simple banana flower dish

Banana flowers are dark, powerful looking flowers, heavy and serious. Dark purple petals hide inch and a half long creamy flowerets which become the bananas. Hoards of black bees hover around these creamy flowers which are revealed one petal at a time in some exotic secretive tryst. The whole flower can be eaten but must be soaked in a lime / salt water bath for at least 4 hours first. Harvest with the banana, or cut earlier (when the bananas are 2/3rds grown) for a larger flower.
Preparing the flower
Banana flowers are horribly horribly sticky and their snotty sap will turn everything a dark brown, so unless you are naked in the kitchen, take care! They will also destroy cutting boards and render knives into gooey gluey nightmares, be warned!
Remove stem. Cut on a wet plate with a wet sharp knife. Holding the flower at the base slice as you would an onion, scrape the sliced flower into a bowl of salted lime water as you go, stopping often to wet the knife. Wash the plate and knife immediately after finishing. Wash hands with soapy water.
The recipe
Prepared banana flower
An onion
Turmeric, ½ teaspoon
Ginger, inch and a half, or to taste
Garlic, 4 cloves or to taste
Coriander, teaspoon, or to taste
Good sized lime
Coconut milk, 1 cup
Oil for frying, salt to taste
Heat oil and fry spices and garlic stirring constantly, until the smell is unbearably good. Add chopped onion and banana flower and stir to coat, cook for two minutes then add coconut milk and lime juice and simmer for 15 – 20 minutes until onion and flower are softened. Allow to sit for 5 minutes before serving.

warms the cockles

Waiting for a download today, and for my laundry, I had some time to browse blogs. I’m happy to see so many sustainable / eco-viable / alternative homesteading/organic gardening blogs online, quite a community! It would be so nice if there was some collective of such blogs. I know there are directories and online communities: blogcatalog, tribe, folio, blotanical for example, but to have an online home for sustainable blogs somehow tied in with other eco-sites and resources would be great. At least for me. It’s great to see so many people thinking about alternatives and putting their thoughts – and ideals – into practice.
Rather on the same note, though from a different perspective to be sure, was an article on rising fuel costs. Riots and demonstrations, strikes and blockades in Spain, France, South Korea, India and Scotland. I can’t help but feel this is a positive step forward in changing attitudes and looking for alternatives. I hope so. I understand that for those lorry drivers it doesn’t present itself as positive, but in the larger picture the more pressure people feel in the current paradigm, the more pressure to find alternatives, you know?

chayote blues

Something bad is happening to my chayote. This whole chayote business has been an ongoing test for me. First I couldn’t get any seeds, and then they wouldn’t sprout and then wouldn’t take and now my pride and joy which was doing ever so well snaking up a pretty pyramidal bamboo trellis is turning yellow and dropping lower leaves, like every lower leaf. It’s gone from a shiny green pyramid to a naked tangle of vines and higher leaves. I’m at a loss. It says in the books it grows best at middle elevations but that it will grow anywhere. It looked at first like only leaves with insect damage were turning, but no, they are all going. I think I’ll lose it. Sad. The vines supposedly live for 5 years or so, maybe it’ll come back, I hope so, I am very fond of the plant, fonder of the plant than I am of the fruit which takes the skin off my hands when I peel it.
Other than that the garden is coming along. Despite rain I managed to transplant the second generation of tomatoes, 3 melons, the jackfruit and a couple of papayas. I’ve sowed the third generation of pumpkin. And today I finally got a cucumber with a nice supply of healthy looking seeds. The red bananas I harvested three whole weeks ago are finally ripe and almost ready to eat, I think I’ll wait a couple of weeks before I harvest the next bunch, there’s no sense them hanging in the box when they could be hanging on the plant. I took three more pineapple which I’ll dry, they smell fabulous and I’m so enjoying the last batch I dried.

