10 ms·

In Jordan, an ancient bread tradition rises again

90 points by Thevet 4y ago

giraffe_lady 4y ago
> Many countries in Europe subsidize their wheat—a soft variety better suited for white flour—before exporting it, thereby lowering its price. Jordan, on the other hand, has been restricted for years by the conditions of loans from the International Monetary Fund and World Bank, and cannot subsidize its growers’ durum. Today, in the face of cheap imports, the former breadbasket now produces only 2 percent of its own wheat. Wow that's brutal. Not news that the IMF is used in this way but it's rare to see the specific mechanisms and their side effects so clearly.
- ggm 4y ago
  The world bank and IMF have no concept of biosecurity or self reliance in food. Least cost and open market is all they have as guiding principle from what I see. If somebody has better info I'd love to know. If my memory is correct both institutions and the European equivalent are overrun by Chicago school types. Varoufakis is not brilliant but his critique of how international finance regimes treat national banks who step into another paradigm is brilliant, and worth reading. It may be self serving, but that does not (to me) undermine how duplicitous the world banking leadership can be. Regarding Greece their only concern was "save germany" Lebanon's loss of their grain store should be a wake up call. There are domestic reasons why it happened and international consequences of why they wound up there.
  - EdwardDiego 4y ago
    To paraphrase Reagan, the most terrifying words are "I'm from the IMF and I'm here to help".
    - ggm 4y ago
      I think the same could be said of the European bank for reconstruction and development. Here, have money, but with these union busting, open market, no strategic national interest in food and other security strings. Oh, and we're forcing a 20%+ cut across the board on pensions and welfare because you need more poor people.
      - EdwardDiego 4y ago
        I imagine they recruit similar pie-in-the-sky economic theorists. Just sucks when it's your country we're testing our theories out on.
      - pjc50 4y ago
        > no strategic national interest in food Strange that they ended up there given that the entire rationale of the CAP was continent-wide security in food.
  - tkk23 4y ago
    Why had German banks invested in Greek securities at all? They must have known that the criteria for the Euro had been only fulfilled on paper. Or asked the other way round: Why do countries join the Euro when neither Sweden nor Great Britain do and (almost) all economists say that it doesn't work if you have a weak economy?
    - Mikeb85 4y ago
      > Why do countries join the Euro when neither Sweden nor Great Britain do and (almost) all economists say that it doesn't work if you have a weak economy? Politics. If you have a weak economy it's perceived by the population that switching to a strong currency will instantly increase their purchasing power.
      - nickdothutton 4y ago
        If you have a weak economy and weak currency (which you have repeatedly printed in order to pay off debt, like Greece, Italy, etc) then your borrowing cost eventually becomes high as banks get wise to your behaviour. If you switch to the Euro then your borrowing cost magically becomes low (since you cant unilaterally just print money). If your economy still doesnt reform then eventually you cant pay your euro debt… and you have the Greek situation. Can’t print, no-longer have a low-cost, low wage, low tax, low regulation economy (since you conformed to the EU/Euro area regulations). The trick for politicians is getting out of there before the public realises this.
    - ggm 4y ago
      I class "they must have known" in the same bucket as "the Greeks lied about their economy" -both wrong, but the European banking system decided Greece must pay and Germany must not pay these consequences. To me, that undermined the mutuality which is presumably why the EU exists. Both Sweden and Great Britain looked at national specific economic things. GB I think in the main it was for city of London finance sector reasons and parochialism about the pound. Sweden, it was put to referendum.
      - tkk23 4y ago
- EdwardDiego 4y ago
  New Zealand is, as far as I'm aware, one of the few Western countries that doesn't subsidise agriculture or protect it with tariffs on competing imports. (We still subsidise it in other ways, like Crown funded R&D, although that's viewable as an investment, especially around methane emission reductions, but also implicitly subsidise it by not making polluting industries pay for their externalities, but these are minuscule in comparison to the market interventions present overseas). The US, UK, and EU make heavy usage of both subsidies and tariffs. The IMF is renowned for their endorsement of "free market for thee, but not for me".
  - thebooktocome 4y ago
    The remoteness of New Zealand is effectively already a tariff on many imported goods.
    - EdwardDiego 4y ago
