Flavourful Saskatoon, August 31, 2020

Local News 
The Western Development Museum’s Boomtown Café is now selling frozen pies, cookie dough, and cinnamon buns for you to enjoy at home. Phone or email to pre-order.

“When Amy Jo Ehman looks at family, history, politics and current events, she sees stories that can be told through food.”

On the Farm
Millet, buckwheat, wheat – giving these precious grains a better future.

In the Kitchen 
“To chop garlic and ginger is to declare solidarity with ten thousand generations of cooks and shamans and doctors, with the fullness of human history, with the essence of cooking both for sustenance and health. Which is why, I suppose, a mother's kitchen smells so good.”

The history of mason jars and canning – from John Landis Mason’s patent for screw-top lids in 1858 until the present: “You see these moments in American history; whether it's World War II or the counterculture or the pandemic, canning always comes back.”

5 edible plants to pick and eat: ox-eye daisy, balsam fir, lamb’s quarters, wild bergamot, and cattail.

Waste Not Wasted
A Nova Scotia company is “taking fruits and veggies that can't be sold in grocery stores and transforming them into powders that can last for years. The dehydrated produce is then turned into plant-based protein powders . . . or sold to other companies to be used in everything from pet food to healthy snacks.”

A Minnesota grain co-op is turning spent grain from making beer into bread by drying it and then grinding it into flour.

And, if you’ve got excess vegetables in your garden, you can try using them to dye clothes. Here are step-by-step instructions.

Food for Thought 
“Gardens represent ‘an opportunity to express personal culture and history.” Black Rootz, is the UK’s first multigenerational Black-led growing project. “There, the bringing together of young people with an older, more experienced generation within the garden allows youth engagement with nature whilst ensuring that techniques for growing produce new to British shores, but central to many African and West Indian cuisines, are passed on.”

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Flavourful Saskatoon is a weekly Monday feature. I also post articles about food that is good, clean and fair; travel; and books. You may also enjoy EcoFriendly Sask profiling Saskatchewan nature/environmental initiatives and events.

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