The Alimentary Blog by Aruna Antonella Handa
Dishing the Future of Food.
Remember reading the 100-mile Diet by Alisa Smith and J.B. MacKinnon? Can you believe that book was published 15 years ago? To commemorate it, I dedicated my radio column with CBC Radio syndication this week to 100-mile Harvest dinners. Here’s a little more information on how to host one. Hint: do it now in the Harvest season when the selection is spectacular!
I found this furniture, the globe, and the vase (can’t remember about the mirror) on the side of the road. I love them and my little brown bottle best of all. It contains the household cleaner and recipe sent to me by the irreplaceable Shelina Knight.
Thank you to all the CBC listeners who wrote me to ask for the household cleaning recipes. I have tried a lot of different approaches and here are my go-to solutions. These are ecologically sound as well as being easy on the household budget and super convenient. If you have other tips, I’d be happy to post them and credit you for them. I feel like the more we share our solutions the more we can mitigate the worse effects of the climate emergency.
Sheets (Cheaper than most) I pay $12 for 32 loads.
Tried to make my own. Disaster.
Found laundry detergent sheets, and I am a huge fan. I’ve tried two brands: Tru Earth and Nature Clean. Liked them both. I get mine delivered in the post every two months. They come in a cardboard envelope, so the packaging is minimal. They are light, easy to use and come in scented as well as unscented. A real win win. Noticed these were cheaper in Vancouver, where they may be more ecologically minded than we are in the Big Smoke.
Two solutions. The dish detergent soap bar. I can’t always find it, so when I cannot, I got to Karma, my local food co-op and I bring my jars and fill them up to tide me over until I can find the bar again.
For this recipe I have my very good friend, Shelina Knight, to thank. She sent me a beautiful brown glass bottle with a spray nozzle, a small box of essential oils and the recipe attached to the bottle. I use it for windows and mirrors, for ceramic cook tops and counter tops, for lamps and doorknobs. In short, just about everywhere. I even will use it on wood, as long as I have a lovely soft cloth at the ready to rub and polish.
In a one litre bottle, with a spray nozzle top, add:
1 T white vinegar
1/2 T castille soap or dish detergent
and the following essential oils:
10 drops litsea
15 drops lemon
15 drops eucalyptus
5 drops tea tree oil
5 drops thyme oil
Fill the bottle up with warm water. Close it. Shake it and you’re ready to go! Lasts a good long while. I use a spritz or two and then wipe.
Fill the bucket just a third of the way up. Add:
2 T vinegar
5 drops rosemary oil
a drop or two of dish detergent or castile soap. (I use Dr. Bronner’s unscented.)
Mop away!
I try to find dish detergent bars. Not always easy. If I cannot find them, I go to my local food coop or health food shop and fill my own container with liquid dish soap.
I like to use dish detergent. A little goes a long way, so be stingy. I wash my hand washing in a repurposed salad spinner. That way I can gently spin the items without having to wring them.
I use a wooden brush with a replaceable head for my dishes. I also have a cloth dishcloth about the size of a facecloth but a little more abrasive. I also use steel wool for stubborn burned on gunk. My kitchen cloths go in the laundry when dirty. They are blue. I have red ones for the bathroom. I have between 5 and 10 of them, so I never run out of a clean cloth. I used to buy disposable ones. I don’t anymore. I have a sponge that I use to clean the bath tub and I use a firm brush and even old toothbrushes to clean the tiles and grout in the shower.
Alcohol (70%) and your favourite essential oil. Keep in a small spritzer bottle in the entrance way and in your purse or backpack. (Recipe sent in by Paula Violi of Vancouver—Thanks, Paula)
This suggestion came from a listener, Brad Johnson, who wrote to recommend E-cloth. Brad writes:
"E-Cloth. It’s two cloths. One you wet with water to clean the window and the other one is the drying and polishing cloth. Nothing else. I’ve used this on my car windows, mirrors, house windows and it is AMAZING. There is nothing like sparkling clean windows.”
Thanks for the recommendation, Brad!
Aristotle 384-322 BCE was a fan of eating pregnant cicadas.
