Friday Faves — notes from the new gastroconomy, No. 57

weekly round-up of our favorite finds from the front lines of food

• From one of our favorite blogs, Laughing Squid "Malaysian artist Hong Yi has embarked on a project to create a piece of artwork out of food for every day in March. The results so far are quite excellent and range from reproductions of classic works to original creations. You can follow her project on Instagram."

• Britons are being urged to eat more wild venison as part of land conservation. "Deer populations are going through the roof, there is a population explosion and they are causing problems." They also happen to be delicious. 

• And you can conserve land in your own driveway with a home aquaponics systems. If Kijani Grows in West Oakland can do it, so can you. Check out this video.

• Jewish restaurateurs are revisiting Chinese dishes — and schmaltzing them up "There’s a Borscht Belt shtick about Jews and Chinese food,” he quips. “My personal joke is that I learned to speak Yiddish in the Chinese restaurant from my customers.” 

• And if you want even more Jewish-Asian fusion, try A Seder Spiced With Indian Flavors.

Friday Faves — notes from the new gastroconomy, No. 48

weekly round-up of our favorite finds from the front lines of food

• The year — now-ish. Humans have overfished the oceans, taking too much and decadently hurling bycatch overboard. Now, the giant sea creatures of the deep are taking matters into their own "hands" — and they want their fish back... The New short film Monster Roll (above) is the most crazy-awesome thing you've seen this week. Seriously.

• Geek out with a radio segment from On Point on everything you ever wanted to know about lobster (and more), from biology to art, to Greek Mythology.

• These guerrilla cartographers are mapping the edible world. Food: An Atlas, which will chart the world of food in some of its most inspiring and somber dimensions — from food production, distribution, and food security to cuisine.

• Cooking made us smarter, or so the research indicates. And sitting around eating all that food was probably pretty good for making culture. "So raise a glass of good wine (fermentation being the other calling card of a higher order brain) and praise the cooks. You'd be stupid without them.

Friday Faves — notes from the new gastroconomy, No. 42

weekly round-up of our favorite finds from the front lines of food

 

• A good reminder to think critically, a 1947 ad singing the praises of DDT as a "benefactor of all humanity" in a round-up of the worst products ever advertised.

• Squid — funkier than you thought. Apparently, they're deeply musical, and they can change colors to the beat, as this video shows.

• Noodle-bots, taking over a Chinese noodle stand near you. In the video, you can see them (looking very vintage Lost in Space) shaving noodles right into the pot. Prep cooks everywhere, beware.

• For pointers, and experienced words of caution, listen to the dangerous art of ham-cutting in Spain that covers the how-to's of slicing Iberian ham, which can send some 60,000 Spaniards a year to the emergency room. Maybe a ham-bot is in order.

• Fastcompany profiled 8 Future Farms to Change How We Grow Food, from aquapods to personal indoor urban farms.

• The part of farming that still has a long way to go — labor issues. Introduced with the attention getting headline Your Food Has Already Migrated! a new report "Hungry for Change: Borderlands Food and Water in the Balance—reminds Americans just how much of their entire food supply is dependent upon labor, expertise, ingenuity, seeds, seafood, and water originating in Mexico."

Friday Faves — notes from the new gastroconomy, No. 31

weekly round-up of our favorite finds from the front lines of food

• If your eyes aren't burning from the French Orangina ad to the right (a play on words, Poulpe=Octopus / Pulpe=Pulp....she is "pulpeuse" or...poulpeuse perhaps...), check this out. You may never look at sushi the same way again. Fugu & Tako, Short Film About A Man Who Turns Into A Pufferfish

• Producing our food is more dangerous than being a stunt man or police officer. The most dangerous occupation: fisherman. Farmers and ranchers came in at number four.

• An amendment to the 2012 Farm Bill would make commercial fishermen eligible to qualify for the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Farm Services Administration (FSA) Farm Operating Loan Program. The proposed amendment includes “commercial fishermen” within the definitions of “farmer” and “farming.”