      Yet when we removed tariffs, nearly all local manufacturing was immediately out-competed. We haven't manufactured cars here since the early 80s when tariffs were dropped, although to be fair, by then it was Japanese companies manufacturing cars here, not Kiwis in particular, our automotive industry is ahem renowned for the Trekka[0], Duzgo[1], and of course, the Bob Semple "Tank"[2]. Likewise, our clothing manufacturing industry has shrunk to a few niche companies that focus on export. When subsidies and tariffs were removed from the agricultural sector, it forced quite a few farmers into bankruptcy and there were some suicides. It caused very real pain, but it now means that our agricultural industry is strong enough to be competitive in markets where their domestic producer competitors are getting significant assistance from the government. Our neoliberal phase did a lot of harm, but there was some good. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trekka https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trekka [1]: https://spiritmagazine.co.nz/2017/04/04/it-duzgo/ https://spiritmagazine.co.nz/2017/04/04/it-duzgo/ [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Semple_tank https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Semple_tank
- colechristensen 4y ago
  The IMF is really fucked up. Putting pressure on certain essential markets so they aren’t entirely lost to foreign competitors in different situations is necessary for a healthy local economy. Balancing greed and necessity is hard, but the only people advocating for totally free markets are the winners in those arrangements.
- machina_ex_deus 4y ago
  The IMF destroying local economies like that was one of the major plot points of Zelensky TV show, servants of the people, which was how he became president in Ukraine. (He pivoted the show into getting elected). It was ironic to watch his character even suggesting conspiracy theories that the IMF assassinates presidents opposing them, while the real world Zelensky is now under the biggest danger of assassination.
chubot 4y ago
Ancient/authentic wheat varieties taste amazing !!! I like millet, einkorn, wheat berry, rye berry, kamut, etc. I get them at the farmer's market. Totally worth it This was a revelation in taste and health in my 40's :) I realized that all the no carb / low carb fads of the past few years could be replaced with eating what people were eating thousands of years ago, before economic optimization turned wheat into nutrient-free, calorie dense commodity. (Similar things happened with rice and corn -- the heirloom varieties are amazing; the commodity stuff is highly processed and has fewer nutrients) --- Remember there was that trend of people eating a McDonald's hamburger without the bun? Do people still do that? They were onto something (processed wheat makes you sick), but the sad thing is that the real solution isn't available because of economics. You could eat it with real bread from heirloom wheat, and it wouldn't cause the health problems. But you don't have that option. (Although obviously the meat leaves something to be desired too) --- Another random anecdote: the first episode of Chef's Table: Pizza on Netflix now tells the story of an Italian guy from NYC who discovered amazing wheat in Arizona and makes acclaimed pizza there :)
- cma 4y ago
  Commodity corn on the cob is highly processed? Was that a mistake?
  - djur 4y ago
    I think there's a good point to be made here: selective breeding has resulted in fruits and vegetables that are nutritionally far different from their predecessors, and yet we usually consider those foods "natural" and "unprocessed". Corn is much sweeter than it was even a few decades ago.
    - colechristensen 4y ago
      The corn you eat off the cob is a very specific set of varieties which make up a tiny tiny tiny percentage of corn crops produced for other purposes. Bred to have sugars instead of starches at a specific development stage, and mostly to keep that for long enough to make it through the supply chain. Actual fresh properly ripe sweet corn is a kind of “loses its best characteristics in hours” situation, unfortunately. Sweet corn traits have little to do with the rest of the corn crop. Any corn (maize) is unrecognizable compared to its unmodified form and has been for hundreds or thousands of years.
tomcam 4y ago
No recipe!
- genericlogic 4y ago
  I really want to know the name of the sweet bread shown at the top of the article.
  - an_aparallel 4y ago
    me too ! :) alas...the article states it is an artisinal bread - you're unlikely to find it anywhere online. But as a Palestinian/lived in Jordon for 6 years - the closest i can think of is a home-made variety of kaak (literally translates to 'cake') which is a bread stick containing syrian oregano (zataar) and sugar in the dough, dipped in a combo of white sesame seeds and nigella seds. Usually shaped thin and long.
bobowzki 4y ago
> rises again Good pun.
kwere 4y ago
the dumping of agricultural products is bad for local farmers but good for low income folks, no one forces jordans to buy the 3x cheaper imported wheat over the local variety. this is still a win for the people. I only hope these variety will find gourmet use and/or be saved for preservation. coming from farmer family, really missing a lot of products: canapy cloth, local cereals, mulberry, local tench, local nuts, etc...