night monkeys

There are night monkeys in the trees. Sounds like a children’s story. I can’t find much information on night monkeys, they are not supposed to exist here, but are reported on the Panama Caribbean coast and we have unbroken forest, in strips, between here and there. The locals of course know they’re here. They are grey with buff bellies and white, owl like faces and exist in small family groups, and they’re nocturnal. But there they are darting away from my flashlight. I wonder why they’re nocturnal, what pushed them into the darkness? Smaller than the other three monkey species that live here, and eat the same foods, perhaps competition pushed them ‘underground’ high into the canopy. There are plenty of flowers that open at night for the bats, perhaps their favoured food? Right now they are in the cacao trees. This explains why I can’t get hold of any cacao to make into chocolate, the monkeys and squirrels are getting there first. Oh well. The fig by my house is dropping fruit, a steady thonk thonk of fruit hitting leaves from 40 feet up. The area smells of fermenting fruit. Unfortunately these are not the figs we eat, though maybe I should try one. I’ve started eating the fruit of the swiss cheese vine after I saw how greedily the pregnant spider monkey devoured them. There are a couple of vines that reach down almost to the ground with fruit within my reach, I’m not taking them from the monkeys who would never come that low. My mum had these vines all over the house when I was a kid, tied to mossy sticks. I had no idea then that one day I’d be eating the berries which taste like a mix of pineapple and banana.

ginger beer

I used to have a ginger beer plant but I didn’t make the beer often enough to keep it going. This recipe uses yeast and it’s super easy, quick and makes good ginger beer.
For a 2 litre bottle:
I cup brown sugar
¼ teaspoon yeast
Juice of one lime
A good 2 inches of ginger, grated
Put it all into the bottle and add enough water to give a good shake and dissolve the sugar, or at least mix everything up. Add more water leaving a good 2 inches of space. Cap tightly and put somewhere warm for 24 hours. Check after 24 hours – if the bottle is hard the beer is ready, if not leave but check regularly. When the bottle is hard put it in the fridge to stop the yeast. Alternatively you can allow it to become ever so slightly alcoholic. (Be warned it will explode when you open it.) Open slowly and enjoy.

soursop

It was a day for fruit: 3 pineapples, cherries and a big fat soursop. The soursop is slightly bigger than an American football and a lot heavier. I heard it fall with a satisfying thud and got to it before anyone else could. Strange fruit. It’s a pretty tree, like a laurel, with shiny green leaves and odd flowers with thick custard coloured petals which come straight out of the trunk. There are 3 outer petals which open to reveal two more sets of three within. I’m not sure what pollinates them but did see one positively pulsate with custard coloured beetles the other day, the like of which I’ve never seen before. The fruits are green with short soft spikes. Inside there are a very juicy series of fleshy envelopes most enclosing a pretty, shiny, black flattish seed which is toxic. The trick is to remove all the seeds. Soursop can be eaten as is and it’s very tasty, but it’s so big that unless one throws a party, it can’t be finished. Luckily it makes a good jam and a nice sorbet. I’ll make jam in the morning.
Between rain and the garden being full of ants today – when they move they really do move – I didn’t get much done except the weeding and twisting chayote tendrils round trellis. Picked some pumpkin leaves for dinner. I’ve cleared away all the first generation pumpkins and the second generation is still rather young so I’m without flowers for the first time in 3 months. The leaves are great though and I use them just as I would spinach or chard. The leaf stalks are hollow and look just like penne pasta. I have to use them like that some time. I also picked some ginger.
I’m going to Mr Eddy’s tomorrow and made him some ginger beer. Mr Eddy is an older Jamaican who went to university in England and now runs a couple of cabins from his front yard by the beach. He has a great garden: mango, avocado, cinnamon, lime, orange, lemon, manzana de agua, black pepper, lemongrass, citronella, malanga, cassava, sugar cane, ylang-ylang, jasmine, datura, juanilama, pineapple, papaya, coconut and I’m sure I’m forgetting others. I saw him at Moreno’s yesterday and he said he was looking for a gardener. I’m interested. I don’t think I have time but I’m interested. Mr Eddy knows a lot, it would be a pleasure to learn from him.

