our favorite finds from the front lines of food
Angst muffins (above). Life is short. Read the full comic here, while you can. (Existential comics)
The furry face of California salmon conservation: beavers. "Wild salmon are adept at crossing the beavers’ blockages. In addition, the dams often reduce the downstream transport of egg-suffocating silt to the gravel where salmon spawn, and create deeper, cooler water for juvenile fish and adult salmon and steelhead. The resulting wetlands also attract more insects for salmon to eat. In ongoing research that covered six years, Pollock and his colleagues showed that river restoration projects that featured beaver dams more than doubled their production of salmon." (On Earth)
Pancake day and Semla — the quieter culinary pursuits of Shrove Tuesday. "But the Protestant Reformation, which swept across Northern Europe some 500 years ago, killed off most of the traditions that made Catholic Mardi Gras so much fun. As they stripped the church of ornate decoration, reformers railed against the feast-and-famine cycle of extremes." At least they still had sugar. (NPR)
Bittman Does Berkeley: Talking Food Politics With Mark Bittman On how the food conversation is evolving: "Labor has really stuck out for me. The fact that people who cared about food did not talk about labor five years ago and now they do talk about labor, that’s a big deal." And to the inseparable issues of food and economic justice: "People are suffering. we need to fix that. but that’s not a cooking problem. if there’s a cooking problem, I can solve it. Cooking is easy. Social justice problems are not so easy." (KQED)
From Cup to Coupe: A History of Our Favorite Champagne Glass With the release of A Year in Champagne in select theaters and on iTunes March 6, we've had Champagne on the brain. (Food52)
With emerging markets such as Russia and China facing disruption, Rabobank has highlighted a shift in exporters’ focus towards the US. (Drinks Business)
