Rachel Laudan

In my earlier post I suggested that traditionally farming was men’s work and post-harvest processing women’s work. That may be the general pattern.  There are lots of exceptions though. Women do a whole lot of farming, including the staples in many societies.  Men do a lot of post-harvest processing, threshing of grains, for example.  In [...]

“Difficulty between the United States and Great Britain about Wild Pigs.” How can anyone not love a title like that? It’s from the New York Times, May 23, 1854, p. 4. The story explains that American whalemen had killed a few wild pigs on one of the Falkland Islands and that England and America were [...]

As I thought about it, I decided to make this a separate post. In Hawaii, the question of native Hawaiian heritage has expanded from maintaining taro cultivation, the big topic in the 90s, to include hand pounding taro to make poi.  To all of you out there who suspect that a purple puree can’t be [...]