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bestruction · 7 months ago

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Flower's language

Summary: How you two stared to secretly date

Warnings: None

@enouche

Following his release from prison, Sasuke finally had the time to focus on the Uchiha district, a place abandoned and forgotten by time. At first, he couldn’t bring himself to face that place alone, so he called you for help. And how could you say "no" to him knowing everything that happened there ? Little by little, you found yourself drawn into the work, getting lost in the process of restoring what was left behind. After all, he had once been your friend— even more than that. Not that it mattered anymore.

Part of you was still hurt after everything that had happened, but another part understood what he went through. For all the good memories you shared, you promised to help him make the house more... livable. After that, you hoped to finally let go of the feelings you refused to admit you still had for him.

By morning, you were ready and made your way to the district, just as you had every weekend for the past few months. The main house—his house—still exuded a haunting stillness, as though frozen in time. The grandeur of the Uchiha clan lingered in its bones, but the absence of warmth and life was palpable. Each creaking floorboard and the faint rustle of wind through the broken windows echoed the loss and tragedy of the clan that had once lived there. It was a place both beautiful and melancholic, a physical embodiment of Sasuke’s memories and grief.

Today, you two had agreed on cleaning the garden and planting a few vegetable seeds that could be useful for him.

It doesn't take long until you find him in the back of the house. You left your backpack on a bench and knelt beside Sasuke, your hands quickly brushing the earth as you worked to clear the area, pulling out invasive plants and cutting away dead branches.

You look around noticing how the once-meticulously groomed garden had succumbed to nature's reclaim. Stepping stones lead to a koi pond, now murky and overrun with algae. A stone lantern leans precariously to one side, and the bamboo fountain no longer flows. Wild wisteria and ivy climb over stone statues of Uchiha symbols, and the air is heavy with the scent of damp earth and decay.

Sasuke wasn't much to talk but he seemed particularly off, his broad shoulders stiffed while he focused on the task he was doing.

“Do you know what this is?” you asked trying to save him from whatever was happening in his head.

He looks at the small sprig of something you’d found struggling to grow amid the chaos “A flower?.”

You rolled your eyes. “It’s lavender. In the language of flowers, it symbolizes calm and peace. Your mother might have planted it here for that reason.”

Sasuke paused in his work, his gaze flickering to the delicate sprig in your hand. “The language of flowers?”

You nodded, smiling faintly. “Every plant has a meaning. For example, the camellias over there—represent admiration and longing. And the wisteria near the gate is a symbol of endurance and devotion.”

He looked toward the garden as if seeing it for the first time, his expression unreadable. “Didn’t know you were an expert.”

You laughed softly. “I’m not. But I’ve always liked the idea that flowers can say things people can’t"

He looked at you wondering if his mother thought the same. He remembered seeing her in the garden many times but the reasons for it now were blurry and lost in his head. Sasuke didn’t respond, but you caught the way his shoulders seemed to relax slightly as he returned to clear the weeds.

"What does this one mean?" He asks pointing at a single tulip he had found in the middle of the invasive herbs. You got closer to see it better, thinking to yourself it was unusual to see such a delicate flower in a wild scenario.

"Love," You say looking at it. It wasn't grown and its petals were suffering from the lack of care, but it still had the charm only a tulip could have.

"I thought roses were the flowers for love," He said looking at what, in his eyes, was just a plant.

"Roses and tulips," You said caressing the dry petals "Roses represent love and its nuances, but tulips represent it as a whole"

His dark eyes were fixated on you and when you looked at him again, and in that short second that followed you gulped thinking he had grown into a handsome man. You coughed pushing away that thought and quickly said "Did you buy the vegetables seeds that we talked about?"

"Yeah, I'm gonna grab it"

You drummed your fingers on your legs, waiting for him to come back while telling your stupid heart to stop beating so fast.

He came back and the two of you set to work planting the seeds, side by side. The quiet companionship that had grown between you was something you cherished, but it was still fragile like stepping carefully over thin ice. As you dug into the soil, your hands brushed his. The contact was fleeting, but it sent a jolt through you. You froze, glancing up at him, only to find that he was already looking at you.

"You didn't have to help so much"

“I know,” you said with a small shrug. “But I wanted to.”

Neither of you spoke, the silence stretching between you like a taut string. Slowly, almost hesitantly, Sasuke leaned closer, his dark eyes searching yours. His long fingers brushed the dust on your cheek but not just that, he was testing the waters, and once you didn't move away, he let his fingers hold your chin before putting his lips on yours. It was tentative, almost unsure.

His lips were unsteady as if he was uncertain of how to give or receive this kind of tenderness. He placed his lips on yours, feeling the texture and taste of your toothpaste. You closed your eyes and his hand found its way to the back of your neck while his tongue finally entered your mouth to quickly meet yours.

Fuck, did he have to taste so good?

You hold his shirt pulling him closer, making him smirk in the kiss while you wrap your tongues again and again until the world seems to slow down its rotation just to make it last longer. You felt the soft scrape of his teeth against your lower lip, a gentle bite that sent a shiver down your spine. A low sound escaped you, barely audible, but he heard it. And god, if you were gonna whimper like every time he kissed you, he would do it until your lips were swollen or both of you were naked.

You break the kiss reluctantly, needing to breathe. Sasuke gives you a few more pecks, loving the way your mouth is wet, before pressing his forehead to yours.

"This..." You whisper not opening your eyes but you can feel his gaze burning on you "Doesn't change anything, hm?"

"Doesn't it?" He asks pressing his lips on yours shortly once more

"Sasuke..." You lean back, trying to create space between you and him but grabs your waist, anchoring you closer "You are not being fair to me"

The Uchiha's house wasn't the only thing stuck in time after he left, you were stuck in time too. Lock in the feelings you had for him and unable to move on. Then why the part of you that hated him was so easily folded?

"I know" He whispers knowing he is being selfish by not letting you put an end to this cycle "We can take things slow, huh? See if it still works out between us and if it doesn't..."

You want to say "no" but your head shakes in a "yes" before your lips can open and you hate yourself for feeling so damn hot at the way he holds you close now, nearly pulling you on his lap "No one needs to know, okay?"

"Sure" He nods, eager to make you stay "Anything you want"

You stayed there for a moment, wrapped in the quiet intimacy of his touch, your heart warring between reason and desire. The garden seemed to hold its breath, as though the ghosts of the Uchiha district were watching, bearing witness to this fragile new beginning. Sasuke's grip on you loosened just enough to let you step back, but not enough to let you go. No matter how much you tried to tell yourself otherwise, you weren’t ready to walk away from him, and not from the chance that, just maybe, some things were worth saving.

#sasuke uchiha #sasuke x reader #Sasuke #Naturo #Naturo x reader #sasule uchiha x reader

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devinwolfi · 24 days ago

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TOHEEB JIMOH as SAM OBISANYA Ted Lasso | s02e04 "Carol of the Bells"

my final entry for @bag-bang! cutting it way too close but i would never forgive myself if i didn't get this one in

i made jollof rice! with chicken. both because it was easier to source than goat and as a nod to this scene. below the cut i share the link to the excellent recipe i worked off of, some musings about the process, and also this scene. (748w)

to start, here is the recipe i followed. it wasn’t exact by any means, but it was pretty close. if you read @theurbanspaceboi’s post, you’ve already seen this link. it’s great for anyone looking to introduce Nigerian cuisine into their meal rotation. seriously, check it out.

i, for truly no good reason, other than finding the sound of the blender too annoying at that point in time, elected to hand-mash my chopped plum tomatoes (2 tomatoes, total ~200g) in the absolute beast of a mortar and pestle i thrifted earlier this year. i don’t recommend it unless you really like to use your mortar and pestle or wasting a significant chunk of your day. which I do, so.

unlike Flo, i did not de-seed my tomatoes, i’ve never found any noticeable seeds in the finished product any time i’ve made this dish since regardless of hand-mashed or blended, so i think it might be fine. a blender is obviously perfectly fine and encouraged for those of you who are normal.

i fudged the directions a bit and added my mashed tomatoes, minced yellow onion (1/10 – ¼ y’know use your heart. it’s onion it’s good for you), and the thickest tomato paste (25g) i have ever used all at the same time. once the water had cooked off to my liking i added my oil. i didn’t measure it at the time but i poured off maybe a cup and a half to two cups (1.5-2c). i just added oil until it felt right. as for cook time, i didn’t measure that either the first time. the second time it had taken about 45min to an hour. basically, until most the acidic taste of the tomatoes was gone and tasted more like a nice tomato sauce, it mellows even further when cooked with the rice.

