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KGI News: November 2007
Contents:
Gardening: -Growing Swiss chard: how and why
Cooking and Culture: -Swiss chard ravioli with quick tomato sauce
News from Abroad: -Seed stash in Norwegian deep freeze
Food systems change: -Getting better (food) mileage -Which kind of turkey is best for the environment? -US Farm Bill Op-ed: Weed it and Reap
Leftovers: -Kitchen gardener profile: Gérard Bernard
(Editor's note: we've included many external links this month due to some technical difficulties with our own website. On that note, we've got some interesting new web work planned and are looking to pull in some volunteers with web and graphic design credentials. See note below right.)
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Dear Kitchen Gardener, Here’s a question for you: when a gardener in Geneva or Zurich grows chard is it called "Swiss Swiss chard", “Our chard”, “Swiss© chard ”, or something completely different? I’ve always wondered about the origins of the name “Swiss chard”. Aside from Brussels sprouts, it’s rare that one region gets top billing for a whole species. What’s interesting is that North Americans seem to be the only ones calling chard Swiss these days. Like a James Bond of the vegetable world, this plant travels under many different identities in other parts of the world including silverbeet (UK and Australia), bietola (Italian), blettes (French) and acelga (Spanish). As it turns out, Swiss chard is about as native to Switzerland as James Bond too. Botanists have traced its origins back by to Sicily. So, why don’t we call it Italian or Sicilian Chard? There are multiple explanations depending on who you ask and how deep you are prepared to dig. I recently read a column by a chef who claimed that chard is referred to as Swiss “because of its extensive cultivation in Switzerland”. Hmmm. I’ve been to Switzerland before, a few times in fact, and cannot recall seeing it at all. Verdant valleys with dairy cows, yes. Snow-capped mountains, yes. Endless fields o’ chard, um, no. Another interesting, though implausible, theory is that chard earned its moniker after a “great flee beetle epidemic” which made it resemble Swiss cheese. If that’s the case, I grow many varieties of Swiss spinach, Swiss radishes and Swiss arugula in my own garden each year. Swiss cabbage is one of my specialties. The explanation that gets the most attention on the internet attributes the Swissness of chard to a Swiss botanist named Koch who is said to have named the plant first. But try finding information on this famed botanist and you’re almost back where you started. Some sources have Koch living in the 19th century whereas others say the 16th. And you thought Austin Powers was a man of mystery! So, several inquiries and sentences later, the confusion surrounding chard’s name continues and maybe that’s not a bad thing. It’s often when we think we really know something, or someone for that matter, that we start losing interest. If you’re lucky to have some chard still growing in your garden (mine got wiped out this past week by two consequentive nights of 20°F temperatures ), give it a fresh look and try preparing it in a new way. Similarly, if you’ve got an alternative theory on its name or some better information on our Mystery Man Koch, send it my way. Inquiring minds want to know. Happy harvests and harvest feasts,
Gardening 2.0: Call for volunteers! KGI is looking to give its website both a technical overhaul and facelift. Our goals are to create a cleaner design and to make the site into a more interactive, collaborative tool for sharing information about gardening, cooking, and sustainable food systems. We're looking for people who have professional design skills (graphic design, logo design, CSS, experience with the Movable Type platform, etc.) they are willing to share pro bono as well as nontechnical folks who would be willing to test out some of the new things we will be introducing. Send us a short note if you're able to help, letting us know what you'd be able to give or do for the KGI cause. Thanks. |
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