craft industry.
4. From Belgium, a banana fave-off: Gros Michel vs Cavendish I should note that I was quite impressed by Gros Michel, but didn’t have a Cavendish on hand and wasn’t blind.
5. And the ultimate story from somewhere else: Gluten Free Antarctica.

And then, moving on

6. The New York Times asked What Foods Are Banned in Europe but Not Banned in the U.S.? Is anything permitted in the EU but banned in the US?
7. Like, maybe, microbial transglutaminase, a possible cause of coeliac disease.
8. A Delectable Collection of Illustrated Gastronomy Books now at the Getty Research Institute.
9. From empire-building plant products to forgotten flavourless relics: how spices fell out of f(l)avour.
10. Food-based ethnic slurs, a New Year’s Guide. Use with discretion.
11. After the episode on prison food, I wrote about last meals. Now Julie Green, one of the artists who worked with last meals, is interpreting prisoners’ first meals after exoneration.
12. Innovation in meat space, which reminded me of a long-ago episode of the Planet Money podcast, Can You Patent a Steak?. (Yes, you can, an exception to the usual rule about simple questions in headlines.)
13. Weight Loss Is a Rock Fight, in The Atlantic, is a pretty heart-breaking account.
14. And here’s a final tip for readers in Europe, and eslewhere, who are fed up with US websites hiding behind a bunch of less-than-savoury cookies. You can always go to The Internet Archive and search there for a specific link. Like this one to that weight-loss article

Last night we popped a bottle of bubbly; not champagne but California sparkling wine. And yet, I went to bed puzzling about the labelling restrictions around true Champagne, so convincing had the bottle been. I swear I had seen the word “Champagne” on the bottle.

I was wrong.

Whatever it was, it was a bit sweet for my taste, despite being labelled Brut. And it raised a couple of additional questions for me.

What’s the difference between méthode traditionelle and méthode champenoise? Not much, but enough.

What was the justification for dropping the “Moët &” when the company established in California? I’m guessing a very expensive consultancy suggested it, and I’d love to understand the reasoning.

Anyway, Happy New Year.