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World Food Prices Fall to Levels of a Year Ago, UN Says — WSJ
By Yusuf Khan
Food prices fell for the eighth consecutive month in November to levels just above those of a year ago, according to a report published Friday by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations.
The FAO’s food-price index, a closely watched barometer of global food prices, averaged 135.7 points in November, marginally down from the October reading of 135.9. Prices hit an all-time high in March when the index reached 159.7.
Prices are now sitting just 0.3% ahead of where they were in November 2021, led by easing cereal, meat and dairy prices, the UN body said Friday.
The UN FAO’s cereal price index averaged 150.4 points in November, down 1.3% from the October reading, though this still remains 6.3% higher than November 2021. Wheat prices fell 2.8% on month, dragged by Russia agreeing to renew the Black Sea Grain initiative , allowing for food to pass safely out of Ukraine despite the war.
Rice prices, which have been broadly steady despite the worries over grain supply this year, inched up 2.3% in November, influenced by currency appreciations against the US dollar for some Asian suppliers, the UN FAO said.
The UN FAO cut its forecast for world cereal production in 2022 by 7.2 million metric tons this month and is now pegged at 2.756 million tons, 2% lower on year, on poorer corn harvest prospects in Ukraine.
Vegetable oil prices rose by 2.3%–its first increase in seven months, driven by higher palm and soybean oil prices amid concerns over palm growing in South East Asia and strong biofuel demand soy helping to raise levels.
Dairy prices had their fifth consecutive monthly decline as they fell 1.2% from October. Prices are still 9.2% higher than they were a year ago, although supply pressures in Europe for milk powder and milk have eased.
Meat prices averaged 117.1 points in November, down 0.9% from October–a fifth consecutive monthly decline, on high bovine meat supply from Australia and Brazil. However, poultry prices rose as bird flu cut supply in producing countries.
Harvesting delays in India and higher ethanol prices in Brazil pushed sugar prices up 5.2%, their first rise in six months.
Despite the fall in commodity food prices, experts have warned that consumers are still likely to face higher prices because of volatility in key markets.
“What we’re seeing suggests that prices will stay relatively high and volatile, and that’s because supply is still constrained,” Sophia Murphy, executive director at the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy said in a call.
“If demand doesn’t change then suppliers can expect prices to be higher, and then inevitably, more volatile and this sort of reinforces itself,” Ms. Murphy said adding that uncertainty over the shipping corridor in the Black Sea was of major concern.
Last month, the Black Sea Grain deal was renewed, but prices had rallied and dropped as news emerged from discussions on which way the deal would go, with a high degree of uncertainty as to whether Russia would agree to the safe passage of food again.
Write to Yusuf Khan at [email protected]
Scallops, sprouts, ackee and saltfish: my family’s Christmas food rituals | Christmas food and drink
When I was growing up, my family didn’t have Christmas traditions so much as periods. Our festive celebrations reflected where we were as a family at any given time.
The Scallop Period was probably my favorite. A couple, Colin and Anne, moved into the house next door to my childhood home in Weymouth, and every now and then, Colin, a trawlerman, would leave a massive bag of scallops on our doorstep. Dad would clean and freeze them, ready for Christmas, when we would feast on a starter we’d otherwise never have been able to afford: scallops seared and served with bacon and pea puree.
There was also the Foraging Period, which saw the dinner table groan with jars of chutney and jelly and bottles of steeped gins I’d made with fruits and berries such as plums, hawthorns and sloes picked in the Dorset countryside during what was quite a militant obsession in my early 20s. Making them in autumn meant they’d be perfect by Christmas, and I’d give any surplus to friends as gifts.
Then there was the Brussels Sprouts Period, which was probably the longest of all, when my parents first insisted, then guilt-tripped me into eating two.
But it wasn’t just periods; there were things we returned to year in, year out. And, for people born outside Britain – my mum in Malta, Dad in Jamaica – my parents took a decidedly British approach to Christmas lunch. A roast dinner, with little loyalty to a particular bird, meaning it might be turkey, goose or duck, with all the trimmings. It would be joined by a second meat, usually lamb, and my brother and I would haggle over the bone marrow.
There were also little highlights drawn from my parents’ background, which seasoned the festivities in other ways. Ackee and saltfish for breakfast, made by my dad (if we had managed to get the ingredients from a trip to London and back to Weymouth in time, that is). There would be loads of fried dumplings and, if we were lucky, fried plantains too. If not, my second favorite, a dish of bacon, tinned tomatoes and onions all cooked together – the result is so much better than the sum of its parts – with a fried egg and a fried dumpling on the side. Even thinking about it now makes me yearn for the magical flavor that is egg yolk and tomato scooped up with dumplings.