for parboiling white rice, you use about twice the amount of water you would normally use (4:1 instead of 2:1 water:rice) and less than half the time (5-7min). you’ll know the rice is done when the grains are still solid in the center, but break without snapping. flo has some videos about this linked on her page that are worth checking out if you’re completely at odds with whatever the hell i’m talking about. keep in mind, parboiled rice occupies about the same volume as fully cooked rice (2:1 cooked:uncooked). don’t ask me how much rice. i don’t know. every time I’ve done this i’ve never been able to guess right and always have so much leftover parboiled rice. so, some amount of rice, certainly.

anyway, combined all the things together in the pot, with a seasoning cube and water since i seasoned and baked my chicken thighs and thus had no stock. i accidentally used the full amount of curry powder (2tsp), but since my powder had no spice, i survived with my taste buds intact and have been using excess curry powder each time i’ve made it since. delicious.

when the rice was dry and done to my liking, i plated with my baked chicken thighs over top. an absolutely life altering culinary experience. delectable. comforting, hearty, rich, other adjective for a good fucking meal.

with the leftovers, i ended up cooking up some frozen stir fry vegetables i had sitting debatably frostbitten in my freezer in some chicken stock and tomato paste (to give it a similar flavor profile to the jollof) and combined. but of course you can use even an ounce of foresight unlike myself and cook your vegetables and/or alternative proteins alongside.

in the future i am especially excited to slice and velvet my chicken using the leftover oil from the tomato stew. velveting being the method used to prep that exceptionally tender chicken found in Chinese stir fries. I’ve also been toying with the idea of incorporating alternative proteins like lentils, tofu, and beans. many possibilities! all of which i expect to be fucking delicious.

now. onto this scene. it grates on me, to say the least. because i think Higgins is, at best, being a stick in the mud. at worst, well. that being said, it is entirely consistent with his character, his borderline appropriative approach to slang, humor, and “hipness.” i find it curious, when people are put off by proteins uncommon in the western world, like goat, raw fish, tofu, etc. y’know? or maybe I’m looking for something that isn’t there. i doubt it, but still. either way, i know that jollof fucking rocked.

#ted lasso #sam obisanya #tedlassoedit #beagoldfish 2025 #devinwolfi.gif #getting this in literally after it's over but. stuff is still open and it's before west coast midnight #so i consider it fine (sleepy)

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888-fr · 3 months ago

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As soon as I have lair space I’m totally getting a modern/ancient Pearl Cerdae duo that’s like an old wise but jaded Ancient Cerdae and their younger Modern Cerdae who’s terrified of becoming like their grandparent/mentor but ate the seed out of fear and a need for power. I’m making fucked up angst of your unicorns lmaooo

this is the first thing I read this morning and I had to get up and draw this concept immediately. losing your pearl is the final indication you're past the point of no return as a pearl cerdae

in general I think ancient cerdae x pearl cerdae duo is SUCH a good concept. grandkid who injested the seed to extend their life vs mournful grandparent who doesn't want them to live the life ahead of them! lonely ancient cerdae mentor manipulating a pearl cerdae into joining them. pearl cerdae enchanted by the beauty of an ancient floral cerdae and so allows their infection to advance. perhaps a cerdae coerced by a superstitious clan into becoming a symbolic deity. a researcher convinced that becoming an ancient cerdae is the route to immortality and being able to extend the timeframe of their projects. lots you can do here with codependence and mutual parasitism.

there is a general theme, at any rate, of slow corruption with ancient cerdae. I believe it's something that can happen naturally over centuries or accelerated on purpose. the point of no return is losing your pearl. horrifying concept for a pearl cerdae - that's where their memories and sense of self is stored! and the secret behind why there's very old pearl cerdae, but only a few of those have become ancient cerdae.

I like to imagine cerdae's front limbs becoming more and more elongated and hoof-like after their lose or destroy their pearl. it's not an immediate change! it's a gradual process. their claws shed again and again and again and their entire bone structure warps. eventually the seed takes over more and more, growing a profusion of lichen and vegetation out of their bodies.

#flight rising #asks #gardenergulfie #pearl cerdae #ok i gotta run catch the bus now #don't worry about the angst i literally created these guys to play with body horror

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foodshowxyz · 1 year ago

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Kimchi Jeon (Savory Kimchi Pancakes)

Yields: 4 servings Prep Time: 15 minutes Cook Time: 10-15 minutes

Ingredients:

1 cup well-fermented kimchi, roughly chopped

1/4 cup kimchi juice

1/2 cup all-purpose flour

1/4 cup potato or corn starch

1/2 cup cold water

1 large egg, lightly beaten

3-4 scallions, thinly sliced

1-2 tablespoons vegetable oil or neutral-flavored cooking oil

Optional additions:

1 tablespoon gochugaru (Korean red pepper flakes) for extra spice

1 tablespoon soy sauce

1 teaspoon sesame oil

Other vegetables: thin strips of carrot, onion slices

Dipping sauce ingredients:

Soy sauce

Rice vinegar

A pinch of sugar

Toasted sesame seeds (optional)

Instructions:

Make the batter: In a mixing bowl, combine flour, potato/corn starch, kimchi, kimchi juice, egg, water, and scallions. (Include any optional ingredients you'd like). Mix until a slightly thick batter forms.

Heat the pan: Heat a large skillet or nonstick pan over medium heat. Add a thin layer of oil to the pan.

Cook the pancakes: Pour about 1/2 cup of batter into the hot pan, spreading it into a thin, even circle. Cook for 3-4 minutes per side, or until golden brown and crispy.

Repeat: Repeat the cooking process with the remaining batter, adding more oil as needed.

Make the dipping sauce: In a small bowl, combine the soy sauce, rice vinegar, and sugar. Add sesame seeds if desired.

Serve: Slice the pancakes into wedges and serve immediately with the dipping sauce.

Tips:

Well-fermented kimchi: Using older, well-fermented kimchi provides the best flavor and acidity.

Consistency check: The batter should be the consistency of a slightly thick pancake batter. If it's too thick, add a tablespoon or two of water. If it's too thin, add a bit more flour.

Don't overcrowd the pan: Cook one or two pancakes at a time to achieve the best crispiness and an even cook.

Experiment: Feel free to add seafood, thinly sliced pork, or other vegetables to your pancakes.

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najia-cooks · 2 years ago

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[ID: First image shows large falafel balls, one pulled apart to show that it is bright green and red on the inside, on a plate alongside green chilis, parsley, and pickled turnips. Second image is an extreme close-up of the inside of a halved falafel ball drizzled with tahina sauce. End ID]

فلافل محشي فلسطيني / Falafel muhashshi falastini (Palestinian stuffed falafel)

Falafel (فَلَافِل) is of contested origin. Various hypotheses hold that it was invented in Egypt any time between the era of the Pharoahs and the late nineteenth century (when the first written references to it appear). In Egypt, it is known as طَعْمِيَّة (ṭa'miyya)—the diminutive of طَعَام "piece of food"—and is made with fava beans. It was probably in Palestine that the dish first came to be made entirely with chickpeas.

The etymology of the word "falafel" is also contested. It is perhaps from the plural of an earlier Arabic word *filfal, from Aramaic 𐡐𐡋𐡐𐡉𐡋 "pilpāl," "small round thing, peppercorn"; or from "مفلفل" "mfelfel," a word meaning "peppered," from "فلفل" "pepper" + participle prefix مُ "mu."

This recipe is for deep-fried chickpea falafel with an onion and sumac حَشْوَة (ḥashua), or filling; falafel are also sometimes stuffed with labna. The spice-, aromatic-, and herb-heavy batter includes additions common to Palestinian recipes—such as dill seeds and green onions—and produces falafel balls with moist, tender interiors and crisp exteriors. The sumac-onion filling is tart and smooth, and the nutty, rich, and bright tahina-based sauce lightens the dish and provides a play of textures.

Falafel with a filling is falafel مُحَشّي (muḥashshi or maḥshshi), from حَشَّى‎ (ḥashshā) "to stuff, to fill." While plain falafel may be eaten alongside sauces, vegetables, and pickles as a meal or a snack, or eaten in flatbread wraps or kmaj bread, stuffed falafel are usually made larger and eaten on their own, not in a wrap or sandwich.