rain

It’s raining. A nice warm rain that’s heavy enough to keep the mosquitoes down but not so heavy as to be oppressive. Okay, I was wrong about the mosquitoes. They are bad right now. Whenever we have rain then 5 or 6 dry days, they come in hoards. It’s best if it rains each day – the rain washes out the eggs and larvae from all those millions of breeding pools tucked between bromeliad leaves or inside heliconia flowers or half coconut or cacao shells discarded by squirrels and monkeys, coatis and agoutis on the forest floor. Five or six dry days are long enough for the adults to develop and then we suffer through another 5 or 6 days before they start dying off. I’m peppered with bites and right now dotted with my own blood and various body parts where I’ve slapped them into oblivion. I can barely see the dogs through the clouds of whining blood hungry little nasties. And yet I know they have to live too so I continue to slap the ones I can reach and allow the rest to be. I’m not so bothered by the bites. I’m less bothered by the bites than the smell of insect deterrents. I got a couple of hours weeding in this morning and I’d like to rake, but the leaves are too wet and the grass too long and I shan’t put myself through damp hours of frustration .
Oh dang. House cleaner ants have just arrived. An invasion up over the deck. Dozens at the moment, soon to be hundreds, probably thousands. I shall have to evacuate. I do appreciate house cleaners, they do just as they say – flush every insect, lizard and scorpion from the house, eating those they can and chasing the rest. Hmm. I wonder what to do. The kitchen is full of intoxicating smells, a pumpkin pie (last of the flour) is in the oven and I harvested 3 pineapples this morning and they are in the dehydrator. The house smells of pineapple and pumpkin and pastry. I wonder if the ants will get into the dehydrator? I could stand it on a stool and put the legs of the stool in bowls of water. They could come along the power cord. Let’s hope they are just carnivorous. Time to go.
I arrived back just as they were leaving. They left in a line, carrying creamy somethings. Some were held aloft by three ants all working incredibly well together fairly trotting along, 18 legs between them and not one tangle or scuffle. The big soldiers carried their prizes below them. At first I thought that somehow they had gotten into my rice and was preparing myself to wrest each grain back from them – it’s my last kilo and you can’t buy brown rice for love or money right now. But, no, these were definitely whiter and lumpier than rice. I followed the trail backwards and discovered a wasps nest in the roof I hadn’t noticed before. Oops. The wasps were buzzing around but weren’t doing anything, I wouldn’t really like to see an ant / wasp battle. I saw ants kill a scorpion once and it wasn’t pleasant: the stuff Hitchcock grew fat on. I guess the wasps will just start over again.

home

Ah, so nice to be home. Mondays and Tuesdays are my longest days, I don’t get home til after 5, which leaves a scant 40 minutes or so before the sun sets. Just about time enough to check the garden, water where necessary, move seedlings, flick grasshoppers off things and wonder if I should be killing them instead.
Now it’s dark, the dogs are eating coconut from the shell (they come running when they hear the tell tale sound of coconut shell on concrete) and I’m waiting for the kettle to boil and thinking if I can wait to open the pineapple. I think I can. I want to dry it and will have more time tomorrow. It rained last night – thank goodness. After all that rain we had last week we’ve been dry for 3 days – it was a very welcome change until I discovered that the pipe that feeds the sink and shower had somehow come loose and emptied two water tanks. Bucket baths from the overflow tanks for three days. The tanks aren’t yet full but there was enough for a quick shower this morning. A hot shower is a wonderful thing and something to be appreciated. In Guanacaste I lived without for 9 months and here it can be off and on. The feel of hot soapy water on tired, sweaty skin cannot be underestimated. In trying to live a more conscious life I think showering and eating are the times when I might manage to be fully present in the moment – for a moment. It’s a good exercise for me as it’s so easy to get lost on some track of thought and time to slip by unawares.

what about the garden?

It’s been raining the last week or so, I haven’t had a chance to work, but yesterday was nice. I cleaned out the last of the pumpkins and mulched the patch with a thick layer of leaves, then compost then more leaves. I want to put peppers in there but my peppers are an inch tall at the moment so the bed will have a chance to rest a little. I’ll add more leaves and nitrogen until the peppers can be planted out. I have carambola coming! This is the first time the tree has fruited so I’m very happy. I was sure the flowers had come to nothing and was looking at the yam vine that is snaking through the tree wondering when that will flower and suddenly my eyes adjusted and I saw a cluster of young fruit. My jaw actually dropped, it would have been funny to see. The carambola or star fruit in other parts of the world are rather watery, very sour yellow 5 sided fruits that I don’t enjoy very much as is. But they make a great jam. Very happy to see them. Across the path from the carambola is the soursop and she has a few fruit and several flowers, happy to see that too. More jam. Hmm, if only I had bread . . . . My tomatoes look great and are setting several nice clusters of slightly larger than normal cherry style tomatoes. The plants have tipped over so that the bottom 8 inches or so of stalks are horizontal and they are sending out roots, the rest of the plant is upright. I’m not thinking of adding supports unless the fruits end up against the soil. I have more baby tomatoes which will soon be ready to plant out.
The chayote is working steadily up its trellis. I built a larger trellis behind for several other chayote I picked up. The first trellis has the big dark green variety, the second has small green and white varieties. I’m sure they’ll cross pollinate.
I have about 6 pineapple which I propped up with bamboo yesterday, the stalks aren’t strong enough to support the fruit which seems odd, but the plants look healthy enough. There are two more in the ornamental garden which I’ll pick tomorrow. The red bananas I cut last Sunday are still hard, it’ll be another week before they’re ready, though I might make a curry with a few of them.