90 points by Thevet 4y ago

> Many countries in Europe subsidize their wheat—a soft variety better suited for white flour—before exporting it, thereby lowering its price. Jordan, on the other hand, has been restricted for years by the conditions of loans from the International Monetary Fund and World Bank, and cannot subsidize its growers’ durum. Today, in the face of cheap imports, the former breadbasket now produces only 2 percent of its own wheat. Wow that's brutal. Not news that the IMF is used in this way but it's rare to see the specific mechanisms and their side effects so clearly.

ggm 4y ago
The world bank and IMF have no concept of biosecurity or self reliance in food. Least cost and open market is all they have as guiding principle from what I see. If somebody has better info I'd love to know. If my memory is correct both institutions and the European equivalent are overrun by Chicago school types. Varoufakis is not brilliant but his critique of how international finance regimes treat national banks who step into another paradigm is brilliant, and worth reading. It may be self serving, but that does not (to me) undermine how duplicitous the world banking leadership can be. Regarding Greece their only concern was "save germany" Lebanon's loss of their grain store should be a wake up call. There are domestic reasons why it happened and international consequences of why they wound up there.
- EdwardDiego 4y ago
  To paraphrase Reagan, the most terrifying words are "I'm from the IMF and I'm here to help".
  - ggm 4y ago
    I think the same could be said of the European bank for reconstruction and development. Here, have money, but with these union busting, open market, no strategic national interest in food and other security strings. Oh, and we're forcing a 20%+ cut across the board on pensions and welfare because you need more poor people.
    - EdwardDiego 4y ago
      I imagine they recruit similar pie-in-the-sky economic theorists. Just sucks when it's your country we're testing our theories out on.
    - pjc50 4y ago
      > no strategic national interest in food Strange that they ended up there given that the entire rationale of the CAP was continent-wide security in food.
- tkk23 4y ago
  Why had German banks invested in Greek securities at all? They must have known that the criteria for the Euro had been only fulfilled on paper. Or asked the other way round: Why do countries join the Euro when neither Sweden nor Great Britain do and (almost) all economists say that it doesn't work if you have a weak economy?
  - Mikeb85 4y ago
    > Why do countries join the Euro when neither Sweden nor Great Britain do and (almost) all economists say that it doesn't work if you have a weak economy? Politics. If you have a weak economy it's perceived by the population that switching to a strong currency will instantly increase their purchasing power.
    - nickdothutton 4y ago
      If you have a weak economy and weak currency (which you have repeatedly printed in order to pay off debt, like Greece, Italy, etc) then your borrowing cost eventually becomes high as banks get wise to your behaviour. If you switch to the Euro then your borrowing cost magically becomes low (since you cant unilaterally just print money). If your economy still doesnt reform then eventually you cant pay your euro debt… and you have the Greek situation. Can’t print, no-longer have a low-cost, low wage, low tax, low regulation economy (since you conformed to the EU/Euro area regulations). The trick for politicians is getting out of there before the public realises this.
  - ggm 4y ago
    I class "they must have known" in the same bucket as "the Greeks lied about their economy" -both wrong, but the European banking system decided Greece must pay and Germany must not pay these consequences. To me, that undermined the mutuality which is presumably why the EU exists. Both Sweden and Great Britain looked at national specific economic things. GB I think in the main it was for city of London finance sector reasons and parochialism about the pound. Sweden, it was put to referendum.
    - tkk23 4y ago
EdwardDiego 4y ago
New Zealand is, as far as I'm aware, one of the few Western countries that doesn't subsidise agriculture or protect it with tariffs on competing imports. (We still subsidise it in other ways, like Crown funded R&D, although that's viewable as an investment, especially around methane emission reductions, but also implicitly subsidise it by not making polluting industries pay for their externalities, but these are minuscule in comparison to the market interventions present overseas). The US, UK, and EU make heavy usage of both subsidies and tariffs. The IMF is renowned for their endorsement of "free market for thee, but not for me".
- thebooktocome 4y ago
  The remoteness of New Zealand is effectively already a tariff on many imported goods.
  - EdwardDiego 4y ago
    Yet when we removed tariffs, nearly all local manufacturing was immediately out-competed. We haven't manufactured cars here since the early 80s when tariffs were dropped, although to be fair, by then it was Japanese companies manufacturing cars here, not Kiwis in particular, our automotive industry is ahem renowned for the Trekka[0], Duzgo[1], and of course, the Bob Semple "Tank"[2]. Likewise, our clothing manufacturing industry has shrunk to a few niche companies that focus on export. When subsidies and tariffs were removed from the agricultural sector, it forced quite a few farmers into bankruptcy and there were some suicides. It caused very real pain, but it now means that our agricultural industry is strong enough to be competitive in markets where their domestic producer competitors are getting significant assistance from the government. Our neoliberal phase did a lot of harm, but there was some good. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trekka https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trekka [1]: https://spiritmagazine.co.nz/2017/04/04/it-duzgo/ https://spiritmagazine.co.nz/2017/04/04/it-duzgo/ [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Semple_tank https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Semple_tank
colechristensen 4y ago
The IMF is really fucked up. Putting pressure on certain essential markets so they aren’t entirely lost to foreign competitors in different situations is necessary for a healthy local economy. Balancing greed and necessity is hard, but the only people advocating for totally free markets are the winners in those arrangements.
machina_ex_deus 4y ago
The IMF destroying local economies like that was one of the major plot points of Zelensky TV show, servants of the people, which was how he became president in Ukraine. (He pivoted the show into getting elected). It was ironic to watch his character even suggesting conspiracy theories that the IMF assassinates presidents opposing them, while the real world Zelensky is now under the biggest danger of assassination.

