Ah the infinities of interesting worlds on the internet… I have a file “Links for Blog” into which I save items to share; despite good intentions, they languish and amass. I’ve now prepared this post and am aware it might be overwhelming. Please forgive me if so! May some of it be useful to you… Mostly Food Politics on the top, then a nice round-up of cooking and food links.
Just saw that this issue of the Journal of Peasant Studies on the theme of Food Sovereignty is free download. Lots of interesting articles –including on agro-ecology and see politics and studies in different countries– also some exploration of the history of the concept of Food Sovereignty to help us look at our own thinking critically too.
Here’s Via Campesina on 2014 as International Year of Family Farming. You can watch this Via Campesina video and see how truly international a movement it is. I like the point a woman makes, that industrial agriculture is an agriculture without people.
“This report investigates in depth the process which has given rise to the New Alliance for Food Security and Nutrition [in Africa] and reveals the complex ways in which global corporations have influenced this process as private corporations and through philanthro-capitalist foundations, corporate private sector forums, and bilateral and multilateral aid programmes.”
I happened upon this critique of where Slow Food gets foundation money. The piece seems to be badly translated so I’m not sure about some of its points. I think I will return to it a couple of times. Challenging.
Conflict Kitchen: I completely respect their work educating about war and US enemies and at this particular moment about Palestinian culture and history through the medium of food. Wish I could go work with them… Right now I’m reading the novel Mornings in Jenin; it’s so clear that stories need to be told about lives in human, individual, cultural terms as an essential part of peace work. I’ve spent a lot of my life grasping such stories about Jewish history, including Holocaust history. I come to my current place of openness to Palestine voices from having listened deeply to the voices of my own people.
You can support the planting of olive trees in Palestine even as rageful settlers are burning them down.
If you want an even deeper pit in your stomach, this is a short, thoughtful piece on Climate Change, Agriculture and Syria
The concept of “Ocean-Grabbing” as it effects small scale fishing and food security.
Here’s a positive article on food movement people gleaning food waste. I think gleaning is great, but I’m wary of connecting food waste and feeding the hungry as a kill-two-birds-with-one-stone approach. (I’m working on writing something about this). Efficiency should be demanded of agriculture and its markets at all levels, so that waste isn’t intrinsic to the actual economy and climate impact; hunger must be understood and addressed as a systemic and economic issue. One constantly reads about how many people could be fed with food that is wasted; this misses a lot of points and strengthens charity not change. This is not to say that great Feeding feasts aren’t wonderful and that hungry people don’t need food.
There’s just last week been a great food activist conference in Glasgow, organised by Nourish Scotland. I’m sure there will be resources to come out of it. I followed the hashtag #Nourish2014 on Twitter and was glad to learn of the work of Graham Riches on food security and food banks in Canada, addressing some of these food waste issues above.
And this is a collection of articles about Food Workers and Food Justice.
Hunger numbers in the USofA.
Meanwhile, Monsanto is buying off Mommy Bloggers. They haven’t made any effort at all with me! Ain’t I a Mommy Blogger?
I’ve been trying to get to grips with some of the criticisms and inadequacies of Fair Trade as a “brand” but also as a standard, and, dare I say, as a vision! (Cue “Losing my Religion”) Meanwhile there is something called Participatory Guarantee Systems we can all be learning about. Here’s a video about a particular experience in Tanzania.
A Women’s Run Cereal Bank in Niger — a good community-level development and food security project– at least looks good from afar.
So much of the world’s food is grown on so little land by small farmers, and many women of course. A link to a report by GRAIN, “a small international non-profit organisation that works to support small farmers and social movements in their struggles for community-controlled and biodiversity-based food systems.”
Longing to visit this former leisure centre in Rotterdam now growing oyster mushrooms on waste coffee groups. Am inspired by all the Radical Fungicians one encounters… And regarding coffee grounds, shall I make this beauty scrub for you for Christmas? Plus 14 Genius Ways to Recycle them.
Poignant somehow, and informative, this article: Reviving an Ancient Agricultural Practice: The Root Gardens of Canada’s West Coast Aboriginals.
Important to be thinking “regional” as well as “local” in terms of strengthening our food systems.
Seaweed as the next “wonderfood” — great as a healthful delicious food and great for ocean ecosystems. This is a particularly nice article on ways to eat it!
I love the subtle taste of licorice in broths, and in teas; it’s a useful element in Chinese healing. Could Brits go back to growing it in our gardens?
Thinking about Human History and the eating of acorns (and this link as well) in light of the horrendous ecological impact of almond addiction (including myself in this one!).
Two sisters in a Spanish desert growing, harvesting, milling and baking with wheat in a bakery.
