Siesta-loving basil and solar-raised salami?! Let me explain …
Find out more about my weird basil and the budding friendship of broccoli and solar panels, plus reading recs and a soup recipe to share.
Dear climate culinarians,
have you ever thought you knew exactly what you were going to end up saying or writing, only to find yourself mulling over a completely different idea? Welcome to my world! As a writer, I descend into rabbit holes for a living. This month, I brought back lots of sunshine.
Food for thought: Who’s throwing shade?
At the probably last balmy outdoor party this fall, a guest complimented my big basil bushes and asked: “Isn’t there too much shade?” That’s what I had thought, too. Basil loves sun! But then I accidentally (read: lazily) left potted basil in that spot where trees block the midday sun. And the plants thrived. Turns out basil loves sun – and a siesta, too! Could this experience be useful?
A basil in the shade - still going strong in October!
The shade question preoccupies people feeding us at scale:
Farmers and agricultural scientists wonder if anything will grow well beneath solar panels.
Because otherwise, we face a choice between food and electricity. We can either eat, or we can watch tv, but we cannot have both. Like my mom used to tell me. I came to realize that’s not true: A friend from school ate in front of the tv all the time. But my mom didn’t want to change. Luckily, that is not true for every farmer. After all, agrivoltaics promise much-needed income.
“The dream of agrivoltaics is to generate your electricity and eat your edamame too.”
That’s how freelance writer Ruth Kamnitzer puts it in her Mongabay article. She shows how farmers and energy companies try to find common ground. Literally! Instead of pitching solar farms against traditional farms, they put up solar panels and grow broccoli in the same field. Or they send sheep there to graze. If all goes well, they make money with both electricity and crops or livestock. They get energy for their processing barn, plus bushels of beans or skeins of wool, perhaps along with lamb salami, which they then can market as sun-raised food or something.
Harvesting food and energy on the same land seem like the perfect solution. But there is a catch.
How much food can be produced under solar panels?
Will it be enough to sustain the farmer,
and enough to feed everyone?
Kamnitzer writes about a study that looked at all previous scientific agrivoltaic studies from around the world. While some experiments look promising, others raise more questions, and they are often hard to compare. It’s unlikely that success in Spain will mean anything for an agrivoltaic project in Minnesota.
So (more) research is key. For now, there are too many things left unexplained. Perhaps that’s the reason why I couldn’t find any book about agrivoltaics that caters to the general public. Which only deepens my believe: Our world needs writers who create fascinating books about climate and food – and accept the challenge to explain complicated truths.
Reading Room: A large vegan quest, a research farm, and tasty biodiversity
I love to share what I’ve been reading - and also what’s in my “books to read next” stack. Which does not need any sun to grow, apparently.
A different look at solar panels and veggies
Are you curious how scientists figure out agrivoltaics? This article in the Iowa Capital Dispatch describes a research farm*. I like that author Brooklyn Draisey, whose beat is higher education, mentions which specific questions the researchers are asking, and which answers the first results indicate.
*If you want to see the research site’s layout, Iowa State University has you covered.
A book for browsing
“Edible: 70 Sustainable Plants That Are Changing How We Eat” by Kevin Hobbs and Artur Cisar-Erlach, illustrated by Katie Kulla. They went out to research food plants like American Pawpaw, Irish Moss, Chinese Toon and African Rice. They came back with a beautiful book that took me on a journey through cultures and cooking instructions. It also made me pay attention to how many different plants I eat.
An unopened book on my shelf
“The Good Eater” by Nina Guilbeault. I must admit the title feels like a moraline shot to me, especially with a book about vegan food. However, I have so much sympathy for writers who went down rabbit holes, only to realize their initial idea has led them to a different book they never thought they were going to write. And Guilbeault writes: “A book I thought would be about veganism turned out to be about the much larger quest of discovering what kind of food system I wanted to build, and how.” Also, I think you noticed that I have a sweet spot for large quests.
Discuss all this … over a bowl of soup
Kale Soup with Chickpeas
Feeds 4 people
Ingredients:
2 Tbsp olive oil
1 onion
1 large or 2 small carrot(s)
1 stick celery
about 4 ounces mushrooms (1/2 box)
2 cloves garlic
1/2 tsp each dried thyme, oregano, salt
1 small bunch lacinato kale
1 generously filled cup cooked chickpeas (pre-cooked from 1/3 to ½ cups dry chickpeas - or 1 can, drained and rinsed)
1 large Russet potatoe
¼ to ½ cup tomatoe sauce, to taste
Black pepper
Make it:
Remove wide parts of kale stems. Cut 4 of the kale leaves into thin-ish ribbons (as wide as your pinky), and chop the rest of the leaves into pieces, about 1-2 inches. Set aside.
Chop onion, slice carrot and celery.
In a large dutch oven or pot, heat olive oil on medium-high until it shimmers, add onion, swish around, cover pot and reduce heat to medium. Cook about 4 min.
Meanwhile, slice mushrooms and garlic cloves.
Add carrot and celery to onions and cook another 3 min.
Make room in the middle and add mushrooms. If necessary, add a little olive oil. Cover and cook 3 min. Stir. Add dried herbs and salt and cook, covered, another 3 min. There should be a little liquid from the mushrooms and veggies.
Add garlic and stir. Cook, uncovered, for a minute. Then add kale in batches, starting with the ribbons, and cook until leaves turn very green and wilt a little. Add more batches until all the kale is in the pot. Then add chickpeas and 3 1/2 cups of water. Turn on high and bring to a boil, covered.
Meanwhile, peel potato and dice into 1 inch pieces. Add to soup once it boils. Stir, bring back to boil, then turn down to medium-low and simmer, covered, for 15 min. Potatoes should be soft, falling apart a little. This will thicken the soup. Add tomato sauce and warm through, about 2 min. If the soup is to thick for your taste, add water. Season with a few grinds of black pepper, additional salt if needed.
I believe a shared meal is the best opportunity to talk about climate solutions. And about food, of course. So I hope you’ll enjoy this soup in good company.
Read, write, eat, repeat!
Petrina
Climate Culinarians is a project by me, Petrina Engelke. I write about climate, food and the U.S., and I help other writers turn their ideas into a book people want to read. In other words: I’m a journalist and a book coach. If you’re are writer, too, check out my other newsletter, How to Write About Climate and Food.