In the Search of Wonder

This year We are about to embark upon a long tale.  It has many twists to it, and at times will appear confusing and even ridiculous, but the terminus will warrant the journey.  It must begin somewhere which is here for lack of a better starting point.

“Whenever we encounter some truly novel phenomenon, one that reinvents the margins of our world, an old hankering is awakened. At such moments we are like explorers of an unknown dimension: everything appears fresh to our eyes, each idea seems unprecedented, virgin, strange. In the face of this newly made universe, we may be tempted to exclaim, ‘It cannot be!,’ yet our protests soon lie buried under an avalanche of wonder.”

-       Dr. Wilson’s Museum of Jurassic Technology

There are things we do not understand in the World.  We approach them with anxiety unaware of what will happen.  We prepare ourselves for the Unknown and that ‘avalanche of wonder’.

There are those who seek this ‘Wonder’.  In their adventures they blaze a trail for others to follow.  This may result in an epic tale such as The World Travels of Marco Polo or a universal theory of relativity as with Albert Einstein.  Or as in the case of Auguste Escoffier it may be an enduring approach to all things culinary: recipes, kitchen organization, the creation of the chef profession.  All of which have transformed our world today.  Whatever our specialty may be, we adore those who embark upon the ‘margins of our world’ and elicit that state when ‘everything appears fresh to our eyes’.  It may be said that Chef Nordo Lefesczki, despite his crank and quack, is one such pioneer currently blazing his trail with the Carnal Food Movement.

There are those who record the Wonder.  When such Luminaries exist there must be a way to record and share the achievements.  It may be as simple as a university physics book or a painting that now hangs in the Louvre, an index of World Records or an urban myth that travels the globe on the lips.  In the case of Chef Nordo it is a Cabinet of Curiosities set to appear in Seattle in May of 2012.  For a few short weeks a selection of the Cabinet’s exhibits will be open to the public.  This is an extremely rare opportunity, one that people wait for, a once in a lifetime affair.

As we all know, food is a precious and overlooked necessity to life.  And it is Chef Nordo’s goal to rekindle the wonder of the world of food in everyone through his crafts of cooking and storytelling.  It could be said this Cabinet includes every idea, fact, myth, and imaginative spark ever to be inspired by our food.  Café Nordo is the stage for Chef Nordo’s stories.  The Cabinet of Curiosities is the repository of all that knowledge.

Someone must keep this knowledge alive.  Here, it is stored.

Down a rabbit hole.  Swept away by a tornado.  Tumbled into Slumberland. 

Visited by the spirits of Past, Present, and Future.

This is the only way to describe what Nordo has in store for us in his next and most outlandish endeavor yet.  Stay tuned as we explore this Cabinet of Curiosities in anticipation of its Grand Opening in Seattle 2012.

Part 3- Tomorrow's New World Order

And here, before we launch into the New Year, the final chapter of the Petra Proudhurst papers. 

What are we to do with this knowledge of the Space Age?  Do we waste it letting it rot in the laboratories of the world?  Or do we step boldly forward with this knowledge and ensure a better future?  The choice is obvious.

As the leaders of the world it is our responsibility to respond to the challenges of the future and focus our resources and imagination on solutions.  I say let our imaginations shine.  We cannot stand idly by and expect our dreams to come true under their own power.  The future is not a gift but an achievement.

I look into the laboratory and see a future in which struggle for sustenance has vanished.

I envision supermarkets overflowing with the foods of the world.  Piles of fruits and vegetables in the heart of winter.  Aisles of canned soups and packaged dinners.  I see jars of cured meats for .45 and cans of tropical fruit 5 for a $1 from Kansas City to Singapore.  A fully nutritious meal for a family of 4 will be prepared in under 15 minutes.  And for desert, individually wrapped pies for the whole family.  Now you can have your cake and eat it too.

In the future, supplements will counter deficiencies in vitamins and minerals.  Artificial flavors will provide the spice of life to any dish.  With advances in food preservation the daily trip to the grocery store will not exist.  The pantry will be the breadbox of the home.

As this new technology expands around the globe there will be the inevitable excess of grain.  Imagine cheap breads for every child.  A limitless food source for our livestock.  Meat prices will plummet and the food of kings will be for every man. With new food resources social equality will simply grow on the tide of abundance.  It is simply a matter of vision and willpower.

Man has worked with nature from its beginnings to create a more hospitable world.  It is our magic touch to use our imagination to improve our world.  It is not a utopia but it is a step in that direction.  Now is the time to act.  Do not hesitate. 

I am confident in the engineering of today for a better tomorrow.

The struggle against Convenience Food continues.

Secrets Part 2

Frontier of the Future

The world today is made, is powered, is penetrated through and through with science.  Let us look into the face of the future.  We see the long shadows of problems that already extend across the land today.  Increasing populations, diminishing resources, pollution of sea and air.  Is this the prospect we face?  Or through knowledge and understanding can we shape our future into one more befitting the human dignity and spirit.

