A Nice Green Leaf: International Year of the Potato 2

A breaking story just in to the Potato News Desk... Bee Wilson's new book, Swindled: From Poisoned Sweets to Counterfeit Coffee, currently being read on Radio 4, introduces the new science of food DNA profiling. Environmental health officers and their equivalents the world over are turning to brand-new methods of sniffing out dodgy fruit and veg, according to the Authenticity Unit at the British Standards Agency.

"Authentic" food just means that the food is exactly what it says on the label - nothing else. And some of the most inauthentic food we eat turns out to be the humble spud. We will pay a substantial premium for named food varieties these days, whether it be Aberdeen Angus beef or Egremont Russet apples. In a study reported by Wilson, 294 samples of so-called King Edward Potatoes were tested against the known DNA profile of a genuine example of Britain's
favourite spud. 33% were mislabelled, and 17% were not King Edwards at all. Many were actually Ambo, a similar, modern variety of floury potato, which has more disease-resistance and which is therefore easier to grow.

However the two don't actually look all that similar, as a quick consultation of the European Cultivated Potato Database will confirm. Is it a bit depressing that we don't even know what the food we buy is meant to look like?

A Nice Green Leaf: Year of the Potato

By Emma Townshend

Amazing how different the history of the world can look when you spend the day with some French people. Eating hachis parmentier for Epiphany on Sunday (a dish which looks suspiciously like Shepherd's Pie to me) I learned that Antoine Parmentier, not Sir Walter Raleigh, was responsible for giving the potato to cuisine.

But that's not what we were told at school, where we all drew nice
pictures of Sir Walter planting his Irish fields with the new delicacy.
Or for that matter, how they told the story on Blackadder,
that repository of British historical folk knowledge. So where does the
truth lie? Maybe the UN can spend a bit of time in its slightly
bonkers-sounding Year of the Potato getting to the bottom of this cross-channel battle for pomme de terre supremacy.

A Nice Green Leaf: A New Park for New York

More news from New York: Governor's Island, reached by ferry from the Battery Terminal in lower Manhattan, is about to be redeveloped as an open space for New Yorkers and tourists alike. I can't believe there are still unused bits of land anywhere near Manhattan, but there you go - 167 acres, just half a mile off the shores of Wall Street, are going to be given a proper going-over by a team combining several firms of acclaimed landscape architects.

Governor's Island always used to belong to the US coastguard, but in
the 1990s they closed down operations there. Then in 2002 President
George W. Bush announced that the United States of America would sell
Governors Island to the people of New York for a nominal cost, as long
as the island was used for public benefit. Apparently this doesn't
mean casinos, the only use strictly forbidden in the covenant of sale.

There are lots of historic buildings in the northern part of the
island, but for open space fans the southern part of the plan is the
most exciting. A new 40-acre park
may include museums hidden under earthworks and will make the most of
spectacular views of city and harbour. I'm particularly keen on the
idea of a wild salt marsh, returning part of the island to its natural
state, and many miles of bicycle trails. Lovers of rusty machinery and
benign neglect may want to visit this year, though, before work begins.
From June you can pop over and hopefully take advantage of a free bicycle scheme to tour the island.

A Nice Green Leaf: Too Posh to Hoover

It's that time of year when you find yourself at the municipal tip with a queue of other ferociously irritated people all waiting to get rid of their Christmas trees. I cheered myself up by spending my time in the grouchy-tempered line by flicking through all the newspapers in my recycling, which actually did reveal some gems I'd missed.

In particular, Robin Lane Fox's ever hilarious gardening column in the FT continues to represent all that is fine about having one of Britain's top academics writing about small niceties such as how to keep your cyclamen alive.

And bless the old duffer for writing about the "new fashion" in Christmas trees - retentive anti-needle-drop species. Maybe Oxford has a slower innovation take-up rate than Richmond-upon-Thames, but my mum started buying Nordmann firs when I was about fifteen (needless to say
this is really quite a long time ago now). Well anyway, I found out one thing – having decided to eschew novelty and plump for the old-fashioned and painfully needle-dropping spruce, I think we can safely conclude that one job dear Robin clearly doesn't have to do is his own hoovering.

A Nice Green Leaf: The Finest Vines Available to Humanity

The New York Times reported this week that Staten Island Botanic Garden, smaller brother of the prestigious Brooklyn Botanic Garden, has decided to plant an authentic Tuscan vineyard to tempt visitors on to the ferry to their under-visited Gotham neighbourhood. Nearly 40 per cent of Staten Island residents are descended from Italian stock, so the theme seems particularly appropriate: "The vineyard encapsulates what Italians brought to Staten Island: agriculture, wine, culture," says board member Joseph J. LiBassi in the NYT piece. Lucky members of the board have already been on a fact-finding mission to Italy (tough job).

There's just one problem with the SIBG idea: since the phylloxera
epidemic that raged through European vinestocks in the 1860s, plant
imports from Europe to the US are strictly forbidden under tough
American customs rules (despite the fact that they gave it to us
to begin with...). So in a slightly sad undermining of the whole point
of the exercise, Staten Island will have to import the grape plants for
its Tuscan vinery from within the US. Still, I've heard that America is a big Italian country too...

A Nice Green Leaf: Lose Pounds the Lagerfeld Way

By Emma Townshend

Having stuffed yourself silly over Christmas you can now ponder some of Karl Lagerfeld’s best horticulturally-related diet tips. Lagerfeld famously lost six and a half stone a few years ago on a severe regime using the appetite suppressant Hoodia, which is derived from a south African desert plant. Hoodia leaves have been chewed for hundreds of years by African bush hunters, who use the plant to stave off hunger pangs on long hunting expeditions. Now, Hoodia plants are more likely to be guzzled by anorexic New Yorkers in desperate pursuit of size zero. Anyway, it worked for Karl.

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However, there is a downside. The Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew has warned that diet enthusiasts have pushed the species to the edge of extinction in its native Botswana. That's why they are stockpiling seed in the Millenium Seed Bank, a nice place for a feel-good winter visit, and a hike through Wakehurst Place's windy paths at the same time will definite burn off a few calories without you having to despoil further the Southern African bush.

A Nice Green Leaf: RHS - Greener-than-Thou?

The January issue of The Garden, the magazine for RHS members, just plopped on to my doormat, and it's a bumper issue devoted to the future of gardening and to questions of sustainability in particular. It's interesting to see a round-up of how large-scale gardening organisations like the RHS and Kew are tackling these long-term issues; all of them face similar problems. For example, most visitors arrive by car, yet should be encouraged to reduce their carbon footprint; and what can we say about the building of new hothouses, no matter how "green" they are claimed to be? The role of the Eden project in providing a campaigning platform on climate change issues has been huge, but then, presumably, so has their gas bill.

How we think about carbon output, sustainability and climate change
is complicated - and I feel totally confused. I'm thinking about trying
to do a carbon audit on myself in the new year, and wonder if anyone
else has done the same successfully? And where should we start? Is it
by growing our own vegetables, or is turning down the thermostat a
million times more important? That's what I really want to know.