Aristotle had a thing for cicadas. They were one of his go-to bugs in his description of animals in his History of Animals, and in Book V, Chapter 24 of that work, he shares his insights about which cicadas are the best to eat. Of cicadas, Aristotle writes:
The [cicada] maggot, when it is grown in the earth, becomes a tettigometra: these are sweetest before they have ruptured their covering. When first produced the males are the sweetest: after the sexual intercourse, the females are sweetest, for they contain white ova. [Aristotle, History of Animals, Book V, Chap 24, Translation by Richard Cresswell]
The obliging cicada provides a musical accompaniment before it serves as a very good lunch according to Aristotle.
There are periodical cicadas which emerge every 13 or 17 years, and there are annual cicadas, which emerge every two years or so and tend not to do so by the trillions (as the periodical ones are known to).
Of the periodical cicadas, there are 15 broods on record. They are numbered with Roman numerals.
Three broods spend 13 years underground and 12 spend 17 years underground. Brood X (that’s ten) is emerging this year. It’s a 17 year cycle brood.
Last time the cicadas emerged in 2004, Jenna Jadin, an American photojournalist, wrote a cicada cookbook, which is available online here. There are other cicada cookbooks available too. Let us know if you’d like to review one.
Only the males sing. The females remain quiet.
Adulthood for the cicada lasts only four to six weeks. After copulating, and laying eggs, the adults die. After hatching, the nymphs go underground where they nibble on roots until they’re ready to emerge many years later.
When the nymphs first emerge, they look for someplace to shed their skin. This can take about five hours. Aristotle preferred to eat the males before they shed their exoskeleton; he was also partial to pregnant females and their creamy eggs.
The cicada song, produced with a special organ called a tymbal, can reach 120 decibels, which is the lower end of the pain threshold.
Cicadas have five eyes! The rumours that they are blind are hogwash.
Cicadas are dutiful environmental stewards: the nymphs aerate the soil by burrowing down into it; the adult bodies feed insectivores; the carcasses provide nitrogen for the trees.
Read Aristotle on cicadas in History of Animals.
Listen to Mercedes Sosa “Como la cigarra”.
Dr. Shakuntala Haraksingh Thilsted. Photo credit: WorldFoodPrize.org
It’s so refreshing to read about this year’s World Food Prize Laureate, Dr. Shakuntala Haraksingh Thilsted. The $250,000 (US) prize went to this researcher who employs old fashioned research methods, who values and listens to the wisdom of her target populations and who repeatedly demonstrates the success of collaborating with her target population. Her work is so exciting because she employs an approach that is low tech, sustainable and scaleable and which resulted in a tremendous increase in nutrition, health outcomes and local incomes. So refreshing.
You can listen to my discussion with CBC’s Giacomo Panico about the recognition that this remarkable researcher has garnered. (And I’m not enthralled just because Dr. Thilsted is originally from Trinidad, where by the way, I went to school as a young girl, or because she took her first degree at the University of West Indies, where my dad taught for a year.) I am enthralled because her approach is the one that we’ve needed all along and it’s so satisfying to see it not only be successful, but also recognized as such. More please. Much more.
Discussion on CBC Radio Ottawa’s In Town and Out with Giacomo Panico.
I first met Wayne by phone. I was reviewing a few books on food politics and one was his No Nonsense Book Guide to World Food, which has since come out in a second edition. (You can read the review on Briarpatch’s site here).
As many who knew the man can attest, Wayne was gregariously helpful. Before I knew what was happening Wayne was interviewing me, peppering me with questions about my background in food. Over the course of our friendship, he invited me to several lunches and events, and to join the board of FoodShare. We first met in person at the launch of a government report aimed at addressing a phenomenon known as Healthy Immigrant Effect, which describes that, by and large, immigrants are healthier when they first arrive in Canada (Australia, USA) than they are five to ten years later. The jury is still out on the exact cause(s) of the phenomenon; nevertheless, Health Canada proposed that we address it by teaching, for example, Chinese people to eat raw vegetables, Muslims to eat hot dogs, Koreans to abandon heating and cooling notions of food, and Punjabis that plump is not beautiful. The Health Canada representative also detailed how immigrants needed to be taught to eat frozen and canned foods. And then to add insult to injury, we were informed that the primary ‘research’ was conducted not by interviewing new immigrants but rather their translators, refugee settlement workers and the like.
