Marshmallows

Ready for the next funeral pyre!
 

World Food Prize Winner dies...

Prof. Monty Jones was the first African to be awarded the World Food Prize. He won the award in 2004 for his discovery of the genetic process to create the New Rice for Africa (NERICA). In 2007, Time Magazine named him one of the 100 most influential persons in the world under SCIENTISTS & THINKERS category.

The ability of the African rice to grow under low input conditions makes it an especially useful genetic resource for developing stress-tolerant rice varieties for rainfed ecosystems in Africa. In 1992, a team led by Dr Monty Jones, a senior rice breeder of AfricaRice, decided to work on interspecific hybridization to develop varieties that might combine the high yield potential of Asian rice with the local adaptation of African rice.

 

The African rice varieties show strong adaptability to harsh environments, strong ability to compete with weeds, resist local diseases and pests, and withstand drought, flood, infertile soils, and iron toxicity.

 

Several attempts to exploit the African rice genome through interspecific crossing had  failed due to incompatibility barriers.AfricaRice circumvented the sterility barrier between the two species by using anther culture and embryo rescue techniques, coupled with back-crossings to the Asian rice parent. Several hundred interspecific progenies with promising agronomic performance were generated, increasing the biodiversity of rice.

 

The interspecific lines were evaluated across Africa by farmers through participatory varietal selection (PVS), which is an innovative approach that allows farmers to select their preferred varieties that match their needs and growing conditions, and that generates valuable feedback on farmers’ preference criteria for rice breeders.

 

The most successful lines, based on their performance and popularity among upland rice farmers, were named the NERICA varieties. The first NERICA varieties were released in Côte d’Ivoire in 2000. The development of the upland NERICA earned AfricaRice several international awards including the World Food Prize in 2004 to Monty Jones.

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Cabbage and onions...

Don't bother clicking on the video above. It's just a screenshot. The poster has made this video only available her your YouTube channel.

Another recipe I haven't tried. I don't use much cabbage in cooking, so I found this intriguing. Let me know if you've tried it.

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Egg recipes

I'm not endorsing these recipes. I haven't even tried them. I just found them sort of interesting... in an odd way. If anyone wants to try one or both, tell us about it. Good or not so good.

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Food art

Ida Frosk, aka Ida Skivenes, food artist from Norway.

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Watergate salad and fizzy milk

Instant pistachio pudding, canned pineapple, and marshmallows, topped with walnuts.

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Apple duck

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Spit cake

A spit cake is a European-styled cake made with layers of dough or batter deposited, one at a time, onto a tapered cylindrical rotating spit. The dough is baked by an open fire or a special oven, rotisserie-style. Generally, spit cakes are associated with celebrations such as weddings and Christmas. The spit can be dipped in a thin dough, or the dough can be poured or rolled on the spit.

This cake group may have originated in the classical era, around 400 BC, when similar large cakes were prepared on spits for Dionysiac feasts. In the Deipnosophistae, the Ancient Greek writer Athenaeus (c. 170 – c. 230) describes some of the bread, cakes, and pastries available in classical times. Among the breads mentioned are griddle cakes, honey-and-oil bread, mushroom-shaped loaves covered in poppy seeds, and the military specialty of rolls baked on a spit.

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I can't get past the name. A spit cake sounds about as appetizing as a urinal cake.

Bracken ferns

The bracken fern:  It tastes like asparagus and almonds you can pick it wild on hillsides, open pastures, burned-over areas, in woodlands and other shaded places.

The young immature fronds of bracken ferns are known as fiddleheads and were widely consumed by Native Americans in the U.S. for centuries as well as in other regions of the world.  They are still consumed by millions throughout the world today, are considered more of a delicacy in the U.S.now, but are very popular and commonly in Japan and Korea.

Bracken ferns are thought to have the widest distribution of any fern in the world, are most prolific herbaceous plant in North America, with the exception of Antarctica, are found on every continent and in every environment except for deserts.  They’re also one of the oldest ferns in the world with fossil records going back 55 million years.

Read more at source here.

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Plating review

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Apple Cream Pie

I found this pie recipe posted on postsecret.com. I don't have time to make this pie now, but I would like to bake it soon. If anyone else wants to beat me to it, kindly let me know how it turns out. Is it worth worth the trip to the grocery store for some Granny Smith apples? I'm not sure if I have any nutmeg from this decade either. I may have to buy a little of that as well.

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Smørrebrød

 A variety of Danish open sandwiches piled high with delicacies

Three pieces of smørrebrød. Smoked salmon (topped with hardboiled egg, dill), roasted pork (topped with pickled cucumber, red cabbage salsa, crackers) and roastbeef (topped with pickles, horseradish, sprigs of parsley). All on whole grain rye bread (from sourdough).

The traditional cuisine of Denmark, like that of the other Nordic countries and of Northern Germany, consists mainly of meat, fish and potatoes. Danish dishes are highly seasonal, stemming from the country's agricultural past, its geography, and its climate of long, cold winters.

The open sandwiches on rye bread, known as smørrebrød, which in their basic form are the usual fare for lunch, can be considered a national speciality when prepared and decorated with a variety of fine ingredients. Hot meals traditionally consist of ground meats, such as frikadeller (meat balls of veal and pork) and hakkebøf (minced beef patties), or of more substantial meat and fish dishes such as flæskesteg (roast pork with crackling) and kogt torsk (poached cod) with mustard sauce and trimmings.

I have a reader who visits Frog Blog regularly from Copenhagen, Denmark. Let me hear from you!

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American sandwiches

Peanut butter and jelly

Pilgrim

Pepper and egg (Chicago, Illinois)

Po'boy

Polish boy (Cleveland, Ohio)

Pork roll sandwich (New Jersey)

Pork tenderloin

Rachel

Reuben (Omaha, Nebraska or New York City, New York)

Runza

Sailor

Sandwich loaf

Sealed crustless

Slider

Sloppy Joe

New Jersey sloppy Joe

Spiedie (Binghamton, New York)

St. Paul (St. Louis, Missouri)

Tavern

Tofu

Tuna

Schmitter (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania)

American sub

Wrap

Veggie burger

Hot brown (Louisville, Kentucky)

Hot turkey sandwich

Ice cream sandwich

Italian 

Jibarito (Chicago, Illinois)

Jucy Lucy (Minneapolis, Minnesota)

Lobster roll (Northeastern United States)

Luther burger

Meatball

Melt

Mother-in-law

Pastrami on rye (New York City, New York)

Gerber (St. Louis, Missouri)

Club sandwich

Doughnut sandwich

Cheesesteak (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania)

Dynamite (Woonsocket, Rhode Island)

Baloney salad (Northeastern Pennsylvania)

Denver

BLT

Barbecue

Cuban (Tampa or Key West, Florida)

Horseshoe (Springfield, Illinois)

Cheese dream

Chow mein (Massachusetts)

Dagwood

 Elvis

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                                              Fluffernutter

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Italian beef sandwich

 

Pulled pork (Southern United States)

Monte Crisco

Chili burger

Limburger

Indian taco 

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