Welcome to Edible Geography

Last week, the New York Post reported that “a charred bottle of beer that survived the explosion of the Hindenburg will be auctioned off this month for an estimated $7,500.”

On this day, one year ago, the European Union ended its ban on ugly vegetables. "EU relents and lets a banana be a banana," proclaimed the New York Times, "EU bends the rules on cucumbers," punned the Guardian, while the Daily Mail relished the opportunity to run...

A fascinating recent article in the New York Times managed to combine three of my favourite plant-related ideas (seed banks, the control of invasive species, and climate change as unpredictable landscape redesign engine) and then add a fourth that was new to me: assisted migration.

IMAGE: Queen Cox, Greensleeves, and Fiesta apples growing on the same tree, available from Blackmoor. I recently discovered the apple "family tree," which combines up to three different varieties by grafting them onto semi-dwarf stock. The mature tree is about three...

Architect David Tajchman’s proposal for a “landscape kitchen 2.0” is mobile, environmentally conscious, and sleek, if a tiny bit similar in form to Zaha Hadid’s 2005 Aqua Table.

Salt, despite its long and distinguished history, not to mention its biochemical importance, is usually seen as a threat. Public health agencies across the developed world urge us to cut down our salt consumption, mounting campaigns warning of hidden salts, and high blood pressure. However, it seems that in architectural form, salt may have medicinal properties.

Back in August, Edible Geography tried to imagine what other shapes meat might take, if it were freed from the deeply ingrained socio-cultural traditions of meat preparation. The ensuing comments expressed a nostalgia for lost meat diagrams, and also directed me to...

"Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants." Or, "Consume a variety of nutrient-dense foods and beverages within and among the basic food groups while choosing foods that limit the intake of saturated and transfats, cholesterol, added sugars, salt, and alcohol." Or,...

The other week, Pia Ednie-Brown, editor of the recently released book Plastic Green: Designing Bio-spatial Futures, sent in a copy of Consumables, a pamphlet by artist Boo Chapple that imagines a world in which mobile phones are edible.