Humans all over the
world have a special relationship with food sources that are central to their
way of life. When you think of the
history of Irish people – it was around potatoes, Sioux Indians - around the
buffalo, People of South China- rice, Mexicans -corn, Native Alaskan people –
seals, Hawaiians – taro root, people of many countries including thee middle
east, and America - wheat… Russia -wheat, buckwheat, or potato (depending on
the region) of course we all add other foods when they are available. Some traditional people developed complex
food cultures adapting to a variety of foods – the Inca of Peru used potato,
corn, squash, beans, peppers, and more.
Modern North Americans, with our bulging super markets, have a huge array
of foods – but even us get most of our energy food from wheat, corn, and potatoes. (Notice that one thing
not natural to our diet in processed sugar!)
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| Peruvian women tending their potato patch |
There is a branch of Science that studies the relationship between our human
food crops and the development of societies.
Its called Etnobiology… There are sections in the national
arboretum in Washington DC dedicated to Etnobiology
My favorite Etnobiology garden is in Oaxaca Mexico
that has collected living plant varieties that have been closely
related to the development of the Mayan cultures.
Here are the earliest varieties of squash – before they were modified by
human breeding. the original squash were so bitter that only the seeds were
collected for roasting. Here is the original corn the perennial varieties of
teosinte, which was crossed with varieties of wild corn
to produce modern maize (corn). They
have also collected other indigenous vegetables like a myriad of pepper
varieties, avocadoes, jicama, chocolate, a wealth of beans, nopales (cactus
pads), pineapple, tomatoes, vanilla, chayote…all in their earliest pre human
breeding stages… and their modern forms.
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| My blooming fava bean plants |
Every
fall in my garden, before the fall rains, I go around and poke holes in the dry
soil (no pre –preparation necessary) and randomly stick in Fava Bean seeds
wherever there is an open space. Favas
are the most forgiving of all the vegetables – In N. California they can be
grown during the winter months, being watered only by the rain. They don't mind a little frost, they do best
if they have a little space to spread… no stakes needed.
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| Medieval farmer planing fava beans |
The interesting thing about Favas is their
history as a vegetable. It was widely grown in ancient times – both Europe and
the Middle East –today they are widely growth in central and South America,
Africa, and Asia – but curiously they have never caught on in North America.
They were widely grown 6000 BC years ago.
An important food to the ancient Greeks and Romans In England they are called ‘Broad beans” And to top it off growing favas
in your garden causes Nitrogen fixing bacteria in nodules of the fava roots to
‘fix’ nitrogen from the air into a form that adds to soil nitrogen available to
other plans. To learn more about fava
beans go to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vicia_faba>
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| Harvesting Fava beans |
We
owe a great debt of gratitude to our untold generations of ancestor gardeners
who have started with small barely eatable wild p0lants – recognizing them as a
usable food source and then practicing not natural selection but conscious
selection of plants with desirable qualities – and saving seeds from these for
the next years crop – Natural mutations crop up over time and beneficial traits
can be recognized and added to the food crop gene pool.
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| Varieties of Peruvian corn |
Some plants like corn can be cross pollinated
naturally by wind blown or insect carried pollen … over time humans learned to
transfer pollen from a desirable plant to another plant so the same species
with other desirable traits developing a plant with both desirable traits… It
has been slow over many generations of trials – but we are the benefactors. And it goes on… modern universities have
plant studies departments that continue to develop new products – Like the
tomato research at UC Davis http://vric.ucdavis.edu/veg_info_crop/tomato.htm
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| Peruvian potatoes |
And
the good news is that now I can go into my supermarket and find foods developed
by local people from the world over and enjoy them all!
I
find it very disturbing that Monsanto is taking plant development in another
direction. Developing varieties of seeds that promise high yield – but seed can
not be collected from the crop for next year because of patent protection or
the seed in not viable. The so called
Green revolution of 20 years ago was a false dream for many poor farmers who
found that the seed was expensive and that growing it to get high yields meant
adding expensive fertilizer to the ground – a sad betrayal of poor farmers
world wide. This process, which has
always involved free sharing of information, now involves forming legal patents
on new genetic products preventing others from using the knowledge to continue
developing ever better plant products.
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| Development of modern corn |
Now a
new method genetic modification has emerged – loved and hated by proponents and
opponents. Many vastly misunderstand
it. If a segment of DNA can be removed
from one seed variety that produces longer lasting sweetness in the corn
(rather than normal conversion into starch) is an that improvement. For a detailed examination of pros and cons
visit this site… http://americanradioworks.publicradio.org/features/gmos_india/pro_con.html
My preference would be that some of the
applications are useful and legitimate – some are potentially changing the
natural genome of plants on our planet with unknown consequences… The trick is
to have the wisdom to know which uses to support and which to reject… I don't
favor throwing the baby out with the bath… there is a hungry world out there
that needs all the good nutritious food it can get…
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| Isn't it a shame that supermarkets carry only a few of the many varieties? |
