How to Make Videos of Vanishing Ways of Using Plants and Cooking
Today I had the chance to chat with David Strauch and Laurie Durand. Although based in Hawaii, they have spent a couple of months in Mexico making videos of traditional Mexican ways of using plants and cooking. They focused on one of my favorites, mole.
This is part of a larger project to record vanishing ways that people use plants world wide, a project under the wing of the University of Hawaii Botany Department. Their project is still in the early stages. But if this is something that interests you, you might want to keep an eye on their website.
In any case, it was fun to talk about my old stomping ground, Hawaii, with like-minded enthusiasts of culinary adventuring. And to talk about the ever-fascinating topic of mole of which more ruminations soon.
OK, edited to put in a link to the fascinating project that Diana (comment below) is working on in Burundi.
Thanks for putting this up; their work is parallel to an aspect of what we’re doing here – though in a much smaller way: gatering information on ‘lost crops’ [underutilized] that figure both in local cuisine as well as in animal and human medicines. This last week our veterinary technicians identified over 20 local plants used to medicate animals [and some also can medicate people, as well]. There are also an unknown number of wild and semi-domesticated plants used in local cuisine. Will put up some information and photos on Bookofraiforum as soon as organized.
Just received notice of research doc out of IFPRI [International Food Policy Rsearch Institute] that addresses the milpa system and may be of interest to you and others; here are a few sentences from the Abstract:
|Farmer Preferences for Milpa Diversity and Genetically Modified Maize in Mexico,” by Birol & Smale. The study is available on the Web.
Abstract:
“Maize, the second most globally important staple crop after wheat, originated in Mexico, where it is typically grown as part of a set of associated crops and practices called the milpa system. This ancient
mode of production is practiced today in ways that vary by cultural context and agro-environment. Milpas generate private economic value, in terms of food security, diet quality and livelihoods, for the two million farm households who manage them. Furthermore, milpas generate public economic value by conserving agrobiodiversity, especially that of maize landraces, which have the potential to contribute unique traits needed by plant breeders for future crop improvement. In this way, milpas contribute to global food security in maize. However, the sustainability of the milpa system has been threatened by offfarm employment opportunities, long-distance migration, the increasing commercialization and
intensification of maize production. Most recently, the milpa system has been negatively impacted by the contamination of maize landraces by genetically modified (GM) maize, cultivation of which is currently
prohibited in Mexico. Here, we employ a choice experiment to estimate Mexican farmers’ valuation of three components of agrobiodiversity (crop species richness, maize variety richness and maize landraces),
and examine their interest in cultivating GM maize…”