In the lead-up to the big day, the house would be filled with the smell of Imbuljuta tal-Qastan, a classic Maltese Christmas drink made by Mum which consists of dried chestnuts simmered with cocoa, water, chocolate, cinnamon, nutmeg and orange zest. Our house could not have smelled more Christmassy if it was filled with festive Yankee Candles, though it took me years to learn to like it. These days, I can’t get enough.
Now that I have my own child, I suppose it’s my turn to establish some kind of tradition. Aside from the beef rib I buy from our local butcher every year, we haven’t really had a chance to establish any Christmas rituals, given that, for half the number of years I’ve been a parent, Covid-19 has put paid to our plans. Last year, like so many other people’s, our hopes of getting the whole family together were thwarted on Christmas Eve by one relative’s positive PCR. The beef rib went in the freezer and my partner, daughter and I had lunch at an Algerian cafe on the Old Kent Road in south-east London. We eat delicious merguez and hand-cut chips, surrounded by men playing chess, and without a hat or Christmas jumper in sight. It was wholly untraditional, and it was perfect.
The World’s Oldest “Flatbread” Was Cooked by Neanderthals 70,000 Years Ago. Recipe Includes Wild Pulses, Mustard Seed and Pistachio Nuts
Scientists have found evidence that Neanderthals—the relatives of modern humans who lived thousands of years ago—may not have been as primitive as previously believed. In fact, they may have originated in the artisanal food category. According to a study published in the journal AntiquityResearchers analyzed burnt pieces of food at a Neanderthal excavation site and found they were remnants of the world’s first “flatbread,” a recipe devised by the ancient figures for pleasing flavor.
“Our findings are the first real indications of complex cooking—and thus of food culture—among Neanderthals,” said Chris Hunt of Liverpool John Moores University, a study co-author. Read on to find out why.
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“A Prehistoric Falafel”
The findings argue against the typical picture of Neanderthals as unsophisticated. “The old stereotype is that Neanderthals were less intelligent than modern humans and that they had a largely meat-based diet,” explains Hunt. On the contrary, the researchers found evidence that Neanderthals created recipes and cooking techniques to create a kind of unleavened artisanal bread. Hunt describes it as a flatbread. The study’s leader, Ceren Kabukcu of Liverpool University, compared it to a prehistoric falafel.
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The Ingredients: “Very Palatable”
“It seems the Neanderthals smashed, or ground, then soaked a mix of wild grains and grasses, wild pulses including wild lentils, wild pistachios and, at times, wild grass seeds and grass pea fragments, then cooked the resulting mix on hot stones, ” said Hunt. The study is the earliest example of ingredients being blended together and cooked, possibly with regard to how the result would taste.
Hunt and the research team even attempted to re-create the Neanderthal recipe. “It made a sort of pancake-cum-flatbread which was really very palatable – a sort of nutty taste,” said Hunt.
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Wealth of Information in Cave
The new study center on Shanidar Cave, a Neanderthal dwelling 500 miles north of Baghdad, Iraq, in the Zagros Mountains. The site, believed to be 70,000 years old, was first excavated in the 1950s. There, archaeologist Ralph Solecki discovered the remains of ten Neanderthal men, women, and children.
Those initial findings suggested that Neanderthals were more sophisticated than given credit for. One Neanderthal appeared to have survived several injuries, possibly because of primitive medical care, and another’s grave seemed to contain remnants of flowers, suggesting a burial ritual.
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Ancient Leftovers Analyzed
To come to their conclusions, the researchers used an electron microscope to analyze fragments of burnt food discovered at Shanidar and another cave in Greece. In other words, ancient leftovers. “The charred food fragments from Franchthi Cave are the earliest of their kind recovered in Europe, from a hunter-gatherer occupation around 12,000 years ago,” said Kabukcu.
“Those from Shanidar Cave are the earliest in southwest Asia, from Neanderthal and human layers dating to seventy and forty thousand years ago respectively.”
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Surprisingly Creative Cooks
Ultimately, the study found that human and Neanderthal food, at least, in this case, aren’t all that different. “Our work conclusively demonstrates the deep antiquity of plant foods involving more than one ingredient and processed with multiple preparation steps,” said Kabukcu.
“This is the cool thing: we don’t tend to associate hunter-gatherers with creativity when it comes to what they’re going to eat,” she added. “The fact that we found mixtures [of ingredients] suggests that there’s some sort of planning and thinking that went into the combination. And maybe it was the flavors that were driving some of the selection.”