FERN’s Friday Feed: What Goodfellas got right about garlic
Welcome to FERN’s Friday Feed (#FFF), where we share the stories from this week that made us stop and think.
What Goodfellas got right about garlic
Taste
“It’s one of the most iconic scenes in one of the greatest movies in American history, and it has almost nothing to do with the rest of the plot,” writes Jason Diamond. “It’s mob capo Paulie Cicero, played by the late Paul Sorvino. He’s in a minimum-security prison with the rest of the wise guys. They’ve bribed the guards so they can have all the stuff they need for a proper Italian dinner, which they are about to cook themselves: Vinnie’s making the tomato sauce, his meatballs a mixture of veal, beef, pork, and too many onions; Johnny Dio’s cooking T-bones in a pan over a portable electric burner; then Henry Hill, played by Ray Liotta, shows up with fresh Italian loaves, prosciutto, salami, and a bottle of J&B Scotch. There’s some Bobby Darin playing, and, most importantly, they’re using Paulie’s system for slicing garlic in a seemingly knife-free environment ‘so thin that it used to liquefy in the pan with just a little oil,’” Liotta’s Hill says in a voiceover, adding, ‘It’s a very good system.’”
Farmers are welcome, if they follow the rules
The New York Times
“As Europe looks for ways to balance what can be the competing demands of limiting the effects of extreme weather with producing enough affordable food, the Doode Bemde nature preserve, its supporters say, shows an innovative way to work toward achieving both goals. The idea for this preserve, set in an unassuming corner of Flanders, the Dutch-speaking region of Belgium, was dreamed up in the 1980s by a group of idealistic conservationists who came to the local village of Neerijse with a daunting task: convincing farmers to sell their land,” write Monika Pronczuk and Koba Ryckewaert. “If the farmers would agree to sell their land, they would be allowed to use the nature preserve, but with conditions: They could let their cows graze there. They could continue to farm specific plots. And they could cut grass to make hay — but only at specific times. They would also have to swear off pesticides and use only natural fertilizer.”
The USDA’s wondrous fruit watercolors
Aeon (video)
“As agriculture in the United States transformed from domestic and local to industrial and national, in 1886 the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) embarked on an ambitious project. To help fruit cultivators protect and profit from their innovations, the agency hired illustrators to recreate images of newly developed varieties of fruits and nuts, capturing the colours, textures and shapes of each in intricate detail. By the programme’s end in 1942, more than 7,500 unique, and often beautiful, images had been produced. In his short film, the Toronto-based filmmaker Sebastian Ko provides a lively flipbook tour through the USDA ‘Pomological Watercolor Collection’ to explore its history and legacy.”ere ain’t no mullet, your belly’s pinching your backbone.’”
A growing fungal threat to farmworkers
Scientific American
“Farmworkers in California’s Central Valley know that when the tule fog settles over the ground after a heavy rain, some of them are about to get sick,” writes Ashli Blow. “Within a few weeks of the dense fog’s arrival, many of the laborers grow tired and develop headaches and fevers. Each time, those who have evaded illness wonder whether they will be next. Experienced farmworkers expect this affliction, but when Rosalinda Guillen arrived from Washington State 25 years ago, she had never seen anything like it. She watched, helpless, as other farmworkers coughed and tried to catch their breath. That was the first time Guillen, a seasonal farmworker and agricultural justice leader, heard the term ‘Valley fever.’”
The nectar of the gods is coming to a bar near you
Smithsonian Magazine
“Mead is believed to be the world’s oldest alcoholic refreshment, possibly predating the advent of beer and wine—not by centuries but by three or four millennia,” writes Chris Klimek. “‘The first time a beehive got flooded by rainwater, there was naturally occurring mead,’ Greg Heller-LaBelle, president of the American Mead Makers Association, told me … Gradually, beer and wine displaced it, not least because grain and grapes are on the whole less expensive to source than honey. There’s no single explanation for mead’s dramatic re-emergence over the last decade or so, but a renewed cultural interest in Norse mythology, and of fantasy stories derived from it, is likely a contributing factor. If you want to credit Game of Thrones, HBO’s hugely popular series adapted from George R.R. Martin’s fantasy novels, in which characters enjoy a ceremonial horn of mead, the timing works out—the show first aired in April 2011, when the number of commercial meaderies operating in the United States was shy of 200. Today, there are at least 480.”