Author: juliafine

Cassava: From Toxic Tuber to Food Staple

By Christina Emery, Rachel Hirsch, and Melinda Susanto When eaten raw, cassava is likely to leave a bitter taste in one’s mouth. Worse still, the unprocessed plant, containing high levels of cyanide, is poisonous to humans and can paralyze when eaten. Despite these deterring properties, cassava has long been culturally…

The Power of Peony

By Ashley Buchanan The Secret Ingredient In 1735, a Viennese baroness wrote to the last Medici princess, Anna Maria Luisa de Medici (1669—1743), to thank her for sending a miraculous infant convulsion powder. Anna Maria Luisa’s recipe for infant convulsion powder contained a precipitation of a human skull (of “a…

Cacao: Indigenous Network to Global Commodity

By Rebecca Friedel A Coveted Tree  Theobroma cacao is a coveted tree known as the source of the globally celebrated chocolate, initially known as xocolatl in Nahuatl. The fruits of cacao are a variety of berry known as drupes. Drupes grow from pollinated flowers on the tree’s trunks and lower…
Search OpenEdition Search

You will be redirected to OpenEdition Search