Friday Faves — notes from the new gastroconomy, No. 70

weekly round-up of our favorite finds from the front lines of food

 

• A new European regulation on laser marking technologies has been adopted by the EU commission and seeks to replace sticky labels on fruit (like above). "Because production of adhesive stickers requires natural resources (wood for paper, energy, water, etc…) as well as chemical substances (glue & ink production), the project proposes a sustainable solution for food labeling. In addition, the process reduces energy consumption and GHG emissions, while guaranteeing full information about origin and production conditions."

• The economy in Europe is forcing Spanish companies to sharpen up and look to exports: "Spain must reinvent itself as an export-oriented, high-value-added economy, says Fernando Casado, director of the Business Council for Competitiveness, a group of big companies." We hope more delicious products are on their way to North America.

• Food production has a long history of labor abuse, which is still going strong in the global food system, according to a report last week from the US State Department on human trafficking. "This year's report looks at things like the fishing industry — and actually raises a question that I think all of us should be asking, which is: How much of my life is impacting modern-day slavery? Do I know where the shrimp is being caught or processed that is on my plate?"

• With Silver Bells and Oyster Shells (and So Their Gardens Grow) "The oyster industry has grown nearly 20 percent yearly in states like Rhode Island, Virginia, and Massachusetts, over the past decade, and owning a restaurant in which to sell the product is becoming a more common business model for oyster farmers."

• The trend that's cropping up all over — seaweed. It's everywhere, from the musing of a seaweed foragers on Scotland's Isle of Bute, to getting fried as chips in San Francisco to seaweed butter in Nashville. 

• And speaking of Nashville, there seems to be great things happening on that food scene every time we look.

• Eat this: local Houston restaurant Underbelly debuts a "Cease and Desist" burger in response to trademark infringement threats from the In-N-Out chain. And now, through the power of snarky humor, they've gotten a ton of press for it.

• More than the smell of fries will be wafting from McDonald's. In a wacky cultural mash-up, McDonald's Singapore is offering a Durian Crunch McFlurry based on a fruit so stinky, it's been banned from being eaten in public in several countries. 

Friday Faves — notes from the new gastroconomy, No. 68

weekly round-up of our favorite finds from the front lines of food

 

• Newcastle Libraries has posted a cache of UK historical images, like the fishing photos above, to Flickr. Pictured above: At left, a studio portrait of a Fisherman from Cullercoats taken c.1890. The man is wearing a waterproof coat souwester and cork life-jacket. At right, an 1897 studio portrait of Maggie Brown a Fishwife from Cullercoats. Maggie Brown is wearing her 'best' clothes which include a printed cotton or silk blouse with matching apron. A silk square is worn to fill the neckline of her blouse.
  

• Drink trends: beet cocktails like the Beet Me in St. Louis with beet-infused gin, honey and tarragon, and growing US enthusiasm for port, especially aged tawnies.

• Some forgotten foods of the UK (from cookies to sheep) are making a come back with help from Slow Food UK's Chefs Alliance. Says Carina Contini, of Centotre in Edinburgh: “The special ingredient is always the story. Understanding where ingredients come from and how they got there allows us to connect with our environment and food chain and we love sharing this knowledge with our customers.” 

• On U.S. farms, women are taking the reins says a new report by the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Economic Research Service. Many are career-changers looking for a different kind of life and a way to make a difference. “We are seeing more beginning farmers coming in and I think the trend is going to continue. Women are [already] outnumbering men in owning smaller farms.”

• The romance version of farming spreads further into pop culture with a boom in farm-lit. "Thanks to the economy, picket fences and scruffy farm hands have replaced stilettos and cute i-bankers in literature aimed at women....And in this era of Brooklyn backyard chickens, farmer's markets-as-social events, Anthropologie aprons and hipsters baking homemade bread, what's more aspirational than running away to a farm?"

• Breaking News from Financial Times summit: rich people still super rich, keep trying to sell them expensive stuff "The good news is that the people who buy the products you make are doing much better than everyone else by a very big margin and nothing in the crisis has changed that,” said Martin Wolf, chief economics commentator on the Financial Times.

• When trademark law goes bad: First Chick-fil-a sued those nice Vermont kale enthusiasts, now the Economic Development Department of the State of New York is suing a New York coffee shop over a  riff on it's I ♥ NY logo. Apparently, local pride is going to cost you.

• We've all been hearing about colony collapse disorder and the crisis of dying bees. In China now it’s gotten so bad they are hand-pollinating blossoms in orchards. A new film called More Than Honey explores the issue (click for trailer).

• Food waste — one of the most persistent issues in our ability to feed the world and husband resources. Worldwide, nearly one quarter of all calories produced are going uneaten (infographic), either from spoilage at production on later. One San Francisco-area teen has taken matters into his own hands and founded the tech platform Waste No Food, which help restaurants make timely donations of their surplus food. Leading area restaurants like Manresa have joined in.

• Detroit's Urban Agriculture Ordinance that passed on April 15 has opened the city for urban aquaponics. Two new facilities are underway for tilapia, catfish and blue gill — although the finer points of regulation still have to be worked out. "The city is in the process of coming up with a process,” for approving fish farms, says Kathryn Underwood of the City Planning Commission. “We don't even have all of the forms quite in place yet for all of things that need to happen. We're riding a bike and building it at the same time.”