Falafel has gone through varying processes of adoption, recognition, nationalization, claiming, and re-patriation in Zionist settlers' writing. A general arc may be traced from adoption during the Mandate years, to nationalization and claiming in the years following the Nakba until the end of the 20th century, and back to re-Arabization in the 21st. However, settlers disagree with each other about the value and qualities of the dish within any given period.

What is consistent is that falafel maintains a strategic ambiguity: particular qualities thought to belong to "Arabs" may be assigned, revoked, rearranged, and reassigned to it (and to other foodstuffs and cultural products) at will, in accordance with broader trends in politics, economics, and culture, or in service of the particular argument that a settler (or foreign Zionist) wishes to make.

Mandate Palestine, 1920s – early '30s: Secular and collective

While most scholars hold that claims of an ancient origin for falafel are unfounded, it was certainly being eaten in Palestine by the 1920s. Yael Raviv writes that Jewish settlers of the second and third "עליות"‎ ("aliyot," waves of immigration; singular "עליה" "aliya") tended to adopt falafel, and other Palestinian foodstuffs, largely uncritically. They viewed Palestinian Arabs as holding vessels that had preserved Biblical culture unchanged, and that could therefore serve as models for a "new," agriculturally rooted, physically active, masculine Jewry that would leave behind the supposed errors of "old" European Jewishness, including its culinary traditions—though of course the Arab diet would need to be "corrected" and "civilized" before it was wholly suitable for this purpose.

Falafel was further endeared to these "חֲלוּצִים‎" ("halutzim," "pioneers") by its status as a street food. The undesirable "old" European Jewishness was associated with the insularity of the nuclear family and the bourgeois laziness of indoor living. The קִבּוּצים‎ ("Kibbutzim," communal living centers), though they represented only a small minority of settlers, furnished a constrasting ideal of modern, earthy Jewishness: they left food production to non-resident professional cooks, eliding the role of the private, domestic kitchen. Falafel slotted in well with these ascetic ideals: like the archetypal Arabic bread and olive oil eaten by the Jewish farmer in his field, it was hardy, cheap, quick, portable, and unconnected to the indoor kitchen.

The author of a 1929 article in דאר היום ("Doar Hyom," "Today's Mail") shows unrestrained admiration for the "[]מזרחי" ("Oriental") food, writing of his purchase of falafel stuffed in a "פיתה" ("pita") that:

רק בני-ערב, ואחיהם — היהודים הספרדים — רק הם עלולים "להכנת מטעם מפולפל" שכזה, הנעים כל כך לחיך [...].

("Only the Arabs, and their brothers—the Sepherdi Jews—only they are likely to create a delicacy so 'peppered' [a play on the פ-ל-פ-ל (f-l-f-l) word root], one so pleasing to the palate".)

Falafel's strong association with "Arabs" (i.e., Palestinians), however, did blemish the foodstuff in the eyes of some as early as 1930. An article in the English-language Palestine Bulletin told the story of Kamel Ibn Hassan's trial for the murder of a British soldier, lingering on the "Arab" "hashish addicts," "women of the streets," and "concessionaires" who rounded out this lurid glimpse into the "underground life lived by a certain section of Arab Haifa"; it was in this context that Kamel's "'business' of falafel" (scare quotes original) was mentioned.

Mandate Palestine, late 1930s–40s: A popular Oriental dish

In 1933, only three licensed falafel vendors operated in Tel Aviv; but by December 1939, Lilian Cornfeld (columnist for the English-language Palestine Post) could lament that "filafel cakes" were "proclaiming their odoriferous presence from every street corner," no longer "restricted to the seashore and Oriental sections" of the city.

Settlers' attitudes to falafel at this time continued to range from appreciation to fascinated disgust to ambivalence, and references continued to focus on its cheapness and quickness. According to Cornfeld, though the "orgy of summertime eating" of which falafel was the "most popular" representative caused some dietary "damage" to children, and though the "rather messy and dubious looking" food was deep-fried, the chickpeas themselves were still of "great nutritional value": "However much we may object to frying, — if fry you must, this at least is the proper way of doing it."

Cornfeld's article, appearing 10 years after the 1929 reference to falafel in pita quoted above, further specifies how this dish was constructed:

There is first half a pita (Arab loaf), slit open and filled with five filafels, a few fried chips [i.e. French fries] and sometimes even a little salad. The whole is smeared over with Tehina, a local mayonnaise made with sesame oil (emphasis original).

The ethnicity of these early vendors is not explicitly mentioned in these accounts. The Zionist "תוצרת הארץ" "totzeret ha’aretz"; "produce of the land") campaign in the 1930s and 1940s recommended buying only Jewish produce and using only Jewish labor, but it did not achieve unilaterial success, so it is not assured that settlers would not be buying from Palestinian vendors. There were, however, also Mizrahi Jewish vendors in Tel Aviv at this time.

The WW2-era "צֶנַע" ("tzena"; "frugality") period of rationing meat, which was enforced by British mandatory authorities beginning in 1939 and persisting until 1959, may also have contributed to the popularity of falafel during this time—though urban settlers employed various strategies to maintain access to significant amounts of meat.

Israel and elsewhere, 1950s – early 60s: The dawn of de-Arabization

After the Nakba (the ethnic cleansing of broad swathes of Palestine in the creation of the modern state of "Israel"), the task of producing a national Israeli identity and culture tied to the land, and of asserting that Palestinians had no like sense of national identity, acquired new urgency. The claiming of falafel as "the national snack of Israel," the decoupling of the dish from any association with "Arabs" (in settlers' writing of any time period, this means "Palestinians"), and the insistence on associating it with "Israel" and with "Jews," mark this time period in Israeli and U.S.-ian newspaper articles, travelogues, and cookbooks.

During this period, falafel remained popular despite the "reintegrat[ion]" of the nuclear family into the "national project," and the attendant increase in cooking within the familial home. It was still admirably quick, efficient, hardy, and frequently eaten outside. When it was homemade, the dish could be used rhetorically to marry older ideas about embodying a "new" Jewishness and a return to the land through dietary habits, with the recent return to the home kitchen. In 1952, Rachel Yanait Ben-Zvi, the wife of the second President of Israel, wrote to a South African Zionist women's society:

I prefer Oriental dishes and am inclined towards vegetarianism and naturalism, since we are returning to our homeland, going back to our origin, to our climate, our landscape and it is only natural that we liberate ourselves from many of the habits we acquired in the course of our wanderings in many countries, different from our own. [...] Meals at the President's table [...] consist mainly of various kinds of vegetable prepared in the Oriental manner which we like as well as [...] home-made Falafel, and, of course vegetables and fruits of the season.

Out of doors, associations of falafel with low prices, with profusion and excess, and with youth, travelling and vacation (especially to urban locales and the seaside) continue. Falafel as part and parcel of Israeli locales is given new emphasis: a reference to the pervasive smell of frying falafel rounds out the description of a chaotic, crowded, clamorous scene in the compact, winding streets of any old city. Falafel increasingly stands metonymically for Israel, especially in articles written to entice Jewish tourists and settlers: no one is held to have visited Israel unless they have tried real Israeli falafel. A 1958 song ("ולנו יש פלאפל", "And We Have Falafel") avers that:

הַיּוֹם הוּא רַק יוֹרֵד מִן הַמָּטוֹס [...] כְבָר קוֹנֶה פָלָאפֶל וְשׁוֹתֶה גָּזוֹז כִּי זֶה הַמַּאֲכָל הַלְּאֻמִּי שֶׁל יִשְׂרָאֵל

("Today when [a Jew] gets off the plane [to Israel] he immediately has a falafel and drinks gazoz [...] because this is the national dish of Israel"). A 1962 story in Israel Today features a boy visiting Israel responding to the question "Have you learned Hebrew yet?" by asserting "I know what falafel is." Recipes for falafel appear alongside ads for smoked lox and gefilte fish in U.S.-ian Jewish magazines; falafel was served by Zionist student groups in U.S.-ian universities beginning in the 1950s and continuing to now.

These de-Arabization and nationalization processes were possible in part because it was often Mizrahim (West Asian and North African Jews) who introduced Israelis to Palestinian food—especially after 1950, when they began to immigrate to Israel in larger numbers. Even if unfamiliar with specific Palestinian dishes, Mizrahim were at least familiar with many of the ingredients, taste profiles, and cooking methods involved in preparing them. They were also more willing to maintain their familiar foodways as settlers than were Zionist Ashkenazim, who often wanted to distance themselves from European and diaspora Jewish culture.

