FERN’s Friday Feed: The paradox of rotten food
Welcome to FERN’s Friday Feed (#FFF), where we share the stories from this week that made us stop and think.
How microbes spoil our food — and sometimes enrich it
Aeon (video)
“While the very word ‘rot’ might give rise to revulsion – perhaps the memory of a mildewed fruit or the pungent stench of a past-its-prime cut of fish – the processes it describes often yield delicious results. Indeed, many of the world’s most popular foods, from beer and bread to kimchi and cheese, are born of chemical conversions that would, in other contexts, constitute a food ‘going bad’. With their short film Wrought, the Canadian filmmakers Joel Penner and Anna Sigrithur deploy a dazzling series of timelapse sequences to render the often hidden work of microbes as a visual feast.”
The wounded fruit
The Bitter Southerner
“The watermelon … is one of the few domesticated fruits whose place of origin remains a mystery. Archeobotanists speculate that a sweet relative grown in the Kordofan and Darfur regions of Sudan may be its progenitor,” writes Shane Mitchell. “The oldest remains yet discovered, from a 6,000-year-old wild watermelon, were found at a neolithic settlement … in southwestern Libya. The seeds were cracked by human teeth. But for art’s sake, it’s best to begin with the timeworn relief of a green-striped melon, painted 2,000 years later by an unknown craftsman, on the limestone walls of a pharaoh’s tomb in Saqqara, Egypt. It looks remarkably like the Georgia Rattlesnakes piled in the back of pickups at the State Farmers Market in Cordele, self-styled watermelon capital of the world. The journey, from there to here, across eons and oceans, was fraught.”
Labeled climate culprits, EU farmers rebel against new standards
The New York Times
“To meet climate goals, some European countries are asking farmers to reduce livestock, relocate or shut down — and an angry backlash has begun reshaping the political landscape before national elections in the fall,” write Monika Pronczuk and Claire Moses. “This summer, scores of farmers descended on the European Parliament in Strasbourg, France, to protest against new E.U. rules aimed at restoring natural areas and cutting emissions that contribute to climate change. Farmers have protested in Belgium, Italy and Spain, too. The discontent has underscored a widening divide on a continent that is on the one hand committed to acting on climate change but on the other often deeply divided about how to do it and who should pay for it.”
Childcare for women farmers finally has Big Ag’s attention
The 19th
“About 74 percent of farm families had difficulty securing child care because of lack of affordability, availability or quality this year, and 77 percent reported having to make changes such as decreasing their working hours or hiring additional employees as a result of child care challenges,” write Chabeli Carrazana and Jessica Kutz. “That data, the only of its kind and the result of a decade-long effort to bring attention to farming and child care, helped the issue reach the highest echelons of the farming world this year: For the first time ever, the American Farm Bureau and the National Farmers Union, the two largest farm organizations, have put child care as a priority in the farm bill, the massive federal spending legislation up for renewal this year.”
The Inuit plan to reclaim their sea
The Guardian
“Nunatsiavut – one of four Inuit homelands in Canada – is where the subarctic becomes the Arctic … Winter temperatures here can average -30C with the windchill, as the Labrador current brings Arctic ice floes down along the coast, and a host of marine life from plankton to polar bears. From November to June, shipping is impossible because sea ice covers the entire 9,320-mile coastline, so all food and supplies must be flown in. In Rigolet, a frozen 1.5kg chicken will set you back C$25 (£15). Hunting here is not just a tradition but a necessity,” writes Ossie Michelin. “But while traditional knowledge has allowed Inuit to survive in this harsh environment for so long, the climatic conditions they rely on are changing quickly … Its sea ice is vanishing faster than anywhere in the Canadian Arctic …There is very little local people can do about that … What they can do, however, is work to protect what they have. That’s why Nunatsiavut is partnering with the Canadian government to co-develop the world’s first Inuit protected area.”