Here's another excellent report from Grain, about the agricultural 'aid' to Afghanistan. In Stuffed and Starved I wrote about how, after the Korean War, the US sent large quantities of wheat to Korea. Since wheat had never been part of the Korean diet, the US had to invest in 'education', so that a taste for everything from pasta to bread might be planted in the barren Korean palate. And successfully too. Consumption today is four times higher, per person, than it was in 1961. And much of that wheat is now purchased from the US.

Can we expect something to happen in Afghanistan? To borrow a campaign slogan: Yes we can. [via DM].

Here's why:

Soya has never been grown in Afghanistan and it doesn’t form part of the country’s culinary tradition, but a new programme, supposedly devised to combat malnutrition, plans to change all that. USAID has funded Nutrition and Education International (NEI), set up by Nestlé, to teach Afghans to sow and eat soya beans. ... read more »

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Posted on 10 March, 2009 - 14:53

With the release earlier this week of the CIA's Family Jewels, their own history of infamy , it seems only right to write a little about the CIA. No not the CIA that was involved, with the United Fruit Company, in setting off the civil war in Guatamala (Codename: PBSUCCESS), which killed over 200,000 people.

There's another CIA, one that influences what we eat everyday, that shapes our tastes and palates. They're the Culinary Institute of America. Beginning in 1946 as a cooking school for returning war veterans, the CIA now has the largest concentration of American Culinary Association master chefs in the country. They’re the food service industry’s think tank. ... read more »

Raj's blog | 3 comments

Posted on 29 June, 2007 - 19:43

Photo Credit
Edmittance:+:Joe Dunckley

If one cares about food, and cares about eating well, and cares about making responsible, thoughtful choices, what is one to do about meat?

To start with, there are thorny ethical issues. The author of the Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy series, Douglas Adams, puts his finger on the problem here. It's worth clicking the link to read the entire quote, not least because it's hilarious. The relevant part is summed up by a cow who, in the future, explains how the ethical objections to eating meat were ultimately overcome:

it was eventually decided to cut through the whole tangled problem and breed an animal that actually wanted to be eaten and was capable of saying so clearly and distinctly. And here I am. ... read more »

Raj's blog | 5 comments

Posted on 2 March, 2007 - 03:20

Last week, KFC asked the Pope to bless its new Fish Snacker(tm) sandwich. It's Lent, you see. Many Catholics have begun to fast for forty days. It's forty days without meat. It's forty days with more fish. And it's forty days of profit opportunity for the food company with the right connections. ... read more »

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Posted on 24 February, 2007 - 09:50

Over at Cook Here and Now Marco has posted a beautiful manifesto for the enjoyment of food. He makes, quite correctly, a connection between food and sex. Despite the fact that its residents eat so much of it, the US is still fairly priggish about enjoying food. Pleasure in eating is still a sin. Licking your plate clean is venal. If we're to believe the adverts, food is more a vehicle for nutrition than anything else. Marco celebrates the fact that food is inescapably sensuous. Read his vision here. ... read more »

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Posted on 24 February, 2007 - 09:34

Marco Flavio Marinucci has started a fantastic local cooking group, Cook Here and Now, which meets every couple of months in the San Francisco Bay Area to eat seasonal (and always delicious) food. More at
http://www.cookhereandnow.com/

2 comments

Posted on 28 November, 2006 - 22:11