(Photo above: Bogside view of Derry, Northern Ireland)

“Seeds are so crafty. There’s a power there. There’s a magic…”

-Dr. Jane Goodall

I was so disappointed to have missed last week’s tasting lab due to illness, so I was ready and excited to engage with our meal this week. Spencer and Sjoukje made us a delicious meal of sprouted Indonesian long-grain rice, vegetable soup, and a cabbage and avocado salad. While we ate, we watched part of the film Seed: The Untold Story. The film and the food together were fantastic, and I found myself getting more emotional than I ever had before about the importance of seeds.

To be honest, the importance of seeds had never particularly occurred to me before. I understood, as hopefully most people do, that seeds are the foundation of food, agriculture, and on some level, all economies. But the human impact of seed ownership or seed sovereignty had never been clear to me before. This documentary was eye opening and thought provoking, and I couldn’t help but furiously scribble notes and quotations as I watched. For example, I was instantly struck by Will Bonsall’s statement that “genetic diversity is the hedge between us and global famine.” Monocropping of GMO seeds seems to some like the perfect solution to global hunger crises, but it seems clear to many scientists and farmers that this will be the swiftest way to plunge us into a global dustbowl.

I am enthralled by the idea of these “seed vaults” like the one in Spitsbergen, on Norway’s Svalbard archipelago. It is such a fascinating way to study history, and as an amateur historian/foodie myself, it offers a new way to integrate my loves of science, food, and history.

Additionally, the documentary engaged with several of my favorite historical foodies, including Thomas Jefferson. Since my recent visit to Monticello, I have been studying the life of Jefferson, and am currently reading a book, Thomas Jefferson’s Creme Brûlée, as an introduction to his interactions with food throughout his life. This will morph into several weekly projects replicating some of his recipes later in the quarter.

These foods may include Jefferson’s coffee, his daily breakfast, and similar foods of his (semi-)contemporaries, such as Rousseau’s “ideal meal” of “milk, eggs, salad, cheese, brown bread, and ordinary wine,” King Louis XIV’s poulet au basilic, and Madame de Pompadour’s filets de volaille á la Pompadour. Learning that Jefferson had smuggles risotto seeds into the U.S. was unexpected and yet totally in character, given what I’ve read of his personality. According to Lin Manuel-Miranda, Jefferson didn’t just bring risotto seeds, he also brought “the thunder.”

This week we were also invited to taste five steepings of Makaibari Estate Tea’s Darjeeling First Flush black tea. It is always such a joy to hear Kotomi’s analysis of the tea we drink, but also to engage with her and my classmates in what is essentially a version of the tea ceremony performed and adapted for our class.

I love Darjeeling tea, and for me it always brings back visceral memories of the weeks I spent in Derry, Northern Ireland with my high school classmates. We did an exchange there and the teacher who received us always liked to steep a strong cup of Darjeeling first thing in the morning. He would use a handful of teabags to steep in a gigantic metal kettle for five minutes or more in boiling water, which produces a much stronger and much different flavor, but the smell always takes me back there.

Darjeeling tea always feels cozy and relaxing, and it was a pleasure to enjoy it in small amounts with light steeping throughout the cycle of the tea leaves release of flavor from each round of pouring. My favorite was the third steeping, which tasted the least astringent or bitter, yet maintained a strong scent and flavor. It was almost sweet, and brought to mind that feeling when you first awake in the morning by the birds and light and not an alarm, just before you open your eyes, when you are waiting to see if the world will go back to sleep for a few more hours. The taste lingered on my tongue, leaving behind bittersweet memories of those rainy days in Derry, exploring the city and eating far too many Time-Outs before lunch.