It is said you can't really know where you're going until you know where you have been. In less than a hundred years we have gone from a planet of abundant resources to an age of having to conserve and protect what is left. As we celebrate agriculturalists this month, we are made aware of the central role of agriculture in many aspects and sectors of our lives. The workers, producers and stewards are also the current custodians of not just agriculture but also the environment and our biodiversity. Along with the ecosystem and sustainability, all are closely linked and entwined. #BAO at the Negros Museum entrance We are proudly #BAO: the unbowed carabao - beloved by Filipinos as faithful partners in life. The carabao or kalabaw is a water buffalo endemic in Southeast Asia. Aside from helping our farmers plow the fields, this majestic creature is our source of transportation, milk for sweets and meat for meals.
Necessity truly is the mother of invention. Nothing like a sweltering summer in the tropics to bring on visions of cold puffy air. Preferably in the form of ice cream. Long before anyone had a word for ice cream, folks around the world were already trying to make something like it. an ancient icehouse inside a defensive wall, Iran photographed by Gen Sir Percy Molesworth Sykes KCIE, 1900 In China around 200 BCE, mixtures of milk and rice were frozen using ice collected from mountain lakes. By the Tang Dynasty, frozen milk desserts were being served to royalty from ice stored in underground houses built specifically for that purpose. In Persia around 400 BCE, people were eating faloodeh , a frozen dessert made with rose water, lime juice, and delicate noodles, a version of which still exists today. In India, kulfi developed as a slow-frozen milk dessert packed with pistachio, saffron, and cardamom. In the Middle East, people were drinking sharbat , fruit syrups...