Curious Cook: Tales from a food diary, part 1

Donkeys at work in Nigeria. In Delta State, donkey hides are shipped to China, where they are boiled down and the gelatin, known as ejiao, is sold in a market thought to be worth hundreds of millions of dollars every year. Photo: AFP

As with most people, my interests are varied and do not only cover food items – though I really like news and inspirations about food as they are often quirky and interestingly diverse. Friends and family also ensure that I constantly have a rather huge backlog of videos, articles and research to review about many subjects so there is seldom enough time to cram every-thing in.

But I diligently always try to stay abreast of things, and here are some items that caught my eye in the the final week of October 2017 (Halloween week) and it is my habit to jot down any curious titbits and thoughts in a diary. From the logs of the food-related items in the diary, there is sometimes the seed of a new article worth researching further – but as you will see, the stream of information is rather ceaseless and often overwhelming.