Despite their longstanding segregation from Israeli Ashkenazim (and the desire of Ashkenazim to create a "new" European Judaism separate from the indolence and ignorance of "Oriental" Jews, including their wayward foodways), Mizrahim were still preferable to Palestinian Arabs as a point of origin for Israel's "national snack." When associated with Mizrahi vendors, falafel could be considered both Oriental and Jewish (note that Sephardim and Mizrahim are unilaterally not considered to be "Arabs" in this writing).

Thus food writing of the 1950s and 60s (and some food writing today) asserts, contrary to settlers' writing of the 1920s and 30s, that falafel had been introduced to Israel by Jewish immigrants from Syria, Yemen, or Morocco, who had been used to eating it in their native countries—this, despite the fact that Yemen and Morocco did not at this time have falafel dishes. Even texts critical of Zionism echoed this narrative. In fact, however, Yemeni vendors had learned to make falafel in Egypt on their way to Palestine and Israel, and probably found falafel already being sold and eaten there when they arrived.Meneley, Anne2007 Like an Extra Virgin. American Anthropologist 109(4):678–687

Meanwhile, "pita" (Palestinian Arabic: خبز الكماج; khubbiz al-kmaj) was undergoing in some quarters a similar process of Israelization; it remained "Arab" in others. In 1956, a Boston-born settler in Haifa wrote for The Jewish Post:

The baking of the pittah loaves is still an Arab monopoly [in Israel], and the food is not available at groceries or bakeries which serve Jewish clientele exclusively. For our Oriental meal to be a success we must have pittah, so the more advance shopping must be done.

This "Arab monopoly" in fact did not extent to an Arab monopoly in discourse: it was a mere four years later that the National Jewish Post and Opinion described "Peeta" as an "Israeli thin bread." Two years after that, the U.S.-published My Jewish Kitchen: The Momales Ta'am Cookbook (co-authored by Zionist writer Shushannah Spector) defined "pitta" as an "Israeli roll."

Despite all this scrubbing work, settlers' attitudes towards falafel in the late 1950s were not wholly positive, and references to the dish as having been "appropriated from the [Palestinian] Arabs" did not disappear. A 1958 article, written by a Boston-born man who had settled in Israel in 1948 and published in U.S.-ian Zionist magazine Midstream, repeats the usual associations of falafel with the "younger set" of visitors from kibbutzim to "urban" locales; it also denigrates it as a “formidably indigestible Arab delicacy concocted from highly spiced legumes rolled into little balls, fried in grease, and then inserted into an underbaked piece of dough, known as a pita.”

Thus settlers were ambivalent about khubbiz as well. If their food writing sometimes refers to pita as "doughy" or "underbaked," it is perhaps because they were purchasing it from stores rather than baking it at home—bakeries sometimes underbake their khubbiz so that it retains more water, since it is sold by weight.

Israel and elsewhere, late 1960s–2010s: Falafel with even fewer Arabs

The sanitization of falafel would be more complete in the 60s and 70s, as falafel was gradually moved out of separate "Oriental dishes" categories and into the main sections of Israeli cookbooks. A widespread return to כַּשְׁרוּת‎ (kashrut; dietary laws) meant that falafel, a פַּרְוֶה (parve) dish—one that contained no meat or dairy—was a convenient addition on occasions when food intersected with nationalist institutions, such as at state dinners and in the mess halls of Israeli military forces.

This, however, still did not prohibit Israelis from displaying ambivalence towards the food. Falafel was more likely to be glorified as a symbol of Jewish Israel in foreign magazines and tourist guides, including in the U.S.A. and Italy, than it was to be praised in Israeli Zionist publications.

Where falafel did maintain an association with Palestinians, it was to assert that their versions of it had been inferior. In 1969, Israeli writer Ruth Bondy opines:

Experience says that if we are to form an affection for a people we should find something admirable about its customs and folklore, its food or girls, its poetry and music. True, we have taken the first steps in this direction [with Palestinians]: we like kebab, hummous, tehina and falafel. The trouble is that these have already become Jewish dishes and are prepared more tastily by every Rumanian restaurateur than by the natives of Nablus.

Opinions about falafel in this case seem to serve as a mirror for political opinions about Palestinians: the same writer had asserted, on the previous page, that the "ideal situation, of course, would be to keep all the territories we are holding today—but without so many Arabs. A few Arabs would even be desirable, for reasons of local color, raising pigs for non-Moslems and serving bread on the Passover, but not in their masses" (trans. Israel L. Taslitt).

Later narratives tended to retrench the Israelization of falafel, often acknowledging that falafel had existed in Palestine prior to Zionist incursion, but holding that Jewish settlers had made significant changes to its preparation that were ultimately responsible for making it into a worldwide favorite. Joan Nathan's 2001 Foods of Israel Today, for example, claimed that, while fava and chickpea falafel had both preëxisted the British Mandate period, Mizrahi settlers caused chickpeas to be the only pulse used in falafel.

Gil Marks, who had echoed this narrative in his 2010 Encyclopedia of Jewish Food, later attributed the success of Palestinian foods to settlers' inventiveness: "Jews didn’t invent falafel. They didn’t invent hummus. They didn’t invent pita. But what they did invent was the sandwich. Putting it all together. And somehow that took off and now I have three hummus restaurants near my house on the Upper West Side.”

Israel and elsewhere, 2000s – 2020s: Re-Arabization; or, "Local color"

Ronald Ranta has identified a trend of "re-Arabizing" Palestinian food in Israeli discourse of the late 2000s and later: cooks, authors, and brands acknowledge a food's origin or identity as "Arab," or occasionally even "Palestinian," and consumers assert that Palestinian and Israeli-Palestinian (i.e., Israeli citizens of Palestinian ancestry) preparations of foods are superior to, or more "authentic" than, Jewish-Israeli ones. Israeli and Israeli-Palestinian brands and restaurants market various foods, including falafel, as "אסלי" ("asli"), from the Arabic "أَصْلِيّ" ("ʔaṣliyy"; "original"), or "בלדי" ("baladi"), from the Arabic "بَلَدِيّ" ("baladiyy"; "native" or "my land").

This dedication to multiculturalism may seem like progress, but Ranta cautions that it can also be analyzed as a new strategy in a consistent pattern of marginalization of the indigenous population: "the Arab-Palestinian other is re-colonized and re-imagined only as a resource for tasty food [...] which has been de-politicized[;] whatever is useful and tasty is consumed, adapted and appropriated, while the rest of its culture is marginalized and discarded." This is the "serving bread" and "local color" described by Bondy: "Arabs" are thought of in terms of their usefulness to settlers, and not as equal political participants in the nation. For Ranta, the "re-Arabizing" of Palestinian food thus marks a new era in Israel's "confiden[ce]" in its dominance over the indigenous population.

So this repatriation of Palestinian food is limited insofar as it does not extend to an acknowledgement of Palestinians' political aspirations, or a rejection of the Zionist state. Food, like other indicators and aspects of culture, is a "safe" avenue for engagement with colonized populations even when politics is not.

The acknowledgement of Palestinian identity as an attempt to neutralize political dissent, or perhaps to resolve the contradictions inherent in liberal Zionist identity, can also be seen in scholarship about Israeli food culture. This scholarship tends to focus on narratives about food in the cultural domain, ignoring the material impacts of the settler-colonialist state's control over the production and distribution of food (something that Ranta does as well). Food is said to "cross[] borders" and "transcend[] cultural barriers" without examination of who put the borders there (or where, or why, or how, or when). Disinterest in material realities is cultivated so that anodyne narratives about food as “a bridge” between divides can be pursued.

Raviv, for example, acknowledges that falafel's de-Palestinianization was inspired by anti-Arab sentiment, and that claiming falafel in support of "Jewish nationalism" was a result of "a connection between the people and a common land and history [needing] to be created artificially"; however, after referring euphemistically to the "accelerated" circumstances of Israel's creation, she supports a shared identity for falafel in which it can also be recognized as "Israeli." She concludes that this should not pose a problem for Palestinians, since "falafel was never produced through the labor of a colonized population, nor was Palestinian land appropriated for the purpose of growing chickpeas for its preparation. Thus, falafel is not a tool of oppression."