Well, it wasn’t long before there were cries of “Burn it!” from the mostly non-white faced audience. Instead of recognizing the culinary expertise that arrives on our shores with new Canadians each year, instead of developing strategies on how to capture and harvest that knowledge, to preserve it and incorporate it in the Canadian culinary history, the report writers simply assumed that the immigrants needed to be taught and that already settled Canadians were to do the teaching. I sat wide-eyed and tried to gauge Wayne’s views on whether he was on board with this report or like me astonished by its colossal confusion. I guess I sighed perceptibly a few times, and Wayne glanced over and smiled his wry smile and blinked at me as if to say, ‘Yes, this is a disaster. Don’t worry, we’ll fix it.” What Wayne did that day was a lesson in quiet and determined diplomacy. After the “breakout” sessions to discuss the “findings”, Wayne, in his capacity as Toronto Food Policy Coordinator, summarized the meeting not by embarrassing the Health Canada speaker and the facilitator (truly they had managed the job themselves quite admirably), but by focusing on what the report ought to have said, by highlighting the terrific ideas that various groups had proposed. His quiet demeanour succeeded in diffusing the situation without conceding a thing, without agreeing to a bit of nonsense, while making it crystal clear that the report was utter nonsense. I was intrigued.
Wayne and I didn’t always agree about the strategies but we seldom differed on the goals. The last time I saw Wayne, we were marching together down Bay Street at the 2019 Climate Strike March. His body did seem frail and I noticed Lori looking over, watching him, but his spirit, his life force, his prana seemed as strong as ever. RIP Dr. Wayne Roberts. Long may you run.
I need to get this off my chest. Food security and food insecurity are two different beasts. The former, food security, refers to the security of our food supply, as a city, province, country, or planet. In this topic, you might find sub-topics such as meat supply chains, justice for food workers, toxicity of agricultural inputs and etc. The latter, food insecurity, refers to a condition in which a household has insufficient food for its needs. PROOF, a global leader in food insecurity research based at the University of Toronto, has identified three levels of food insecurity, marginal, moderate and severe. Please visit their website for more information on food insecurity.
We are facing a situation in which both food security and food insecurity require deep thinking and creative problem solving. It would be splendid if we could get the terms straight.
Last edited May 15/2020.
Farinata with scallion and rosemary.
The surreal. The lack of affect. The ennui. The desire to compensate. The desire to lick, squeeze and pinch everything in sight, precisely because i know i am not supposed to. A restlessness. A claustrophobia. My mind turns to sailboats, and whether i could sail one to Europe, and the closest port to Paris, and whether i'd even want to hang out in the Marais if there were no Parisians in the streets, in the cafés, the galleries, the museums, the opera, or on the banks of the Seine. And then this girl, who was always on the search for a secluded beach, now reflects that seclusion is only a prize against a backdrop of crowds on every corner. Without people, the world isn't nearly as interesting, even if all i want to do is get lost in a sea of strangers. Without people, a secluded beach feels passé.
And of course, we need to continue this social distancing. It’s working and we need to sit tight, possibly for a lot longer.
Lately, in the press, the phrase ‘physical distancing’ seems to be inching out ‘social distancing’. I suspect it’s being proffered because in this time of self-isolation, we are nevertheless connecting socially. And while that’s true, I think we need to make a distinction between telesocial connection, which we do when we use teleconferencing platforms, texting, phoning, and emailing, on the one hand, and our default call it “proximate” social connection on the other. Telesocial connection’s relationship to social connection is like that of a recipe book to a well cooked meal—it’s something alright but it has none of the affect of a meal, no aroma, no touch, no taste, no sound, and where there are visuals, they are at best simulacrum. And while a recipe is not intended to replace a meal, these ways of teleconnecting do seem to be considered adequate replacements for social contact, albeit temporary. In this time of Corona, we are keeping social distance and there is no need to call it anything but “social distance”.
Rosemary and scallion farinata and basil pesto
We are in the habit of calling twitter and facebook ‘social media’; however, as many have observed, food is the original social media. The telesocial connection we enjoy now is patently not the same sort of social connection we enjoyed pre-virus, when we dined together, or walked arm in arm, or whispered in another’s ear, or hugged hello.
I am grateful to live here in Canada, where many of the politicians are sane, and genuinely trying to figure out solutions. Our use of the term “social distancing” needs no fixing––it works quite well. And social distancing, the policy, is working too. The better we get at, the sooner we can embrace again.
