Heirloom Gardening, Food and Other Thoughts
I came across this great new blog today. I noticed it because Anne linked to this blog.
From the perspective of a small farm in Nova Scotia[updated], Canada Anne writes about things important to her and what she does including poems about the Svalbard seed vault, posts seed saving in general, dangers of nanotechnology and GMOs. She has really nice pictures and videos to go along with her posts.
The rules concerning sending seeds and other planting materials to the US are intentionally vague, and enforcement seems much more dependent on the political winds of the moment than anything else. For some time now a ‘Small Lots of Seed’ permit was required, and perhaps technically still is.
At the same time it’s worth noting I’ve had several packages of seeds make it through recently without any special permits. Kate from Hills and Plains Seed Savers blog also travelled to the US with a collection of seeds in her luggage, declared them, and was allowed to bring them in.
Someone interested in my Andean tubers recently called US customs to ask about the procedure for importing them, and was told there was no special procedure they could just be sent. He was told the package should be clearly marked ‘Plant Materials Enclosed’. I don’t know for sure this is true, as I haven’t actually tried to send them yet.
It does seem like we are in a period of lax enforcement. If anyone has had problems getting plant materials into the US, this might be a good time to try again. Hopefully this will last a while — but don’t count on it!
If anyone starts having problems again, please let us know.
First, this is ‘The World According to Monsanto’, a French made (English language) documentary over the activities of Monsanto since 1964. This goes along well with the post I made a few days ago about the Indian farmer suicides and the associated discussion. Apparently this has not been shown on US TV, even though efforts have been made to find a network who would accept it. The only way people in the US can watch it is if they buy the DVD or watch it on the Internet.
Another video I have on DVD is ‘The Future of Food‘. A reader sent me this DVD and suggested I should share it with others after watching it myself. This features some of the same people interviewed in the video above, and tells a slightly different story that’s not really Monsanto specific.
If anyone out there is interested in being the next receipient of this DVD, send me an email. If more than one person is interested I will give priority to people I know, live nearby and/or have left comment(s) on posts here in the past. Hopefully, whoever gets it will pass it on to someone else when they are finished.
Update: I forgot to mention this DVD is region encoded for North America. This means if you don’t live in NA, you need to have a region free player.
From a variety of sources on the Internet, we put together this simple soup last night from garden roots/tubers, and it was delicious! I understand this is a traditional French soup.
Take roughly equal amounts of the following:
Celeriac (Celery Root)
Jerusalem Artichoke
Potatoes
Peel the celery root, and optionally the others as well. We left the peels on, but the Jerusalem Artichoke skin was a little too tough so we removed it at the end.
Since these all have different cooking times, cook them in separate pots of boiling water until they are soft enough to mash (test with a fork). Add about 1 teaspoon vinegar or lemon juice to the cooking water of the Jerusalem Artichoke to prevent browning. Drain, reserving some of the potato water.
Mash the cooked roots together with a potato masher. It’s okay if it’s a little lumpy, but remove large pieces of tough skins that might remain. Add a little of the reserved potato water until it’s the consistency of thick soup.
Serve in bowls with a pat of butter on top. Add salt and pepper to taste. Yum!
There’s a rumor floating around here, that has yet to be confirmed, but did make the newspapers on Thursday (article in Dutch).
Apparently a Fries business man, who is behind a large peppermint company called King, with the family name Obbema, settled in Africa many years ago. He is apparently an ancestor of Obama’s, and his children took on the name Obama.
Some research into this lead to the family coat of arms (of which I have not seen a picture), and apparently along the bottom it says in old Fries ‘Ja, wy kinne’, which translates into modern English as ‘Yes we can’!
It’s important to mention historically the region of Friesland was much different than it is now, so even if a Fries connection is proved, it doesn’t necessarily mean a Dutch connection.