keep it local

I’ve been reading the Via Campesina website, which thankfully can be found in English. It’s good, what else to say, it’s an international peasant movement campaigning for healthy and positive land reform and a return to food sovereignty and sustainable practices.
I’m almost out of flour and I won’t buy any this month to see how it goes (see earlier blog: Food Choices) I made cornbread and while it’s not as tasty as the cinnamon and raisin bread, it’s fine. I just have to work on a recipe I like. As for the lentils I’m switching to white beans (I found a Costa Rican supply) and liquidize them for a more soupy style dogs dinner. We’ll see. It’s more work and requires more gas and electricity – it’s all a balance isn’t it? The gas I’m sure isn’t local, I have no idea where the closest source is, I don’t even know what propane is actually, need to research that. But I’m not going to give up propane. All electricity in Costa Rica is generated by hydroelectric plants. I don’t know, one could go on and on. Let’s just start with grains and legumes.

small animal notes

This morning I awoke to find a Leaf Nosed Bat hanging from my mosquito net. He was beautifully enfolded inside his wings, wrapped around him in true Dracula style, hanging from two toenails. The flap on his nose was almost as big as his ears and he was such a dark brown to be almost black. He was about 3 inches long. I thought to move him and when I began to lift the net to let him out he watched me with the shiniest beadiest black eye. I’ll wait to dusk when he’ll be happier. How he got inside the net I don’t know.
There are many baby lizards around at the moment. I was finding perfectly white round single eggs all over: under the bed, in the shower, behind the dishes on the shelf, everywhere solitary white eggs. Now there are little lizards exactly like the adults but ½ the length of my finger, including tail. They are a little dopey and easily caught in would be dangerous situations; getting swept up with the dust or crawling into rain jackets and appearing again on a sleeve on the ride home. I wonder what the survival rate is? Enough, there are a lot of lizards.
Something is eating my soap. It’s a very nice seaweed soap and I don’t want it eaten. I even put it away in a soapbox and some cheeky rodent, I presume from the tooth marks, got into it and ate a lot last night. It must have some good fat in it. I remember making soap with a seventh grade class and while it was curing some mice got into it and ate a good ¼ of it. We had used coconut and olive oil. Well, someone has blue sudsy poop out there in the jungle.

