Kurt Michael Friese

For a special treat this holiday season, try looking into the wide world of mead.

Sometimes called “honey wine” despite the fact that most varieties have no grapes, mead is a fermented beverage made from honey that predates even beer or wine. It is the original ambrosia — not that marshmallow fluff stuff at your Aunt Mabel's potluck — but rather the food of the Olympian gods. Later the Vikings and Celts believed their gods to subsist on the stuff as well.

Though its popularity has declined in the modern world, mead is still made in almost all parts of it, in lands and cultures as disparate as Ethiopia and Poland. The varieties are almost as wide as beer or wine, with some 20 types generally recognized. The names can be confusing, and require a certain amount of study if one wishes to be proficient — what the heck could “metheglin” or “rhodomel” possibly mean, anyway?

via A honey of a mead | press-citizen.com | Iowa City Press Citizen.

Tags: Articles, Table Wine, recipe, wine by Chef Kurt Michael Friese
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Episode 1: Heritage Turkeys

Download: Edible Radio, Episode 1, 11/18/09, Heritage Turkeys.
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Tags: Animal Cruelty, Edible Iowa River Valley, Edible Radio, Foundation for Biodiversity, Tracey Ryder, food, food politics, food security by Chef Kurt Michael Friese
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Gratitude is not only the greatest of virtues, but the parent of all the others. ~Cicero

Celebrations of the harvest have existed for as long as civilization, for indeed it was agriculture that necessitated both. But Thanksgiving is a uniquely American holiday; a celebration of the bounty shared by the native inhabitants of this land with foreign pilgrims. While Judeo-Christian prayers before a meal give thanks to God and Native Americans thank the very animal on which they feast, each are also a recognition of our own place in the world.

Giving gratitude for the bounty we enjoy demonstrates respect not only for nature and God, but for ourselves as well. And so, while gratitude should be acknowledged, felt, and practiced every day, we set aside one particular day each fall to celebrate the harvest and pay special attention to that which makes it possible for us to do everything else we do in this life. To recognize that food transforms us even as it is transformed into us.

via Gratitude | Nourish Network.

Tags: Articles, Nourish Network, Slow Food, conviviality, food, recipe, wild food by Chef Kurt Michael Friese
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By Columbia nutritionist and real food advocate Marion Nestle:

Pushback against food advocates

My latest column in the San Francisco Chronicle deals with an issue I discussed earlier on this blog: the ways in which agricultural and food interests are pushing back against advocates for a healthier and more sustainable food system.

Frank talk about food sometimes quashed

Marion Nestle, Sunday, November 1, 2009

Q: It must take courage to criticize the marketing practices of food companies. Doesn’t it get you into a lot of trouble?

A: Trouble? That depends on how you define it. Some pushback has to be expected as a normal consequence of advocating a food system that promotes better health for all and more sustainable agricultural production.

My latest experience with pushback occurred on World Food Day, Oct. 16. I had been invited by the U.S. Embassy in Rome to give the annual George McGovern lecture at the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization. After my talk, our new ambassador to U.N. agencies in Rome, Ertharin Cousin, thanked me but told the audience that the opinions they had just heard were mine alone and did not represent those of the U.S. government.

What did I say that required a disclaimer?

via Food Politics » Pushback against food advocates.

Tags: Uncategorized by Chef Kurt Michael Friese
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