Reassortment in Meat Biomass

More on the mashup:

• "An unusually mongrelised mix of genetic sequences from North American pigs, Eurasian pigs, birds and humans." or
• "The Mexican swine flu, a genetic chimera probably conceived in the faecal mire of an industrial pigsty, suddenly threatens to give the whole world a fever." Mike Davis, Guardian or
• "The people making these statements know perfectly well that the Mexican flu virus is the very recent descendant of one of the triple reassortants that have been circulating in the U.S. for a decade. " or
  
• watch it all on the M e a t r i x

Flu image of Wordle is licensed under CC

Beetroots with Red Rice and Pine Nuts

GET
500 g Beetroot
250 g Thai Red Jasmine Rice/or Camargue red rice
1 cup of Pine nuts/ Macademia

Dressing:
Some Olive oil
Some Mirin/Lemon juice

Garnish:
Greens leaves of (rucola, parsely etc)
Optional:
Yogurt with garlic

DO
Steam rice. Cook beets and peel. Prepare a dressing from the olive oil and mirin. Pour 1/3 over the cooked rice and the rest over the warm, peeled and cubed beets. Roast the nuts. Arrange green leaves on a platter. Place rice in the middle and the beet cubes in a ring around it. Sprinkle the warm nuts on the rice. Serve hot or cold. Yogurt with or without garlic could be served with it. Feta also fits well.

Image: Beuckelaer, Joachim, 1564, Detail of Market Woman with Fruit, Vegetables and Poultry via Zeno

Macadamia bush cookies

Quantities of ingredients are very flexible with this recipe. The main thing is to get the texture right by balancing other ingredients with the right amount of flour. Increase the quantity of nuts and decrease the amount of flour as required. Who has scales in the bush anyway?

Get
250g unsalted butter
4-5 tbsp bush honey
250g macadamia nuts, finely grated by hand
about 500g wholemeal spelt flour
Do
Beat soft butter with honey. Use more honey if you like.
Mix in grated macadamia nuts.
Add flour gradually while beating until the mixture is not sticky. Knead with hands to get the pastry to a non-stick consistency.
Cool
Roll out on a floured linen tea towel into a flat rectangular shape. Cut out rectangular biscuits with a knife and decorate each biscuit with the knife tip in the shape of a star. Place them on a buttered tray.
Bake at 180° on the second oven shelf for about 12 minutes (depending on the size and thickness of the biscuits). Biscuits should be cooked through but light in colour.
Cool. Store in a tin.
Image: Cézanne, Paul, Detail of The Sideboard, 1873–1877 via Zeno

Guava Compote - The Dorrigo Way

Guava or Feijoa (Psidium) are, like other good foods, cultivated in the neotropic ecozone. Here, on the feet of Dorrigo National Park they are allowed to go 'feral' like so many other flora and fauna.

Collecting the ripe fruit, they exude a strong fragrance filling rooms for hours.

Compote
The scooped out fruit-pulp can be cooked with a bit of water. If you do not like the large seeds, strain them. This is best done (Ad alarm!) with a chinois strainer and the matching beechwood conical pestle. Add a dash of honey and cool. Local wild-foods connoisseurs, who inspired this method of preparation, use the skins and seeds as well to prepare the compote. Serve with yogurt.

Others use the fruit to bake a 'Guava and macadamia torte' or use them for dressing.