Cynthia D. Bertelsen's Gherkins & Tomatoes
A Writer's Musings on Nature and Culture, Since 2008
Jonathan Swift once quipped, "It was a brave man who first ate an oyster." And an even braver one who pried open the shell without special gloves and knives. Actually, it's more likely that our hero (or heroine) used a rock to smash into the mollusk. Oysters kept people alive in the early days of colonial North America,…
Continue reading ➞ Day 2: Oysters – Celebrate American Food History
I’d never experienced it before. Amoebas, yes. Worms, yes. Dengue, yes. Broken bones, yes. Malaria dreams, yes. But not cravings for thick juicy hamburgers or plump buttermilk pancakes swimming in melted butter and golden maple syrup or crispy fried chicken with cream gravy. In spite of all the years of traveling and living among cultures…
Continue reading ➞ Journeys versus Destinations: Homesick for My Food
Meat eating presents modern society with a bit of a dilemma. How to raise and slaughter large numbers of animals under humane conditions, while keeping the price down and within wallet reach of most consumers? That's the major issue, tinged with other, often moralistic, questions. First, right up front, I am not a vegetarian, and…
Continue reading ➞ The Meat of the Matter: A Question of Sacred Reverence
Dr. Joseph Goldberger stands watching the children eating. He's about to prove his hunch that pellagra occurred in the face of nutritional deprivation. He devoted years to discovering what caused the curse of corn, pellagra. Although the fat cats in the South of the time, and we’re talking early 20th-century here, didn’t want to spend…
Continue reading ➞ The Curse of Corn: Poverty and Politics and Pellagra
Looking at the past almost always calls up that old adage: "There's nothing new under the sun."* Take locavorism's wartime antecedents ... As these WWII posters from England's "Dig for Victory!" campaign prove, the idea of local foods is not one whose time has come, but whose time has come again. Aimed at encouraging the…
Continue reading ➞ Dig for Victory! Locavorism in Eons Past
Today, even as I immerse myself in the wonders of African cooking, I need to mention malnutrition and hunger. In the same breath, as it were. Today's a day when many bloggers around the world will post comments and material on the ever-present problem of hunger in our communities, countries, and the world as a…
Continue reading ➞ Hunger and Hope
