Chelsea Green Blog
Food & Drink
Ancient Customs: Drinking to Good Health and More
It’s a little-known fact, but we here at Chelsea Green Publishing love a good piece of trivia. (Did you know beavers have a second set of lips behind their teeth?) When we found out that the saying “to the last drop” comes from ancient Danish drinking customs, you know we were thrilled. Who doesn’t love…
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Cooking with Mesquite: Ancient Nourishment
Mesquite has been a staple in desert dwellers’ diet for far longer than maize or even livestock. With its nutritional value (it’s filled with both complex carbs and protein!) and endless possibilities for preparation, it’s no wonder it was once an integral source of sustenance for such a large region. If you happen to get…
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Foraging 101: Where to find your bounty
We’ve given you descriptions. We’ve given you recipes. We’ve given you (hopefully) inspiration to explore. And now we’re giving you the information you need to begin foraging on your own: where to do it and how to be safe. So go forth, young foragers, and start gathering your bounty. The following excerpt is from Forage,…
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The Life of Patience Gray: Gathering Honey from a Weed
Iconoclastic food writer, forager, and force of nature Patience Gray always found the good in the simple. In Fasting and Feasting, Gray’s biographer Adam Federman discovers that her life was never simple. “Struck by Patience Gray’s mind, her vision and her prose, Federman went in search of her past. . . . He’s done the…
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Recipe: Summer Herb Flower Vinegar
Olivia’s mom, Lola, is famous for her potato salad that seems so simple, but has a certain je ne sais quoi—the secret ingredient: chive-flower-infused vinegar. She recalls, “As a child I was enchanted by the apothecary bottles lined up on our kitchen shelves, stuffed with purple pompoms—I just knew there was magic happening inside.” By…
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To Hop or Not to Hop?
For you IPA-loving readers, you may be asking yourself if there is any legitimacy to our query: The answer, of course, is TO HOP. But what if we told you there is another way? It’s okay, you can keep drinking your IPA while you read this but by the end, you may be rethinking everything…
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The Magic of Beer: Science Behind The Miracle Brew
Think back to science class… remember those lessons on photosynthesis? We sure don’t, which is unfortunate as we now know that it is crucial to the beer making process. Perhaps if we realized that simple biochemistry could turn barley into brews, we would have paid better attention. The following excerpt is from Miracle Brew by Pete Brown.…
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An Amaranth Love Affair
Our love affair with amaranth began long before the pseudo-grain became a trendy staple for gluten-free folk. The luscious leaves of this annual plant are not only packed with a plethora of health benefits – high levels of protein and calcium, aids in digestion and weight loss, and helps improve vision, to name a few!…
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Agroforestry Versus Permaculture: Which Approach to Use for a Community Food Forest
Ok, so we’ve gone over some basics of community food forests: Now it’s time to figure out how to plan one. There are two schools of thought on the best approach to building a community food forest: agroforestry or permaculture. The former offers a science-based approach while the latter incorporates elements of social design. Both…
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Recipe: Salmon Cakes with Lemon Pesto
This salmon cake recipe makes for a simple and flavorful dinner. Delicious, golden-brown patties made with salmon are a tasty alternative to crab cakes. Need a side dish? Check out our recipes for Summer Vegetable Tian and Ginger Carrots. The following excerpt is from The Heal Your Gut Cookbook by Hilary Boynton and Mary G. Brackett. It has been adapted for the…
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Our Favorite Summer Reads
Wondering what to read this summer? Don’t worry, we have you covered! Grab your towel and claim the best pool chair or relax at your homestead with one of these perfect summer reads. Whether its nature reads, to healing your gut, everything wild, or inspirational books you’ll have your nose in a book all summer long…
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Toxic Food, Sick Kids, and the Limits of Medicine: The Perfect Storm
Why is it that approximately 40% of children now have a food allergy? Is the industrial & toxic food system to blame or modern medical practices? Perhaps a combination of both… Michelle Perro, MD and Vincanne Adams, PhD would certainly say so. The following excerpt is from Michelle Perro and Vincanne Adams’ book, What’s Making Our Children…
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Brewing California Sagebrush Beer: The Foraging Brewer
Hyperlocal brewing, making concoctions only out of the ingredients available in your immediate environment, is a fun way to become more familiar with your surroundings and the possibilities within them. According to wildcrafting author Pascal Baudar, “the number of possible ingredients you can use is mind boggling.” And the end results can be so rewarding! The…
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Extracting Cannabis into Oil or Butter
Keep reading for a tried and true process for making cannabis oils and butters. These can be put in almost any food or drink, though you will want to carefully test your creation out to determine proper dosage. The following is an excerpt from The Revolution Will Not Be Microwaved: Inside America’s Underground Food Movements…
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The wonderful world of lemons
We all need to give lemons some more credit because they are truly one of the most versatile fruits. Think of how many foods and drinks you can incorporate lemons into. If you live somewhere warm and sunny year round, you better get outside and start looking for some lemon trees (we recommend Meyer lemons!).…
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Strong, Spicy, and Pleasant: Wild Green Kimchi
Experiment with what you have, anything from the mustard family will work extremely well.