chubot 4y ago

Ancient/authentic wheat varieties taste amazing !!! I like millet, einkorn, wheat berry, rye berry, kamut, etc. I get them at the farmer's market. Totally worth it This was a revelation in taste and health in my 40's :) I realized that all the no carb / low carb fads of the past few years could be replaced with eating what people were eating thousands of years ago, before economic optimization turned wheat into nutrient-free, calorie dense commodity. (Similar things happened with rice and corn -- the heirloom varieties are amazing; the commodity stuff is highly processed and has fewer nutrients) --- Remember there was that trend of people eating a McDonald's hamburger without the bun? Do people still do that? They were onto something (processed wheat makes you sick), but the sad thing is that the real solution isn't available because of economics. You could eat it with real bread from heirloom wheat, and it wouldn't cause the health problems. But you don't have that option. (Although obviously the meat leaves something to be desired too) --- Another random anecdote: the first episode of Chef's Table: Pizza on Netflix now tells the story of an Italian guy from NYC who discovered amazing wheat in Arizona and makes acclaimed pizza there :)

cma 4y ago
Commodity corn on the cob is highly processed? Was that a mistake?
- djur 4y ago
  I think there's a good point to be made here: selective breeding has resulted in fruits and vegetables that are nutritionally far different from their predecessors, and yet we usually consider those foods "natural" and "unprocessed". Corn is much sweeter than it was even a few decades ago.
  - colechristensen 4y ago
    The corn you eat off the cob is a very specific set of varieties which make up a tiny tiny tiny percentage of corn crops produced for other purposes. Bred to have sugars instead of starches at a specific development stage, and mostly to keep that for long enough to make it through the supply chain. Actual fresh properly ripe sweet corn is a kind of “loses its best characteristics in hours” situation, unfortunately. Sweet corn traits have little to do with the rest of the corn crop. Any corn (maize) is unrecognizable compared to its unmodified form and has been for hundreds or thousands of years.

tomcam 4y ago

No recipe!

genericlogic 4y ago
I really want to know the name of the sweet bread shown at the top of the article.
- an_aparallel 4y ago
  me too ! :) alas...the article states it is an artisinal bread - you're unlikely to find it anywhere online. But as a Palestinian/lived in Jordon for 6 years - the closest i can think of is a home-made variety of kaak (literally translates to 'cake') which is a bread stick containing syrian oregano (zataar) and sugar in the dough, dipped in a combo of white sesame seeds and nigella seds. Usually shaped thin and long.

bobowzki 4y ago

> rises again Good pun.

kwere 4y ago

the dumping of agricultural products is bad for local farmers but good for low income folks, no one forces jordans to buy the 3x cheaper imported wheat over the local variety. this is still a win for the people. I only hope these variety will find gourmet use and/or be saved for preservation. coming from farmer family, really missing a lot of products: canapy cloth, local cereals, mulberry, local tench, local nuts, etc...