Celiac Disease — an Illness of Civilization?
Celiac disease now afflicts four times as many people as it did fifty years ago, according to an article in …
Monthly Archives: July 2009
Potato Blight
The return of late potato blight:** Home gardeners beware: This year, late blight — a destructive infectious disease that caused …
A Poet’s Take on Organic Food
Fashionable Fallacy #2: Organic Food** The proponents of all things organic Will lapse into a shuddering panic: “One can never …
Salt of the Earth
Salt — so basic, so ordinary, and so bloody.** And one of the earliest trade items, and a “tool” in …
Bioarchaeology and Paleopathology in Culinary History
(I’m dedicating this post to my mother, Barbara A. Purdy, a great archaeologist, whose passion for “old stuff” rubbed off …
In Morocco, Kitchens
Kitchens, a form of material culture, often determine the shape of the cuisine. By the limitations imposed by the tools, …
Idylls of Cuisine #20
[A photograph, and nothing more, for silent contemplation.]
The Cattle are Lowing
Well, the cattle are lowing.** I am just about moved to my temporary abode, 13 acres on a farm that’s …
The Nose Knows
It’s a long, old story. To be somewhat exact, 54-million years old. To make it short, the nose knows. And …
In Morocco, Bread is Life
When the only bread you eat comes pre-sliced out of a plastic bag, it’s almost impossible to understand that “staff …
