listening

Just thought that I would post a few of the food related things that I have been listening to over the last few weeks -

I would recommend listening to the podcasts "Our food, our future" from BBC radio 4. I think that they're only up on the site for 4 weeks, so link here and download now. They're a really interesting overview of the current anxiety around food supplies and climate change. Listen if your feeling brave and strong. The last program is particularly interesting in it's reporting of current research into growing meat in laboratories.

This also caught my attention, from the Science Show on the 16th of August:

Robyn Williams: I must say that having had my poor cat die a few weeks ago there are now telltale signs in the food that you leave out. You can see those gnaw marks, but no other signs. Would that be a black rat, do you think?

Ken Aplin: Almost certainly a black rat, yes. Black rats are the champion, and I think they're actually much more intelligent than the lab rat. It's a species that we know very little about. For example, Pest Animal CRC that's been operating in Australia for a number of years doesn't even have the black rat on its list of target animals, even though it's probably one of our most widespread and damaging pests at the household level.

Robyn Williams: And you say nearly every household in the whole country?

Ken Aplin: I would think so. I think I could find a black rat in just about every house, given a small incentive.

Robyn Williams: What about turning a disadvantage into an advantage, my life's motto in fact. With all those bodies, couldn't you turn it into some sort of industry? Has it been done?

Ken Aplin: It has been done on a huge scale but in limited areas. It depends on people's willingness to handle the animals, and particularly to consume them. In the southern part of Vietnam there's a rat meat industry where rats are harvested out of rice fields on a huge scale; 10,000 tonnes a year of rat meat is collected, taken through to the big cities where it's processed in various ways and then sold in various products, some of which tourists are probably familiar with...I shouldn't be saying this, should I, I'll probably end up...

Robyn Williams: What do you mean? Street food that I might pick up somewhere could contain Rattus rattus?

Ken Aplin: There is one well known street in Ho Chi Minh City that specialises in rats on their menu, so you can go there and buy things that are clearly labelled as rat products. I've eaten rats in many different places. I prefer rat meat to most other meats. It's a fine meat, and they're very clean animals, despite their reputation for being filthy. Having now observed them much more closely than I could ever do before, I appreciate how hygienic and clean they actually are.

Robyn Williams: What do you like about the flavour?

Ken Aplin: It's a distinctive flavour, it's a mild meat, but particularly barbequed and served up with a good Vietnamese beer, it can't be beaten.

Robyn Williams: Very low in cholesterol, I'd imagine.



FLAT PEACHES or donut peaches are my most favoured fruit right now. Never seen them in Melbourne. originally from China in the 1800s. they look so comical but tastes amazing.