We look to the frontiers of the future with confidence that man will master nature through understanding.  And it is to this end of understanding that we scientists labor today.

19 years ago, in 1943, Mexico faced droughts that threatened millions with starvation because of a virus; stem rust.  My mentor, Norman Balroug, plant geneticist and pathologist, arrived with radical ideas straight from the laboratories of Dupont.  Immediately, he setup a facility financed by the Ford and Rockefeller Foundations.  Under his hand we developed a wheat variety resistant to stem rust using multiple pure lines as parents.  This alone saved thousands of acres of crops.  But Norman did not stop there.

He began breeding varieties that absorb more nitrogen and so grow more grains.  He introduced nitrogen fertilizers that doubled the yield on a single stalk.  But these plants bent and broke under their productive weight.  Field after field toppled over as if a hurricane had swept through.  I had the great opportunity of witnessing his most brilliant moment.  He brought over Japanese dwarf wheat with a thicker stem, the Daruma, and melded that wheat variety into the population.  The result, a sturdy, productive plant.

Doctor Balroug created the first high-yield variety plant, resistant to disease, responsive to fertilizers, accepting of pesticides, and thus began the Green Revolution.  Today, Mexico exports wheat to the rest of the world.

We have isolated the beneficial genes of wheat, corn, and rice and cloned them.  GA 20 increases oxygen intake.  Rht reduces height.  Sd1 dwarfs the rice plant. The earth is a machine.  It can be improved as any other machine provided you have the right tools.  We have developed these tools, and they promise a wealth of results.

Tests have begun in India in the Punjab province that will triple food production there.  In Southeast Asia the new rice strain, IR8, has left our laboratory and entered the farmer’s field.  Beginning this year, Standard Oil of New Jersey will supply the farmers of the Philippines with seed packets complete with individually developed pesticides and nitrogen pellets.  In the same packet.  Imagine.

There is an old Byzantine proverb that says, “He who has bread has many problems.  He who has no bread has only one problem.”

Human ingenuity has taken the head seat at the table and presented us with a new range of tools so that we need not worry about that one problem.  We can alter the very structure of life to suit our needs.  This is opportunity, plain and simple, to save our tomorrow. We have created answers to our challenges.  We have created a global agriculture industry the world will never forget.

Thank you.

Secrets Part 1

Found among the files.  Stuffed into the corners.  Crumpled and stained with coffee.  These pages hint at when and where our secrets began.  

The year is 1962.  Our world is waiting for something new, bulging at the seams.

It is the age of superpowers, a chess match between the United States and the Soviet Union.  In May of 1960 a US spy plane was shot down in Soviet airspace broiling tensions.  The pilot is still in captivity.  Last year the Bay of Pigs invasion fell flat and embarrassed the newly elected President Kennedy.  As the construction of the Berlin Wall divided Germany, the Soviet Union sent the first man into orbit and claimed technological superiority. Neither side will budge. Today, the game involves the entire world without a checkmate in sight.  What is the next move?  Is there a game changer, a single swipe that guarantees success?

It is the age of commercialization.  AT & T launched Telstar, the world’s first communication satellite, and television has become king.  In the comfort of our living rooms we see what to buy to make life better.  Everything is for sale; it just takes the right pitch.

It is the Space Age.  The Boeing 707, launched 4 years ago, shrunk the world.  Britain and France promise to develop a supersonic passenger plane to cross the Atlantic in 3 hours.  Mariner II reached Venus and sent us the first signals from another planet.  The goal is for man to set foot on the moon that luminescent ball in the night sky.

There is another age, one that most people are less aware of.  It is the age of agriculture, or as we in the industry call it, the Green Revolution.  Food problems have haunted mankind since the beginning.  The food needs of growing populations were always met by expanding cultivated land.  Not 50 years ago the intellects of the world foresaw mass starvation.  But investments in scientific research have led to dramatic breakthroughs.

The story of English wheat is typical.  This ancient crossbreed of wild wheat and goat grass became the first mass scale agricultural product.  Farmed by hand and planted once a year it yielded a meager crop.  Over 10,000 years humans developed the plow, the seed drill, and rotation crops so that yields increased 4 fold. Today, new plant breeds, inorganic fertilizers, and modern pesticides have tripled that in 20 years. Today, industrial countries have eliminated the threat of starvation.

The world is on the verge of a new age; the Age of Tomorrow.  Let us project ahead to an age of prosperity in which technology ushers in an era of leisure.  With new textiles, new building materials, new colors, new flavor enhancements, new hair products, new fuels nothing is impossible.  Never before has humanity made such progress in understanding the world.  We stand on the edge of tomorrow.