Palestine and Israel, 1960s – 2020s: Material realities

Yet chickpeas have been grown in Israel for decades, all of them necessarily on appropriated Palestinian land. Experimentation with planting in the arid conditions of the south continues, with the result that today, chickpea is the major pulse crop in the country. An estimated 17,670,000 kilograms of chickpeas were produced in Israel in 2021; at that time, this figure had increased by an average of 3.5% each year since 1966. 73,110 kilograms of that 2021 crop was exported (this even after several years of consecutive decline in chickpea exports following a peak in 2018), representing $945,000 in exports of dried chickpeas alone.

The majority of these chickpeas ($872,000) were exported to the West Bank and Gaza; Palestinians' inability to control their own imports (all of which must pass through Israeli customs, and which are heavily taxed or else completely denied entry), and Israeli settler violence and government expropriation of land, water, and electricity resources (which make agriculture difficult), mean that Palestine functions as a captive market for Israeli exports. Israeli goods are the only ones that enter Palestinian markets freely.

By contrast, Palestinian exports, as well as imports, are subject to taxation by Israel, and only a small minority of imports to Israel come from Palestine ($1.13 million out of $22.4 million of dried chickpeas in 2021).

The 1967 occupation of the West Bank has besides had a demonstrable impact on Palestinians' ability to grow chickpeas for domestic consumption or export in the first place, as data on the changing uses of agricultural land in the area from 1966–2001 allow us to see. Chickpeas, along with wheat, barley, fenugreek, and dura, made up a major part of farmers' crops from 1840 to 1914; but by 2001, the combined area devoted to these field crops was only a third of its 1966 value. The total area given over to chickpeas, lentils and vetch, in particular, shrank from 14,380 hectares in 1966 to 3,950 hectares in 1983.

Part of this decrease in production was due to a shortage of agricultural labor, as Palestinians, newly deprived of land or of the necessary water, capital, and resources to work it—and in defiance of Raviv's assertion that "falafel was never produced through the labor of a colonized population"—sought jobs as day laborers on Israeli fields.

The dearth of water was perhaps especially limiting. Palestinians may not build anything without a permit, which the Israeli military may deny for any, or for no, reason: no Palestinian's request for a permit to dig a well has been approved in the West Bank since 1967. Israel drains aquifiers for its own use and forbids Palestinians to gather rainwater, which the Israeli military claims to own. This lack of water led to land which had previously been used to grow other crops being transitioned into olive tree fields, which do not require as much water or labor to tend.

In Gaza as well, occupation systematically denies Palestinians of food itself, not just narratives about food. The majority of the population in Gaza is food-insecure, as Israel allows only precisely determined (and scant) amounts of food to cross its borders. Gazans rely largely on canned goods, such as chickpeas (often purchased at subsidized rates through food aid programs run by international NGOs), because they do not require scarce water or fuel to prepare—but canned chickpeas cannot be used to prepare a typical deep-fried falafel recipe (the discs would fall apart while frying). There is, besides, a continual shortage of oil (of which only a pre-determined amount of calories are allowed to enter the Strip). Any narrative about Israeli food culture that does not take these and other realities of settler-colonialism into account is less than half complete.

Of course, falafel is far from the only food impacted by this long campaign of starvation, and the strategy is only intensifying: as of December 2023, children are reported to have died by starvation in the besieged Gaza Strip.

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Equipment:

A meat grinder, or a food processor, or a high-speed or immersion blender, or a mortar and pestle and an enormous store of patience

A pot, for frying

A kitchen thermometer (optional)

Ingredients:

Makes 12 large falafel balls; serves 4 (if eaten on their own).

For the فلافل (falafel):

500g dried chickpeas (1010g once soaked)

1 large onion

4 cloves garlic

1 Tbsp cumin seeds

1 Tbsp coriander seeds

2 tsp dill seeds (عين جرادة; optional)

1 medium green chili pepper (such as a jalapeño), or 1/2 large one (such as a ram's horn / فلفل قرن الغزال)

2 stalks green onion (3 if the stalks are thin) (optional)

Large bunch (50g) parsley, stems on; or half parsley and half cilantro

2 Tbsp sea salt

2 tsp baking soda (optional)

For the حَشوة (filling):

2 large yellow onions, diced

1/4 cup coarsely ground sumac

4 tsp shatta (شطة: red chili paste), optional

Salt, to taste

3 Tbsp olive oil

For the طراطور (tarator):

3 cloves garlic

1/2 tsp table salt

1/4 cup white tahina

Juice of half a lemon (2 Tbsp)

2 Tbsp vegan yoghurt (لبن رائب; optional)

About 1/4 cup water

To make cultured vegan yoghurt, follow my labna recipe with 1 cup, instead of 3/4 cup, of water; skip the straining step.

To fry:

Several cups neutral oil

Untoasted hulled sesame seeds (optional)

Instructions:

1. If using whole spices, lightly toast in a dry skillet over medium heat, then grind with a mortar and pestle or spice mill.

2. Grind chickpeas, onion, garlic, chili, and herbs. Modern Palestinian recipes tend to use powered meat grinders; you could also use a food processor, speed blender, or immersion blender. Some recipes set aside some of the chickpeas, aromatics, and herbs and mince them finely, passing the knife over them several times, then mixing them in with the ground mixture to give the final product some texture. Consult your own preferences.

To mimic the stone-ground texture of traditional falafel, I used a mortar and pestle. I found this to produce a tender, creamy, moist texture on the inside, with the expected crunchy exterior. It took me about two hours to grind a half-batch of this recipe this way, so I don't per se recommend it, but know that it is possible if you don't have any powered tools.

3. Mix in salt, spices, and baking soda and stir thoroughly to combine. Allow to chill in the fridge while you prepare the filling and sauce.

If you do not plan to fry all of the batter right away, only add baking soda to the portion that you will fry immediately. Refrigerate the rest of the batter for up to 2 days, or freeze it for up to 2 months. Add and incorporate baking soda immediately before frying. Frozen batter will need to be thawed before shaping and frying.

For the filling:

1. Heat olive oil in a skillet over medium heat. Fry onion and a pinch of salt for several minutes, until translucent. Remove from heat.

2. Add sumac and stir to combine. Add shatta, if desired, and stir.

For the tarator:

1. Grind garlic and salt in a mortar and pestle (if you don't have one, finely mince and then crush the garlic with the flat of your knife).

2. Add garlic to a bowl along with tahina and whisk. You will notice the mixture growing smoother and thicker as the garlic works as an emulsifier.

3. Gradually add lemon juice and continue whisking until smooth. Add yoghurt, if desired, and whisk again.

4. Add water slowly while whisking until desired consistency is achieved. Taste and adjust salt.

To fry:

1. Heat several inches of oil in a small or medium pot to about 350 °F (175 °C). A piece of batter dropped in the oil should float and immediately form bubbles, but should not sizzle violently. (With a small pot on my gas stove, my heat was at medium-low).

2. Use your hands or a large falafel mold to shape the falafel.

To use a falafel mold: Dip your mold into water. If you choose to cover both sides of the falafel with sesame seeds, first sprinkle sesame seeds into the mold; then apply a flat layer of batter. Add a spoonful of filling into the center, and then cover it with a heaping mound of batter. Using a spoon, scrape from the center to the edge of the mold repeatedly, while rotating the mold, to shape the falafel into a disc with a slightly rounded top. Sprinkle the top with sesame seeds.

To use your hands: wet your hands slightly and take up a small handful of batter. Shape it into a slightly flattened sphere in your palm and form an indentation in the center; fill the indentation with filling. Cover it with more batter, then gently squeeze between both hands to shape. Sprinkle with sesame seeds as desired.

3. Use a slotted spoon or kitchen spider to lower falafel balls into the oil as they are formed. Fry, flipping as necessary, until discs are a uniform brown (keep in mind that they will darken another shade once removed from the oil). Remove onto a wire rack or paper towel.

If the pot you are using is inclined to stick, be sure to scrape the bottom and agitate each falafel disc a couple seconds after dropping it in.

4. Repeat until you run out of batter. Occasionally use a slotted spoon or small sieve to remove any excess sesame seeds from the oil so they do not burn and become acrid.

Serve immediately with sauce, sliced vegetables, and pickles, as desired.

#Palestine #Israel #vegetarian recipes #Palestinian #falafel #chickpeas #sumac #onions #garlic #parsley #cilantro #dill seeds #sesame seeds #tahina #yoghurt #long post /

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kotoryba · 1 month ago

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#I have an idea but no time: what if "cultivation" in MDZS world really means... "farming"?