5am

It’s 5am on Sunday morning. In the big fig there are a flock of parrots, maybe 20 in all, making such an incredible racket. They are Red Lored parrots, mostly a bright emerald green with red foreheads and blue and red wing trim. They live in pairs within a greater flock and spend all of their time 30 to 40 feet up in the trees. They are comical and agile birds for the stocky, compact frames and the pairs seem to argue and bicker much of the time. Such a different picture from a single parrot in a cage. I didn’t realize they were canopy dwellers, I wonder how it feels to be a canopy species kept so close to the ground in captivity? Perhaps for captive bred birds there is no recollection of their natural state.
In the other big fig, further down are a pair of Slaty Tailed Trogons, cousins to the famous Resplendent Quetzal. The slaty tailed have orange beaks, dark emerald heads and chests and back fading into gray and a bright red belly (females are dark slate grey and read). They are inspecting a large termite nest. Trogons often nest in active termite mounds, the mounds providing excellent shelter and the termites providing a steady, handy supply of food.
Below them, perched precariously on the tips of banana leaves are a family of Tropical Kingbirds. It’s a new family, the young recently emerged from the nest and their parents are still feeding them. The Kingbirds are in the huge flycatcher family, and are among dozens of yellow breasted birds in this area. The kingbirds are quite small, about 6 inches and very vocal. They build beautiful covered nests, a mess of twigs and leaves slightly bigger than an american football with a igloo style entrance and a covered porch. If you walk within 8 feet of the nest the parents will call you repeatedly from close by on another tree trying to lure you away. They stay very close to their nests.
On the lawn are a pair of Variable Seedeaters. These are among my favourite birds in the garden. Very small, maybe 4 inches and the very sharp bright birds. The male is all black except for a tiny dot on his wing and the female is a dark brown. They flit to and fro singing very sweetly a series of random notes. They eat seeds and insects, and spend most of their time close to the ground. Their nest is a very simple, very thin walled cup – you can see light from one side of the nest to the other, and they build about 8 feet up in the bushes and trees.
Before me on the table is a vase of flowers, heliconias, seemingly hanging motionless in the air is a Long Billed Hermit feeding from them. He is about 4 foot from me. Hermits don’t mind distractions. They are so exquisitely balanced from their long arching saber like beak to their long straight drop down tail. The plainest of hummingbirds the hermits have a different sort of charm, intelligent, curious and actually I think rather friendly given their name.
Across the way I can hear the Montezuma Oropendolas. This is another favourite. They are big birds, 20 and 16 inches tall with naked blue and pink facial patches and a lemony yellow tail. The tail is about all I ever see of them as they stay in the thick of the canopy in this garden. But one knows they are there by their vocalizations – an incredible series of whoops, yips, brrips and an amazing noise like branches falling made by the males. The local flock is about 15 birds, I think, it’s difficult to count.
The parrots have gone, now I can hear other bird noise beyond the river but I don’t know who’s calling. I have a bird book, so far in the garden I have made checks beside 57 different species of birds. The boys who are avid birders have many more.

saturday soundtrack

I went into town this morning. It was a beautiful morning, sunny yet cool and my bike is finally good to cover the 18km to town and back. I also have the gift of music (some dear friends sent me an ipod!), and that makes so many things better. It was a quick ride into town, this is low season so the road was quiet. I passed by beautiful golden beaches and super blue ocean. The two brand new 5 star hotels – the first ‘luxury’ hotels on the coast not counting the floating ones that put into Limon – are slowly and unfortunately coming together. There are already enough SUVs in this part of the world, and while I know that change must come there are levels of change are there not? Strangely they decided to build these luxury places in Cocles (named after the cutlass sword and home to at least one shipwrecked pirate vessel). Cocles has two parts – the main surf beach and another lower key local part with the local public school, market and soccer field. This is where the hotels have gone up next door to each other in very small lots. They look very crowded, and are across the road from one of the biggest rubbish dumps this side of Puerto. I wonder how they will market the hotels, I think they will attract rich San Josians: I think 5 star hotel goers from the States would be sorely disappointed in the locality, and size of the pool. Who knows? I don’t think I’ve ever been in a 5 star hotel, what do I know.
I got into town as Los Fabulosos Cadilacs were playing – a perfect soundtrack to Puerto: latino reggae calypso regaton fusion. Real rondon. Town was quiet and clean this morning. It really is pretty, the Caribbean lapping right against town, kids of every colour boogie boarding, the odd wandering pig, the dreadlocked streetmen, the bewildered peeling tourists, the highly clothed indigenous and the barely clothed ticas. It was Saturday so farmers market was happening but it was after 9 and they were already packing up.
I bumped into a welsh friend in the internet place. She left the UK 2 years ago to travel Latin America. She came here last June and stayed, she doesn’t have plans to return home. We talked about family, lifechoices, life here. It is always nice to connect with her, her perspective has a ring of familiarity and sounds clear and stable.
I ended up having lunch in café rico. Café rico is one of those places from a novel. It’s an old ramshackle structure with cane walls almost overgrown with mango, almond and heliconias. There are books to be exchanged – the typical mix of counter culture, sustainability pamphlets, tourist guides. There are 3 enormous dogs lying around and there is a pall of hash smoke one has to fight through to get to the hole in the wall counter. Today very loud Led Zep was competing with some heavy salsa from the neighbours. Rick himself was there, a Robert Plant lookalike with a mountain of graying blond curls, surf shorts and camo vest. He was stoned and talking loudly on the phone to some counter culture friend, “hey man, to hell with the system . . . do it, just do it man, the world’s heating up, there’s no time left . . .”. At café rico one can order pot from the menu. I had a veggie burger and some really tasty fries.
It’s a small community and on my way home I waved to familiar faces: French, Californian, indigenous, tico, Jamaican, Nicaraguan. I passed a stunning group of big black women, maybe 3 generations walking along the road. Big black women talk while they walk and they talk in a group, meaning they don’t get out the way for no man, nope, not even a bus. I came round a corner and there they were, maybe 8 of them spread 2/3rds of the way across the road, kids of all ages dangling from them or following along all looking up. I saw the backs, big black shiny broad beautiful backs with dark dark hair tied up above in an incredible concoction of bright rainbow colours. They were wearing sarongs and the material clung tight to their shapes. So beautiful to see these women, so strong in themselves and in each other, such a reflection of humanity or what humanity could be, their ties to one another so easy and tight. I see their strength in their backs, the way they hold their heads, their gazes, the smiles of the younger women and the steady looks of the elder. To come round that grey rubble road and see such colour amidst the jungle green makes me catch my breath. I passed them and looked back and smiled, one of the kids waved, I know him.
Saturday soundtrack:
Elvis Crespo, ‘Pintame’
Kumbia Kings, ‘Boom Boom’
Los Fabulosos Cadilacs, ‘Calaveras y Diablitos’
Matisyahu, ‘Sea to sea’
Bob Marley, ‘Sun is Shining’
Brooklyn Funk Essentials, ‘Istanbul Twilight’
Led Zepplin, ‘Babe I’m gonna leave you’
Tupac Shakur featuring Talib Kwell, ‘Fallen Star’
Thomas Mapfumo, ‘Hansvadzi’
Ricardo Lemvo y Makina Loco, ‘La Milonga de Ricardo en Ch-cha-cha’