Drink: Pastis. Eat: Farinata (aka Socca) and Basil Pesto (aka Pistou). Music: Ellis Marsalis Quartet. RIP Ellis Marsalis. Until the day when we can sup together again… (Thanks Eric and Tom.)
Lose weight! Donate blood.
Please visit blood.ca to book an appointment online. (Hint: have the cocktail AFTER you give)
Toss back a few crickets with your glass of cava? No? Suit yourself. Music: Tom Waits: The Part You Throw Away.
(Drawing Danielle Forte.)
Originally published in Amuse-Gueule March 20, 2020.
Carbon emissions are way down. This phenomena is especially noticeable over China and Italy. Of course as this virus spreads, we can expect to see similar effects over the rest of the planet. This NY Times article shows fascinating satellite images prepared by Descartes labs (see? philosophy!)
Cucumber "crackers" topped with crème fraîche, carp roe, chives and lemon rind to taste. To drink: a glass of blue curacao, sauvignon blanc, ginger beer, garnished with pineapple spears. Music: Jimmy Cliff: I can see clearly now.
Originally published in Amuse-Gueule March 20, 2020.
Washington--While the president of the United States garners criticism for his unorthodox views and strategies in battling the corona virus pandemic, some think that the self-proclaimed billionaire (and knower of all things South Korean) isn't given enough credit. Our special investigation can now reveal that Trump's mission at least as far back as 2016 was to keep Americans laughing. Laughter, the old adage goes, is the best medicine, but is it really? Yes, it turns out that it is. The Mayo Clinic reports that laughter confers both short and long terms benefits, including physiological changes that enhance the immune systems and provide relief from the stresses amplified in this time of Corona.
Drawing by Shelina Knight, 2020.
How does laughter boost your immune response? Here’s information our investigation gleaned from the Mayo Clinic.
The short term effects of laughter include:
1) stimulating our heart and lungs by enhancing oxygen intake.
2) exercising our muscles and increasing of endorphins released in our brains.
3) reduction of stress by activation and then relief of our stress response, resulting in an overall feeling of relaxation.
4) soothing of tension by increasing circulation and relaxing muscles.
The Mayo Clinic lists some long-term effects of laughing including:
1) improvements to the immune system. Positive thoughts release neuropeptides that help fight stress and serious illness.
2) pain relief by stimulating the body to release natural painkillers.
3) improved mood, by lessening the effects of depression and anxiety.
In a group of studies (Berk 2001) investigating humour and immune response, 52 men viewed a humorous video for on hour, with blood samples taken ten minutes before, 30 minutes into the video, 30 minutes after and finally 12 hours after the video. Viewing the humorous video resulted in increases in immunoglobulins (igG, igA and igM) as well as in NK (Natural Killer) cell activity, that lasted at least 12 hours In another study, this one involving healthy adult females, the group was randomly divided and a humorous video was shown to one group and a “neutral” video was shown to the control group. Again the findings showed that humour ruled the day, with improved immune function in the humorous video viewers compared with the subject’s own pre-intervention rates, and also better rates than those of the control group. Laughing out loud, by the way, has been found to be better than just smiling, or laughing inside.
So, let’s give credit where credit is due. Donald Trump has done more than his fair share of boosting the immune systems of viewers of his shannigans, though it may well be that he has improved the immune response of people living beyond the confines of American borders.
Some Sources
Bennet, Mary Payne and Cecile Lengacher 2009: “Humor and Laughter May Influence Health IV. Humor and Immune Function”. Evidence Based Complementary Alternative Medicine. pp. 159–64. Originally published online in 2007. doi: 10.1093/ecam/nem149
Berk L, Felten D, Tan S, Bittman B, Westengard J. 2001: “Modulation of neuroimmune parameters during the eustress of humor-associated mirthful laughter”. Altern Ther HealthMed. 2001;7:62–72. 74–76. Link.
N. a. N. d. “Stress relief from laughter? It's no joke.” Mayo Clinic. Link.
an Alimentary publication in the time of Corona
Amuse-Gueule is intended to be either a twist in your sobriety, if indeed you are sober, or delightful company, if you are partaking of the cocktail hour. It is published sporadically, to those on Alimentary’s Foodlist. Comments, suggestions, submissions, recipes, and especially amusing little numbers are welcome. We are, all of us, bombarded with the harrowing news. This is intended to provide some amusements in the forms of food, drink, laughter, and music.