Based on this post: @dramatic-dolphin , I think you view things in the right direction! 😁❤️

Modern AU, where five powerful agricultural corporations practically rule the life of the country, dividing the workforce and resources for the best food production:

Cloud Recesses Inc. in Gusu — organic vegetables, strictly no pesticides, no chemical fertilisers; only straw mulching, complementary crops, attracting of natural predators for pests (ladybugs and other entomophagous predators), natural irrigation etc. Centuries-long history of family business, no outside high-level management at all. Organised the famous agricultural academy, where share the knowledge about organic farming.

Lotus Cove Company in Yunmeng — fisheries, lotus growing, for seeds, roots and making the dyes (famous "Yunmeng Lotus Purple), river pearls and others; the company unites many small local farms and proposes them the processing and manufacturing of finished products and logistics. Regular searches of new initiative talents for company from local residents, but they keep the controlling stake in the main family.

Jin Golden Carp Corp. in Lanling - floristic and orchard business, have huge greenhouses with exotic fruits; M&A the lands from small landlords and enterprises by cheap prices and in general lead the tons of leasing and funding financial operations. Not clean reputation, but the huge PR&GR and legal departments helps with this a lot.

Butcher's Saber Ent. in Qinghe — meat and dairy production mostly. They propose the best salaries on local workforce market and due to that acquire a strong loyalty among the residents — but have severe corporation policies about the industrial espionage and thefts . And also BS Ent. has the strictest (except Cloud Recesses Inc.) safety standards for all product cycle.

Wen LLC in Qishan — broiler poultry farming, second big competitor of meat production after BS Ent. in region; breeding of new sorts and seed selling business (here we have uncontrollable usage of GMO, chemicals and pharmaceutical products, but all experiments keeps in secret from public). Due to the excessive usage of pesticides and fertilisation, they faced with pollution and soil depletion, therefore actively expanding their cultivation areas by raider attacks and property fraud. Payed the good salaries but have a catastrophic penalty system for keeping the mouths shut, but you must be Wen for obtaining even the middle management position.

Maybe the story begins, where the prominent student WWX (who thinks about agricultural technologies in non-traditional way, for example — builds robots and automatisation programs for harvesters machines, searches the solutions in nano-biology and something similar) entered the Gusu Lan academy as a part of sharing experience delegation from Lotus Cove.

Or from the moment, when Wens decided to attack their competitors, using the false accusations about owners, cyberattacks, sabotage and brute force?

Or when the little WWX's innovative company in the most infertile lands of Burial Mounds became way too bottleneck due to progressive researches of someone's brilliant mind, that the other big corporations collectively decided to wip the unwanted competitor from the market at all?

Maybe in the classic way, when WWX, who was in a coma for thirteen years after a huge fire in his laboratory, received the organ transplant and new face from unknown beneficiary — and waked up? With clear suspicions who was really behind this incident that also killed his shijie and her husband? Now he's unrecognisable for his friends and enemies and can investigate the case freely. Maybe, the little help from LWJ, the second heir of Cloud Recesses Inc., could be useful? They were just-step-before-good-friends in his previous life...

Do you know, guys, that there are real wars in agricultural business nowadays? Maybe, they are even more dangerous, than in imaginary magical world of jianhu...

#i have an idea #i have an idea but not time #mdzs #mo dao zu shi #writing prompt #fic prompt #modern au #wei wuxuan #wei wuxian #wei ying #cloud recesses #farmcore #farming #grandmaster of demonic cultivation #founder of demonic cultivation #fuck corporations #wangxian expected #mdzs au

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harunayuuka2060 · 1 year ago

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MC: ...

Leona: *has been "subtly" observing them*

MC: ...

Falena's wife: ...

Falena's wife: Back to our discussion.

MC: Yes. You're hoping that I would be of help to His Majesty now that his health is deteriorating.

Falena's wife: Yes. Would it be possible for you to extend his life?

MC: There are factors that we need to consider. Does he still want to rule this country?

Falena's wife: No. He wants to live longer so he would be able to witness Cheka and Liora grow up into fine princes, and your second child to be born.

MC: Hmm. I could strengthen his heart, however... He likes to eat things that aren't good for him.

Falena's wife: *chuckles* We could just instruct Kifaj to be strict on him.

MC: In that case, I will start on the treatment.

MC: How are you feeling, Your Majesty?

The king: I'm feeling great. *chuckles* I think I could yell better on Kifaj now.

Kifaj: And I will do better to ignore you if needed.

The king: Anyway, is it true there will be a second-born?

MC: It will not until two years, Your Majesty.

The king: Oh. It takes that long?

MC: Yes.

The king: Oh. I see. How come? Isn't pregnancy supposed to be nine months?

MC: It's different with transcendentals, Your Majesty.

The king: *sigh* Well then, I guess I have to wait that long.

The king: I wish it's a girl this time so the Kingscholar will have their little princess.

MC: ...

MC: A princess it is.

The king and Kifaj: ...

The king: That's wonderful! Kifaj! Buy everything that will suit our baby princess!

Kifaj: Yes, Your Majesty!

MC: Again, the baby will not be born until two years.

The king: That is fine! Knowing that it will be a princess is enough!

Leona: *staring sternly at them from behind*

MC: *carrying Liora*

Baby Liora: *seems curious why his father is staring*

MC: What is it, Leona?

Leona: *walks and moves in front of them* The request you've been trying to delay.

MC: ...

MC: Sharing your mana to me is out of the question.

Leona: Tch. But I want to help you and I don't want to see not waking up for days again.

MC: ...

MC: How long will you try to insist on this?

Leona: I don't know. Maybe until you give me an alternative?

MC: ...

MC: I could give you one, but it would cost you a great inconvenience.

Leona: What is it?

MC: Cater our daughter for me.

Leona: ...

Leona: How?

MC: Like how I catered Liora. I will transfer the seed in your heart.

MC: You must keep your emotions stable.

Leona: Alright. I can do that.

MC: ...

MC: Alright. Come closer.

Leona: Yes- Mmp!

MC: *pulls themselves away* Give her back to me after two years. The same way that I did just now.

Leona: *blushing* That's a kiss you-

MC: I wouldn't call it as such. Now leave and stop bothering me for today.

Baby Liora: *waves at his father*

Leona: ...

Ruggie: *almost got choked on his food*

Ruggie: *then laughs*

Leona: *frowns at him*

Ruggie: That's a lot of trust, man. To think that MC allowed you to take care of your daughter.

Leona: Yes. But in the end, they're still the one who's going to birth it.

Ruggie: Though, are you sure you're up for the job? Two years is quite a long time, you know?

Leona: Yes. What do you take me for?

Ruggie: Impatient, easily annoyed-

Leona: *glares at him*

Ruggie: That. That's what I'm talking about. MC has always been cool-headed that's why Prince Liora has no complications and they carried him for three and a half-years.

Ruggie: I wonder how you are going to manage that.

Leona: It's my future daughter we're talking about here, Ruggie. I will do everything for her.

Ruggie: Okay. Why don't we start first by you eating vegetables?

Leona: *scowls*

Ruggie: It's for the baby princess. *amused by his expression*

Falena: I'm glad you have entrusted the development process to Leona.

MC: He wanted to help so I let him.

Falena: *happy sigh* I could already imagine what my niece would be like. *chuckles* *is imagining a snobbish baby and will frown at the sight of anyone*

MC: *knows what he's thinking and couldn't agree more*

#twisted wonderland #twst mc #twst leona #twst baby liora #twst falena #twst ruggie #twst kifaji #twst divorced au

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phoenixyfriend · 8 months ago

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Ko-fi prompt from IndigoMay:

What would be the economic impact if people could magically grow whatever food they liked? Including fodder for animals.

This is a very wide-ranging question, like... when was the magic introduced? What was the state of agriculture before that? Is this food generated from existing matter, delivered by gods, or something else?

I'm going to narrow this to:

What would happen if people could, starting tomorrow, grow any plant...

That is edible, by either humans or livestock, with appropriate treatment.

Without delay, meaning that the time sink is several minutes instead of weeks or months.

Without concerns for weather or other natural dangers like fungal infections or pests, or requirements for water or fertilizer.

Without depleting soil nutrients, so long as they have arable land to work with.

Without relying on fresh seeds or other 'raw ingredients' like leaf cuttings.

Well... let's start small.