Trying to learn about resistant starch and how cold spaghetti and leftover roast potatoes are better for us!
More things in Heaven and Earth, Horatio:
I love the subtle taste of licorice in broths, and in teas; it’s a useful element in Chinese healing. Could Brits go back to growing it in our gardens?
Salep, Chicha , Gulkand,, Crosnes/ Chinese Artichokes , Yummy African Land Snails
A soup with your courgette /zucchini /squash VINES (with a use for the homemade lard of ZeroWasteChef) — working on a whole blog post as we speak.
An “Open-Cola” recipe (and compare with this botanical masterpiece).
For next year: Queen Anne’s Lace Jelly
Wild edible crops that could change agriculture
Transform your pasta into ramen noodles — a hack. And Homemade Pot Noodles.
DIY VicksVaporRub, and Sage and Honey Cough Syrup
How to grow Purslane, (Portulaca oleracea), a delicious salad vegetable, for nibbling and Mexican and Middle Eastern cooking.
Useful Gluten Free Flour Blend recipes
Because n0-waste cooking means you can’t predict how much of an ingredient you will actually have: Meringues with any amount of leftover egg whites; Super useful Veggie Pancakes concept
Do you know how amazing the Joy of Cooking website is? And I completely recommend Abel and Cole as a GREAT recipe resource. Here’s an inspiring collection of Vegetable Noodle recipes for the dreamed of day when one has a spiralizer. And a great HOW TO PEEL CUT CORE AND SEED link.
Here’s a recipe for “Grain-Free Cabbage Pizza Skillet” my children honestly really love and ask me to make. (I keep it vegetarian.) Believe it or not. (Believe!)
The gorgeous, artistic, poetic, inspiring Persian food blog Fig and Quince wrote about this refreshing cooler. I love vinegar drinks with scrap vinegars, as you know. This one would be amazing with the last of the Japonica Quince vinegar and I would raise my glass to the writer of that blog and the enjoyment she brings me. Here she sent me on a little fantasy spin to drink Borage Tea in a Tehran Cafe. You must check out Fig and Quince! Exhortation!!!!!
Voila, something marvelous I saw at a Greek Deli in Birmingham— a Halvah cake. Of course I’ve seen slices of halvah, rectangles wrapped in plastic usually, but never would have imagined a whole cake. Thank you, Jess, for sharing with us Anissa’s blog — watch the fascinating videos of the whole halvah making process!
And last:
11 Ways to Use Coffee Grounds in the Garden
and
TOTAL FANTASY: to visit this chocolate cafe in Santa Fe and try the MesoAmerican Elixers (and from afar just be inspired by the ingredients, maybe to try making something like Xocolatl again.
Kitchen Counter Culture 
Thank you for such a wonderful mention. It made my day and made me smile with my entire being. I do hope we get to hang out and toast to peace and poetry and pretty things in a beautiful place in Iran some day soon!
Thank you for the mention and for all of these links. I’m looking forward to reading your post on gleaning. On Saturday, I demonstrated fermentation at the US’s first Feeding the 5000 (the group in the article, FoodShift, played a large role in the event). I agree with you, our agriculture system is completely inefficient (here in the US, we throw out 40% of food!). We need to fix the root of the problem–our wasteful, unhealthy, industrial, corporate food system–not continue along this unsustainable path with a tiny percentage of wasted food going to charity (i.e., prevent the disease, not treat the symptoms with a couple of Tylenol).
Great post! Lots of interesting things to look at. A couple of the links didn’t work?
Abel & Cole IS a great recipe source, and their recipes are easily adaptable for vegan dishes too. I also order a couple of boxes and they’re awesome. Seaweed is a great source of iodine/iodide which a lot of people are deficient in. However, as with anything, too much can be really bad as seaweed iodine levels are quite high so its an occasional food 🙂 So much to read here, thanks!
Thanks for info re iodine and thanks too for telling me re links, when I get a moment, will do that laborious checking.
Looks like some serious reading here, I’ve bookmarked the post for later. With the best of intentions I became a Slow Food Member years ago but became soured by the blantant personal promotion by local members in the name of Slow. Our branch became reduced an elitist social network, and I suspect this is not unique.
Can imagine that would be truly irksome!!!!! I love the Slow Food triumphing of Forgotten Foods and their work on gardens in Africa looks good, and other stuff, but I’m turned off a little by the focus on chefs– I think home cooks, and the sharing of cookery knowledge, are more important than expensive, elitist eating. (That said, in mid-Wales, it’s a wonderful chef called Gareth Johns who keeps the shebang afloat.) Thanks for commenting and I hope if the reading is serious at least it feels worthwhile. 🙂