grasshoppers are go

mama

canopy lizard

early morning male pumpkin फ्लोवेर with black bees

Lady jane

news

I watched the bbc world news today on television. I saw the hourly news programme. This is the first time in almost 2 years I’ve seen news on tv. I was surprised and somewhat confused by the experience. The presenters all seemed to be copying that nonchalant, nasal quirky Paxman style, (is he still on tv?), with queer head tilts, stylized hand movements and very wide mouths (for lip readers?). The inflections were as bizarre as ever with odd accents and emphasis. I know this last is deliberate to keep listeners alert, but god it sounds odd when one doesn’t hear it anywhere else. I forgot the reporters always tell you who they are. This is strange, it somehow makes the news personal, yet they are the messenger not the message, does it really matter who they are – the butcher doesn’t introduce himself before he sells you meat.
The format was strange: each report was the same length, no matter what it was about and each was too short to give any real information – it was just a string of glorified headlines – frustrating in their pace, like a laundry list of catastrophes, holidays, politics, as if it was just all fodder for who? Just a soup of pictures and words which didn’t stay on the screen long enough to make any real connection with. It disturbs me that two hours later I can’t remember what I saw, but have the general feeling it was all bad and the world is not a safe place. The earthquake in China, tornados in the US, aide not getting through to Burma, problems with the Afghanistan/Pakistan border, the successful landing in Mars (this was in a way the most disturbing as the presenter introduced the piece by saying “there is life on Mars: well the probe has landed” – did he really call the machine alive?), anti-Islamic feeling in Australia, Memorial Day in the US – each report was about 2 minutes long. I guess it’s not so much confusion as overwhelm. Perhaps it’s because I don’t see news, but I wonder if daily viewing still overwhelms but deadens or desensitizes also just leaving some washed out feeling of what, hopelessness, fear, anger? I can’t think of a single positive emotion brought about by what I saw today. The mars thing, but hell that’s a different planet, the message in the news as a whole was our planet sucks but look here’s another. Yeah my projection. Totally. This is just my observation. I’m not asking for happy clappy news, or less news. I guess I was missing the education part, the whys – why is their anti-Isalmic feeling, why are there racial tensions along the Pakistani border, what’s happening with the weather and what is being done, what part can I play in this, where is my participation? Maybe it’s the passivity with which one receives the news that could be changed to make it a catalyst for change or action, instead of just silage.