• Small-Scale Slaughterhouses Aim To Put The 'Local' Back In Local Meat including new facilities owned by a co-op of farmers or ranchers. The whole idea is to have quality control and humane processing for local cattle, hogs, sheep and goats that provides consumers in the state with [the] locally produced products they are demanding. Having a producer-owned plan will help keep dollars, ranchers and farmers in our communities."

• Tom Philpott of Mother Jones joined Fresh Air (click through to listen) Assessing Consumer Concerns About The Meat Industry

• We're fans of the Michael Pollan approach that if a food has health claims tacked on it, it isn't real food, but big companies like Nestle are fighting that. "The unit is due to work closely with the Nestle Health Science company and research institute set up last year that is pushing a drive into medical foods at a time of growing overlap between "Big Pharma" and "Big Food" as many drug companies are investing in non-prescription products including nutrition."

• While not a strictly food news item, our minds are reeling with the possibilities of showing consumers where their food comes from with augmented reality systems that can make print look like Harry Potter's newspaper.

• A loving homage to rhubarb, Rhubarb’s Ruby Submission: Hard, acid rhubarb reliably softens with heat. If only people did the same. "Trust the English, who are in many ways the masters of both pudding and perversity, to take something so unpalatable and turn it into dessert."

Cephalopod Spotting, 2

We've taken our cephalopod spotting obsession onto Pinterest, and our collection is growing all the time.

You can follow our many-tentacled adventures there: http://pinterest.com/polishpartners/cephalopods/

Friday Faves — notes from the new gastroconomy, No. 22

a weekly round-up of our favorite finds from the front lines of food

• Too pretty to eat, pantone tarts by Emilie Guelpa.

• Mountain-city-saliva-chicken anyone? There's a new campaign in China to make menu translations less literal (and less gross).

• Pesticides and the fate of the honey bee: Three new studies link bee decline to Bayer Pesticide. Their products are used on corn, soy and more.

• Those crazy cephalopods, one minute you see them, the next minute they've turned into something else... rare footage of the mimic octopus.

• An Atlantic vintage? A Pacific vintage? "You can think of the world’s oceans as a kind of rich broth. They’re full of salt, of course, but they also contain other ingredients, many of them vital to marine life and to the processes that control the Earth’s climate." Not strictly a food story, but we appreciated the metaphor.

• One more story from the deep: Unlocking Seaweed’s Next-Gen Crude — Sugar (although intended more for cars and fertilizer than doughnuts).

• Feeling nostalgic for one of our favorite culinary innovators, we happened on this Swedish Chef collection. Bork! Bork! Bork!

• Usually, we go looking for the bizarre. Occasionally, it shows up in our mailbox, like this promotion for a bacon coffin. "We think that your final resting place deserves the eternal glory that is bacon." And Penelope the Pork Fairy says, "Amen."

Sing Along Snacks: Octopus' Garden

It's never too early or too late for a snack, so crank up that volume on your computer.

The Beatles classic, sung by the Muppets, with a halibut cameo and starfish playing on scallop shell drums. See you at the Boston Seafood Show!

"I'd like to be under the sea, In an octopus' garden with you"

Cephalopod Spotting

As we get ready to go to the International Boston Seafood Show, we have one of our favorite ocean dwellers on the brain — cephalopods. Everywhere we look, they're sticking their tentacles into the culture, from design to dinner.

 

• Grilled octopus with garlic, kale, goat cheese & apples from Worth Kitch from SkeeterNYC.
• Wrapped around Darwin in London by the graffiti knitters of Knit the City.
• In the inky embrace of a leather chair by Máximo Riera allow you to become one with an octopus.
• Stenciled on the street in San Francisco.
• Tentacle fashion as a scarf on Etsy.
• Get in touch with your inner cephalopod with wearable finger tentacles.
• Deep-sea damask on Spoonflower.