Personal Basis - people who are not farmers

People who do not normally grow things would start angling to acquire some kind basic gardening implements. For some, like those who live in the suburbs, this would be as simple as going into the backyard. For those in cities, they'd need to get a window box or similar to use. If you have free, guaranteed fresh plant matter, that's already a good thing, but the time and care required to keep a garden alive is more than some people can manage due to work or children or housing. With immediate food that requires minimal effort, a lot of those hurdles are removed. You can grow the two tomatoes you need for dinner, and then put the pot of soil away for tomorrow.

The cost of

Personal Basis - small farmers

The obvious impacts for those who are small farmers is that people are less likely to buy their raw ingredients. Most of these small farmers would start looking into modifying their operations to do things that require processing.

Growing apples in your house for a snack is fine--if you have a pot big enough for a small tree, and a way to dispose of the wood if it's a one-time thing--but if you want applesauce or cider or pie, someone who knows how to cook or bake needs to do that part. You can grow wheat, but your chances of having the necessary tools to grind flour are slim. You can grow cashews, but fuck knows how you're going to process that without poisoning yourself! You can grow grapes on your trellis, but that doesn't mean you have the knowledge to make wine without accidentally going straight to vinegar. You can grow corn, but that doesn't mean you know the best way to dry it to make popcorn.

So small farms shift to those products that either need processing, or are part of an animal-based food. This includes things like flowers for bees. You can't really control bees, so just 'grow and go' might incite the bees to leave somehow. Maybe they can sense magic! Who knows!

Another option would be to focus on unique or heirloom things. If you go to a farmer's market, you might be going just to see all the fruits you've never encountered before. If there's an apple stand one year, and suddenly you can grow your own apples at home, then maybe what they start doing is growing unique or rare cultivars that you've never heard of, and that's their new niche. It's not that you can't grow the apples, but would you grow them if you've never heard of them? Plus, the apple stand is doing sauces and ciders now.

Mid-tier and large farms

These farms will start to focus in on large-scale crops that don't go straight to tables or cooking pots in homes. Scrap the eggplants, the cucumbers, the blueberries. Focus on:

Fruits and vegetables that are needed for popular secondary products, like tomatoes (ketchup, marinara), or oranges (juice), or corn (anything with fructose corn syrups, popcorn).

Plants that are popular but NEED processing to be edible, like coffee beans, cocoa beans, or wheat, that most people just don't have.

Plants that are needed in massive quantities for animal feed, such as alfalfa or chicken grains.

Now, I think these large farms would still be in production. We'd see a massive reduction in water usage, which is great (except for cranberries, I guess), but many of these products would still be needed in quantities that need industrial levels of processing. Someone needs to pick the oranges, to drive them to the juicing facility, the facility needs to juice and treat and preserve and bottle them, and then that needs to be driven to the store. The reduced time to grow, reduced water usage, reduced waste from natural predators or dangers, and general ability to plan things more efficiently would result in lower costs for many of these products in a truly free market... but would possibly also rise in cost as companies try to maintain a consistent flow of profit.

Sure you can make the juice at home, but what if you're already at work? There's still a demand for products; most of us can get water from a tap at home, but there are still convenience stores selling bottled water on every other corner in a big city.

I think the most interesting of these concerns would be grazing animals, like sheep, cattle, and goats. Being able to 'refresh' the grass of a single field without having to rotate the animals to new pastures once they've eaten away at one, and without damaging the nutrient profiles of the one they're staying at, means reduced deforestation or soil destabilization in agricultural areas. We'd see a fairly significant stalling of things like the decimation of Mongolia's grasslands if the goats didn't need as much grazing land.

Maintaining the meat industry would be one of the most constant sources of demand for large-scale agriculture, given that other products could go through cycles to more efficiently use land. You can grow and harvest oranges for Tropicana on Monday, grapes for Welch's on Tuesday, soy beans for Silk on Wednesday, tomatoes for Heinz on Thursday, and so on. They probably won't need more than they used to.

Meanwhile, the cows gotta eat. And eat. And eat.

Corporations

This one is fun! MONSANTO'S GONNA BE PISSED.

So, magically growing food, you don't need seeds, at least in this case. Or you can coax more product out of a seed you already have planted. You've gotten eight cycles corn out of this one stalk this season!

So Monsanto loses some of that insane seed monopoly situation.

You'd see a decrease in pesticides and anti-fungal products as agriculture speeds up a cycle by enough to prevent the spread of dangerous infestations. It's not going to kill your entire farm if you find fungus one day and have to burn it to prevent the spread. You lost one day's profit, not a full year's.

This impacts Monsanto too. Remember the Roundup debacle?

Now, to be clear, there are still plants that will rely on pesticides and anti-fungals. The premise only covers food, after all, so there are still important plants that will need longer, dedicated growing seasons.

Industry-wide shifts

Sooooooooooo a lot of the money starts to come from non-edible plants. This is your cottons, linens, hemps, latex/rubber trees, cork trees, lumber, and so on.

As the needed arable land necessary to feed humanity (and our livestock) decreases, more land is freed up for return to indigenous peoples, reclamation by nature, usage for alternate cultivation, housing, or... well, other capitalist ventures, like bitcoin mining or whatever.

On a geopolitical level, this causes some interesting shifts in places that draw their power from being 'breadbasket' nations. For instance, if you remember the start of the Russo-Ukrainian war, we saw some major pressures being placed by virtue of some countries (e.g. Lebanon, Pakistan) getting most of their wheat from Ukraine, and the war suddenly cutting off a massive portion of how they fed their people. Much of Ukraine's support, in those early days, derived from their importance as a breadbasket nation. If everyone can grown their own food, that moves the lines. Countries that are poor on space or water can stop relying on trade to survive in terms of water. Countries that rely on their agriculture to be able to trade for other things need to diversify their economies, and fast.

(Does mean that Saudi Arabia can stop using Arizona's water, though.)

The greatest shifts would come down to water usage and pollution, I think. Agriculture is currently one of the biggest contributors to the climate crisis, and the reduction of water use by farming would be a massive help. However, I'm less sure of how we'd see meat consumption change. The greater availability of fresh fruits and vegetables could result in a shift towards more plant-based diets worldwide, but just as easily we could see large agricultural corporations (and those that rely on them, like John Deere or the aforementioned Monsanto) market meat to consumers as a greater rate due to the profit margin.

Oh, also, I have a feeling that a lot of those corporations would try to get garden centers shut down, or buy out ceramic pot and planter factories. If you can't grow anything at home because you don't have a window planter, you have to buy from the store, right?

#ko fi #ko-fi #ko fi prompts #phoenix talks #magic #agriculture #microeconomics #macroeconomics #politics #environmentalism #water usage #pollution

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tribbetherium · 4 months ago

Text

(Here you go, sorry for the wait lol)

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Surrounding the Middle Temperocene continent of South Ecatoria, the small, pelagic islands off its coasts have become the hotspots of unusual and remarkable evolutionary forms. Here species arrived either from being cut off from the mainland, rafting on debris in storms, or travelling there upon their own accord: and in isolation they have been morphed by time and natural selection into unique species found nowhere else on the planet.

Reef Ridge Isle, to the continent's northeast, is as its name implies: a sandy landmass north of the North Bridge Reef with parts of old dead coral exoskeletons that extend above the surface to form a landmass that, in some areas, piled up with white sand--the eroded remains of old coral chewed, processed and excreted by a wide array of coral eaters over countless millions of years-- and other sediments, upon which plants have taken root, delivered by the droppings of ratbats and pterodents.

These plants are fed upon by one rather unlikely and unexpected grazer: the insular giant landshrab (Megalocarcinocaris giganteus). Largest of the terrestrial shrish, this slow-moving, primarily-herbivorous species lives entirely on land as an adult, with other members of its genus widespread well across the mainland and the surrounding islands thanks to the manner in which they reproduce. While land-dwellers as adults, they return to water to breed, releasing thousands of planktonic young that drift into the sea far and wide, eventually seeking out islands and shores as they mature and moving onto land once molted into miniature adults. The insular giant landshrab, however, has become a distinct species, as it prefers to spawn in tide pools, where its young are well-protected. They bear smaller clutches, but larger and more-developed young, which, with their secluded upbringing, have become reproductively isolated from the other seafaring species of landshrabs.