Cheers!
originally published, with some minor differences, in the Inaugural issue of Amuse-Gueule on March 20/2020.
A NEW EPOCH
The Holocene is giving way to the Anthropocene, the epoch of humans. What this means is that humankind is now the geological force with the most impact on the planet. It will be official once geologists agree a start date and markers. 1950 is a favoured candidate for the start date while candidates for markers include:
•radioactive fallout from atomic weapons testing
•plastics + plastiglomerate, a new rock
•nitrogen and phosphorus
•chicken bones.
FOOD AND THE ANTHROPOCENE All but one of the markers is a direct result of the way we do food on this planet. Often talk about the future is full of doom and gloom. The Future Food Salon is detailed to lay the foundation for collaborating, identifying, disseminating and celebrating exciting options for feeding future generations. In this series, we focus on nature’s primo waste managers (just one of this kingdom’s expertises) to learn how to better manage the planet and her resources. We will explore the worlds of fermentation, fungi, moulds, and yeasts. Supporting ingredients are algae and insects.
WHY FUNGI? We are featuring fungi for many reasons: ease of cultivation, ease of distribution, shelf life when dried, versatility, fermentations, range of flavours and textures, nutrition. We are also impressed with their suitability for interplanetary travel and colonization, their abilities to grow on and consume waste, and their plasticity as a construction material, whether textiles or bricks. Fungi have many delightful features. Did you know the planet’s largest living organism is a fungi?
FUTURE FOOD Here at Alimentary, we think about the future of food constantly and have been devising wild and wonderful experiments building on the tremendous work of geniuses in the field like Paul Stamets and Peter McCoy. Artists and scientists join together in the Future Food Salon 3: Voyage to Anthropocene to bring prototypes and experiments that will bowl you over.
WHEN? The Voyage to Anthropocene will take off in 2020. Sign up to our newsletter to keep posted on exact launch times. Newsletter Sign-up Form
Photo credit: Jean Beaufort.
It took me a good long while to come to terms with the mushroom. Now I want to marry them.
When I landed my first research job (not merely a contract), it was a summer position with the then newly formed Quebec Public Interest Research Group at McGill University, where I was studying philosophy. I was to research waste management options that could be implemented by QPIRG and the student body. The slogan then was "Remember the 3Rs: Reduce, reuse, recycle" and of course we all tacked on "and of these reducing is the mightiest".
Decades later, it’s the dawn of the Anthropocene, and three has become seven. There is some variation in lists; I’ve seen re-homing, repurposing, rotting, for example. These are the seven we have adopted. Rethinking everything we do is of course a good place both to start and end.
This month, I’ve been fortunate to have attended the theatre on a couple of occasions. Both times, I went with my good friend S. I’m going to use the papers we were offered as we departed as an example for the 7R Wheel. Rethink. What do I need a programme for? Well, as I happen to create theatre sometimes, I like to read the programme and even on occasion to refer to the information therein. It would be grand if it were online. This is what I think we should be doing generally. So, I do want to read it and in the case of the first show, the programme was offered only after the play, so there was no hope of reading it before and then leaving it for another patron. So, I did rethink. I did still want to read it.
Refuse. I did refuse my copy, and asked S. if I could read hers once she was done with it, so in refusing my copy I in effect reduced the number of programs we would take home by half. Reuse. Well, I will reuse in the sense of rereading, and referring to it as a reference tool. Repair doesn’t seem a fit here. Recover, on the other hand, is. I could in theory recover the prime ingredient, paper, by say making paper machier. I’m not sure whether I can recover the paper in another way since it is printed on both sides. I have to think about that. Recycle. Yup, this I could do. In Toronto we have curbside collection twice a month.
The banner image for this post is of a public domain shot of a dump from the site Pexels. The graphic was made by the author.
On Oct. 3/18, I previewed some of the themes of Future Food Salon 3: Voyage to Anthropocene as the guest speaker at the Depanneur’s Table Talk series. The event was sold out. Len made a yum meal and I met some amazing people at the event both before and after the talk.
Scientists warn 2.0C reduction insufficient to avoid catastrophic change; urge we cap at 1.5C.