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Master Your Diabetes: Understanding Carbohydrates
The evidence is clear: We are in the midst of a worldwide diabetes epidemic. In the United States alone, one in three Americans is either diabetic (29 million patients) or prediabetic (87 million patients), costing an annual $242 billion in medical treatments. An integrative approach based on the “eight essentials” of treatment and prevention will…
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Winter Reads: Books to Curl Up with this Season
William Wordsworth was right when he said, “Nature never did betray the heart that loved her.” Nevertheless, the cold, dark days of winter can still get the best of even Nature’s most tenderhearted admirer. What’s one to do? We here at Chelsea Green have concocted the perfect cabin fever remedy with our suggested winter reading…
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3 Steps to Start Your Plants Off Right
How you handle your seeds and your practices around seeding is your first chance to get your plants off to a good start and help them achieve their full potential. Ben and Penny Hewitt, authors of The Nourishing Homestead, have developed a three-step process which starts with inoculating the seeds, then sowing them in high-quality…
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Winter in the Forest Beer: Creating Unique Drinks from Nature’s Ingredients
The art of brewing can explore far beyond the usual ingredients into a vast and luminous galaxy of wild and cultivated fruits, berries, grains, and herbs, which once provided a variety of fermented drinks as broad as the world. Now fermentation fans and home brewers can rediscover these “primitive” drinks and their unique flavors in, the…
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Fermentation Favorites
There is no denying it: the days are short and unless you planned for winter growing your garden is all about the root vegetables. Don’t let the winter get you down. There are plenty of garden goodies perfect for the changing weather. A major part of Chelsea Green’s mission is to inspire you with ideas and practical…
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Sprout Today, Eat Healthy Tomorrow
If you’re ready to start growing a portion of your own food, but you aren’t quite ready for something that requires a big time commitment or a lot of effort, this is a good place to start. Sprouts are easy to cultivate, mature very quickly, can be used in a variety of delicious dishes, and…
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Medlar Cream Cake: so simple yet so good
If you’re looking for a simple cake to serve guests, try this medlar cream cake. What’s a medlar? The fruit of the medlar tree, Mespilus germanica, tastes like lightly spiced apple butter scooped soft right out of the russeted skin. The Occidental Arts and Ecology Center in California has a small but significant collection of…
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Stocks and Broths: The Etymology
Question: When you make soup, do you start with stocks or broths? Answer: It depends. To help clear up any culinary confusion here’s an excerpt from Mastering Stocks and Broths by Rachel Mamane Understanding The Etymology of Stocks and Broths There is much modern-day confusion about the difference between stock and broth. Culinary definitions vary from…
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Why Modern Wheat Is Making Us Sick
Why is modern wheat making us sick? That’s the question posed by author Eli Rogosa in her new book Restoring Heritage Grains. Wheat is the most widely grown crop on our planet, yet industrial breeders have transformed this ancient staff of life into a commodity of yield and profit—witness the increase in gluten intolerance and…
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