The beaches and shores of this island, in the meantime, have become the rookeries of another unique endemic species, the ridgeland gnawrus (Macrootariimys dimorphis), an omnivorous bayver that gathers here in great numbers to rest, breed, and birth their pups. Most distinctively, males can grow up to thrice as large as females, and sport powerful incisors and canine-like first molars: useful for both feeding on a wide array of food like shrish, shrabs, bivalves and even marine plants on occasion, and also for fighting rival males to score breeding rights to harems of receptive females. This aggressive dominance-based hierarchy is the reason behind their marked dimorphism, as the larger males held an advantage when it came to battling for mates and territory, pushing smaller, weaker males to the fringes of the colony where they are both more exposed to predation by phorcas and have lesser reproductive success: factors that heavily skew the sex ratio of the adult gnawrus population toward fewer males and more numerous females.

Smaller species live on the island as well. In the absence of typical "basic rodents" such as furbils and duskmice, a small, flight-inhibited ratbat, the ridge rockbat (Micropteronyctus coralinsulus), fills their niche instead, scurrying about on the ground to feed on seeds, roots, tender shoots and small invertebrates, being a poor and infrequent flier that spends most of its time on the ground seeking cover underneath dense vegetation. A small rattile lives here too: the reef ridge rafter (Insulosauromys coralis), which roams the coasts of the island during dusk and dawn, feeding on insects and other small arthropods. Able to float on water thanks to microscopic hairs on its underside that make it nearly completely waterproof, holdovers from its ancestors that lived in the rainy, flood-prone jungles of South Ecatoria, a lucky few survived being washed out to sea and made it to the island by floating there, either on their own accord or hitching a ride on driftwood or beachpeach fruit, a small percent arriving just in time before they succumbed to dehydration or predation.

But rafting is not the only way for a rattile to settle onto a secluded island where they can evolve in isolation. On the Strait Isle, east of South Ecatoria, some have done so in a perhaps unexpected manner: they flew there.

On the forest floors of the island, the thorny quilldrake (Echinopteromys stridulus) roams the leaf litter, searching for the abundant small invertebrates that it eats. It would otherwise be a typical rattile at first glance, save for four spiny appendages on its back that in males, are rubbed together to produce high-pitched noises: a feature that betrays its ancestry as a flightless wingle that had emerged independently from the nephtiles of Isla de Oof.

Unlike the nephtiles, however, the flightless wingles of Strait Isle have remained small and inconspicuous, and no longer produce a flighted juvenile stage. Their wings, modified hair attached to muscular knobs, have been reduced to small keratinous spikes, as is the case with the ground spurwing (Apterasauromys rotundus), a burrowing herbivore that uses its moveable spikes as defensive structures when the solitary creatures tussle against their own species over territory and food.

The forest floor, in the meantime, is teeming with more unusual creatures: golden miteshrabs (Aurocarcinocaris minimus), tiny land shrabs that time their breeding cycles to the high tides as they, like the giant landshrabs of Reef Ridge, are terrestrial crustaceans that still return to sea to breed. They swarm along the ground by the thousands, even millions, carpeting the forest floors and beaches in a bright yellow mass of moving bodies migrating oceanward. Such conspicuous gatherings draw the attention of many predators, such as quilldrakes as well as seagoing ratbats and shore-living skwoids, but, numbering in such quantities, the proportion consumed by predators scarcely even dents their teeming numbers.

The isle's most remarkable and intriguing inhabitant, however, is perhaps the muddy fudgeback (Amphibiocheloimys pterapus), a member of a group of marine shingles known as the sterapins. Uniquely among its clade, which are fully-aquatic as they give birth to live young, the fudgeback retains the ability to haul itself ashore and bask in the warm suns' rays, its dark coloration helping it raise its temperature quicker at such a cool southern latitude. Feeding on mockjellies and sea plants as adults, the young are conversely carnivorous to fuel their rapid growth, and their ability to clamber onto land enables the juveniles to pursue and feast upon the abundance of golden miteshrabs whenever they migrate to the seashore.

North of the mainland is the Peachland Isle: a small landmass once connected to the mainland that broke off at least a few million years ago. As such, most of its species, as recent divergences, still resemble the species of the northern beachpeach forests, yet are still recognizable as their own distinct species.

The entire landmass is basically covered in beachpeach forest, and thus its residents are ones specialized for a mix of the aquatic and arboreal. Present here are the sunkeys, specifically the yellow sunkey (Xanthaquapithecomys insularis), living in social groups that forage in the water for aquatic plants, beachpeach fruit and marine invertebrates, and retreat into the canopy of the overhanging branches to seek safety from occasional transient predators such as bayvers and cricetaceans that sometimes visit the flooded forests. Similarly adapted is the peachland tree rodder (Arbolutromys leptopus), which can climb up the trunks of the beachpeach to rest safely for the evening. They coexist quite amicably with the sunkeys due to them being specialized eaters of quillnobs and other marine gastropods and thus competing very little over food, though during the breeding season when the sunkeys become more territorial the tree rodders are often bullied away by their otherwise usually placid neighbors, and thus wisely learn to keep their distance during this time.

Meanwhile, inching along the branches of the canopy trees is the green beachpeach piedviper (Arbophiosauromys viridans), a burrowurm that much like the sunkeys and tree rodders lives a double life as both tree-climber and semi-aquatic swimmer, equipped with both hooked limbs and tail for clinging onto branches, and a long, flexible body that can undulate smoothly to propel it through the water. Most piedvipers are insectivores, and in this case it plays a similar niche in a very different ecosystem: its diet consists of peachroot mermites (Myrmecocaris spp.). These colonial shrish live among the root systems of the beachpeach trees, and even excavate tunnels in the wood with their claws to build shelters in the roots where their egg-laying queens can reside. The green beachpeach piedviper, while resting amidst the treetops most of the time, descends into the water to feed on the mermites, providing an important service in keeping the mermites under control lest they damage the roots too much and harm, weaken or even kill the host tree.

And furthest east to the mainland is the peculiar Isla Pterodens: an atoll composed of a circular volcanic landmass surrounding a shallow central lagoon. This lagoon is teeming with life where photosynthetic algae grow in abundance and small shrish and pescopods gather in large shoals to seek refuge from deeper-water predators: eventually bringing about one of the most remarkable phenomena of evolution illustrating both its resilience and also its limitations.

Titan prunejaws (Titanopteromys thanotherium), notable for their wrinkled, ridged and brightly-colored lower wattle found on the males as a sexual display, are one of the heaviest of the flying pterodents, and range around the southern coasts of the mainland, primarily feeding on small aquatic prey but also being drawn to beached carrion of dead marine animals, being opportunistic scavengers as well when such a calorie-rich meal presents itself. Due to their weight and laborious takeoff, flight is an energy-intensive effort that remained due to its payoff in allowing the prunejaw to find food and escape danger: which makes it perhaps rather unsurprising that, upon settling onto Isla Pterodens, the prunejaws very quickly abandoned flight in just a few generations when presented with a productive land, with no terrestrial enemies, where they could simply wade through the lagoon and easily forage in the abundance, becoming the insular subspecies known as the inevitable prunejaw (T. thanotherium invictus).

And inevitable indeed they seem, for, prior to their current colonization in the last few hundred thousand years, the atoll of Isla Pterodens had completely sunk beneath the waves during warmer periods of decreased glaciation and elevated sea levels. Their idyllic paradise now an inescapable death trap, the now-flightless prunejaws were unable to escape the demise of their home, and quickly became extinct...at least, for the time being.

In the fluctuating sea levels of the Temperocene, as the polar ice caps expand and recede, the atoll had since submerged, and subsequently, re-emerged, at least several times in relatively recent history, within the span of a couple million years. And each time, as its productive shallow lagoons became ever so suitable, nearly tempting, to the prunejaws, they repeatedly came to settle here, became flightless to conserve energy and resources, and invariably perished when the landmass disappeared into the sea. Evolution, devoid of a goal, had cyclically doomed a small population to repeated extinction in its haste to remove an ability no longer currently useful, without the foresight of it becoming advantageous in a later ecological change. And yet, in seeming display of what could almost be called stubborness, the same species landed upon the same atoll and became the same thing that had lived and died there not too long ago: perhaps again and again for as long that the island's empty niche, and the species built to fill it, continue to exist across the span of deep time. The inevitable prunejaw is but the latest iteration in a series of evolutionary experiments that serve as examples to highlight the absence of any direction to evolution's random progression-- save for whoever or whatever is just 'good enough' to survive in the moment.

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#speculative evolution #speculative biology #speculative zoology #spec evo #hamster's paradise #biome post

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