Footnotes to a Conversation, February 7, 2022
This week’s issue of Footnotes to a Conversation is almost entirely about food. Plus a little self-promotion!
Fiction & History
There are some items, such as baking powder and Bird’s Custard, that seem to have been around forever. And yet, that’s not the case. Someone needed to invent them. And both these products were invented by Alfred Bird. The custard powder was created for Bird’s wife as she was allergic to eggs and milk. He invented baking powder so his wife could enjoy yeast-free bread. Thank you, Mrs. Bird! [Wikipedia]
Chefs star in these 10 suggested works of fiction. [The Guardian]
Circling the Globe
There’s no point turning on the oven if you live next to an Icelandic hot spring. You just bury your bread in the sand instead. [Atlas Obscura]
Forget about protein shakes. The breakfast of champions is bsissa, a traditional North African dish made with wheat, barley, herbs, pulses, olive oil, and honey. [BBC Travel]
Tinashe Nyamudoka is from Zimbabwe and one of the top sommeliers in the world. The hospitality industry is taking off in Zimbabwe and many nationals are pleased to return home and to share their skills. [The Guardian]
Farming
A truly sustainable global food system “will consist, not of a few massively scaled practices, but rather a vast patchwork quilt of smaller scale solutions that vary dramatically from place to place, over space and over time, in an interplay with local climate, ecology and culture.” [Ensia]
Introducing EcoFriendly West
After publishing EcoFriendly Sask for the past 10 years, my brother Andrew and I are expanding our horizons. EcoFriendly Sask has been replaced by EcoFriendly West and will cover nature and environmental news from all 4 western provinces. Upcoming articles will look at the Wilder Institute/Calgary Zoo’s conservation and reintroduction programs, environmental kids’ theatre in Winnipeg, bat research in Alberta, the Lake Diefenbaker irrigation project, and Pacific Coast seaweeds. I hope you’ll subscribe by email, like us on Facebook, or follow us on Twitter.
Photos are of the municipal park in Issy les Moulineaux, 5 years ago.
Footnotes to a Conversation is a weekly Monday feature covering an assortment of topics that I’ve come across in the preceding week – books, art, travel, food, and whatever else strikes my fancy. I also post occasional articles on other dates, including frequent book reviews and travel tales.
If you share my love of nature, check out EcoFriendly West’s Nature Companion, a free nature app for Canada’s four western provinces.