Oz
There was one quote I can’t shake. It was a woman in the anti-Islamic piece. A small town outside Sydney was protesting against a proposed school for Muslims. (How did this make it to the world news, who decides what to include? Surely there must be all sorts of protests against all sorts of things, organizations and people in the world, why does this warrant coverage?). I was struck in the footage by how white everyone was, not a single shade of colour. The people were angry and coarse. One woman was saying, “keep Oz for the Aussies”.
What did she mean by that? Define Aussie. Couldn’t be she was meaning the Aborigines. Surely anyone born in Australia is an Aussie? The reporter mentioned there were 150 Muslim families in the community, none were interviewed. Obviously in a 2 minute report there’s only time for one viewpoint.
Oddly enough this piece came directly after the piece on Taliban strongholds in Pakistan. I wonder if that’s significant?

food choices

As a European I grew up on grain: oats, barley and wheat. The oats were traditional in Scotland, not only in porridge but also in the form of oatcakes and sweet flapjacks. Barley padded out soups and stews. Oats and barley grew near my home and as a child I presumed that was where my food came from. It might have been true. Wheat grew in England and I presumed that the bread my grandfather made was from English wheat (even though he was a staunch nationalist). The picture on the bag of flour looked like an Englishman. When did the UK lose its ability to feed its people, did it, or was it just cheaper to import the staple grains from elsewhere?
For a while I lived on the edge of a housing development in Oxfordshire. The fields across the driveway were wheat, and in that flat landscape the fields went to the horizon. It was something to watch summer thunderstorms move the grain in golden waves. Those fields are under houses now. What came first – the need for more houses or the farmer being unable to compete with cheaper wheat from overseas?
In his book, ‘The Omnivores Dilemma’, Michael Pollan investigates the US corn industry, a fascinating tale of farm subsidies and agribusiness profits and politics. Now the information may become quickly outdated with the rise in corn raised for fuel. Food First has very interesting reading on the agrifuels subject. (Food First should really be compulsory reading for all high school classes.)
The agrifuels phenomena and natural phenomena – droughts, earthquakes, flooding – have been blamed for the current world grain crisis. There is of course more to it. There has to be an effort to change the way we live: we must learn to live in a way that is sustainable environmentally, socially, economically. The following is from the latest, May 16th release from Food First, please read the whole article on their web site:

‘The skyrocketing cost of food has resurrected the specter of the "food riot."
The World Bank reports that global food prices rose 83% over the last three years and the FAO cites a 45% increase in their world food price index during just the past nine months.1 The Economist’s comparable index stands at its highest point since it was originally formulated in 1845.2 As of March 2008, average world wheat prices were 130% above their level a year earlier, soy prices were 87% higher, rice had climbed 74%, and maize was up 31%.3’

I’ve been looking for ways I can change my lifestyle. I don’t have a car, or a telephone, or hot water. I do have a fridge and a computer and music. In the food I buy I try to keep it local – at least to Central America, but it is difficult with grains and legumes. Rice and corn grow here, black and kidney beans too. All good. It’s the lentils (Canada), chickpeas (California), white beans (southern US), and wheat (China?) that I enjoy so much and make life a lot easier that come from far away and are therefore reliant on international trade agreements, world economy and the petrochemical industry for transportation and distribution. How do I cut back? What makes it more difficult is the dogs. They don’t eat dogfood (allergic, probably to the wheat or the chemicals sprayed on the wheat to keep it rat and insect free while on container ships as it moves across the world). They like lentils and can digest them just fine, but beans, not really. And for me bread is easy and familiar, it’s so much easier to take a sandwich to school than to make anything else. I could make cornbread. Locally and in indigenous cultures around the tropics flour was made from cassava, malanga, pejebaye and platanos – all of which I have growing in the garden. I could do that. But it’s too time consuming and I couldn’t keep up with my own demand. I already have one full time job and a half time garden.
Maybe I just live with it, consciously understanding that this is a choice and that there are consequences. Or perhaps I try to do without. Perhaps I try for a trial period to see if I can do without my goods from far away. I think I will. Maybe in June, I’ll be finished with my current stash by then. Today is May 25th, that gives me 6 days. Good. That feels good.
Footnote to that:
Yesterday my beanburger was topped with a slice of raw onion. I didn’t recognize the taste and actually had to look to see what was so good. I really am only eating veg and fruit I grow in the garden. I don’t eat out much either.