By Madeleine Lyman
Before the arrival of Columbus, the only variety of apple native to the U.S. was the crabapple. Originally spread around the world via animal droppings, apples were first widely cultivated in orchards by the Romans. Today, there are about 7,500 varieties grown throughout the world.
Fireblight is a common bacterial disease that can kill the blossom, shoot, or limb of a tree, or sometimes the entire apple tree. Continue reading
By Brittany Dooling
If you are reading this and you live in Vermont, chances are good you’ve heard the hype about raw milk cheese. Maybe you’ve tried Jasper Hill’s raw Bayley Hazen Blue or some Vermont Shepherd. Maybe you’ve even bought yourself some rennet tablets and a cheesemakin’ kit and tried it yourself. Or maybe you don’t have the slightest idea what I’m talking about, so just in case, I’ll explain myself. Raw milk cheese simply refers to cheese made from unpasteurized milk. Continue reading
By Maria Carabello
One of the most overarching lessons I was presented with in my first semester as a food systems master’s student is that food is a hub for connections. It connects people with pastures, and products with places. It connects us with our health, our society, the economy, and the environment. It connects us with our past, present, and future. The connections are not singular but myriad; complex and deeply woven. I was reminded of all of this while enjoying some time at home with my family over the winter holidays. After our annual Christmas Eve dinner of shrimp scampi over fresh egg pasta (a lighter nod to the traditional Feasts of the Seven Fishes of yore) my Dad pulled out a bottle of wine. It was not just any wine though; this wine had a story to tell. And not incidentally, it was one of connection. Continue reading
By Myles Cox
Over the past decade, the popularity of chili peppers has risen almost as quickly as the Scoville units of the hottest peppers. As we move into a globalized society, people throughout the world are discovering new exotic chili peppers, which hold a plethora of different flavors and levels of heat. Businesses are springing up to meet the various requests for extremely hot and unique peppers. Concurrently, the health benefits of chili peppers have been recognized and people are scrambling to join the next health craze. Continue reading
In August 2013, my family and I left Vermont for a one year sabbatical at the Tropical Agriculture Research and Higher Education Center (CATIE), near the city of Turrialba, Costa Rica. CATIE is one of the oldest graduate schools in Latin America, having started its programs in agriculture and natural resources in the 1940s. It was here that I did my masters in tropical agroforestry in 1995, and thereafter took a job as an agroforestry specialist with the CATIE/GTZ Agroforestry project. It’s great to be back! Continue reading
