Earth Explorations

One of the ways I explore is through food. I am, as I have said earlier, a tentative food explorer . But when I compare myself to David Fairchild, who in the  early 1900's was a legit food explorer, I feel  positively meek. To be fair, David Fairchild literally traveled around the world on behalf of the USDA looking for new foods for America. My food exploration consists of buying and trying unfamiliar ingredients like coconut milk and nutritional yeast seasoning. Tame stuff, to be sure.  We modern day folk would be adrift without Fairchild's work since he helped us become aware of kale, avocado, mangoes plus much more. I mean, those are the key ingredients of a smoothie, if not a full salad. I learned about David Fairchild from this article from National Geographic. Not only does it introduce us to a fascinating character but it gives some pretty good advice on how to be an explorer. I have reprised it here. The words in parentheses are from the National Geograp...

My explorations around food tend to be rather tentative. Still though, over the years I have made changes. I don't eat much meat. I drink tea instead of coffee. And yesterday, I made a chickpea dish with full fat coconut milk and garam masala. It was (I say this in all modesty) quite good. I had never used full fat coconut milk before. It was not what I was expecting. When I opened the can I was completely unprepared for what looked like shortening. And I was really unprepared for the coconut water underneath when I took a knife and slid it around the can's inner circumference to add it to the pot. There may have been a slosh.