May 2008 NHC NEWS A Monthly Bulletin of the Northwest Horticultural Council A DATE TO REMEMBER With the flood of attention now devoted to fears over the safety of our food supply, it is sometimes worthwhile to step back and remind one another this is not a new issue.  Over the sweep of time, individuals have always evaluated risks when shopping in their local markets and, upon reflection, usually have taken the bold leap to enjoy  a piece of offered fruit—even though not covered with plastic shrink wrap, bar coded for traceability, or labeled with a GlobalGAP auditing seal. Martin Booth, a talented writer, wrote a fine book about growing up in Hong Kong as the child of a bold and lively mother and a less bold father, a minor civil servant serving in the embers of the British Empire .  He tells in Golden Boy of an episode in 1952 while the family was out-bound to the Pacific from England and the ship carrying them made a port call in Algiers :  “…my mother prevailed and we set off to see the sights in a small, decrepit bus with some other passengers from the ship.  Our ride culminated in the Casbah, the sixteenth-century fortified part of the old Ottoman city.  Here, we got out of the bus and, after my father had exhorted us to stay close together and be alert, wandered through the narrow thoroughfares of the suq.   Every street and alley was an animated illustration from my grandfather’s morocco-bound copy of The Thousand and One Nights.  Men wearing turbans and baggy trousers passed by, leading donkeys.  Some of the women wore burkas, their eyes bright in the darkness of the slits.  Dogs scratched themselves indifferently or lay asleep in the shade.  Stalls erected under arcaded buildings sold vegetables..… My mother purchased some fresh dates from a stall and set about eating them, much to my father’s alarm.  ‘How can you tell where they’ve been?’ he remonstrated with her.  ‘They’ve been up a date palm,’ my mother replied. ‘And they picked themselves, I suppose?’   “No, she responded, in the same tone of voice as she might have used to a dog sniffing at the Sunday dinner table.  ‘I expect they were plucked by a scrofulous urchin and thrown down to his tubercular aunt who wrapped them in her phlegm-stiffened handkerchief.’ ‘Well, if you want to poison yourself, at least don’t give one to Martin.  The last thing he’ll want is dysentery.’ The tale ended with the author eating a date, slipped to him surreptitiously by his mother.  “Its taste and texture reminded me of solidified honey.”  Mr. Martin died in 2004 from causes unrelated to any foodborne illness. ♦ Travel May 22 – Annual meeting of the Northwest Horticultural Council, Yakima, Washington.  Christian Schlect May 1 – Washington Apple Education Foundation’s board meeting, Cashmere, Washington. May 4-8 – Annual meeting of the United Fresh Produce Association and Treefruit/Treenut National Food Safety Research Symposium, Las Vegas, Nevada. May 28-29 – Annual meetings of Pear Bureau Northwest, Portland,Oregon. Mark Powers May 12-15 – Washington Council on International Trade’s annual congressional visits, Washington, D.C. May 28 – Annual meeting of Pacific Coast Canned Pear Service, Portland, Oregon. Mike Willett May 13-15 – MRL Harmonization and SPS Issues Workshop, San Francisco, California. May 28-29 – Annual meetings of Pear Bureau Northwest, Portland, Oregon.  Deborah Carter May 6-8 - Annual meeting of the United Fresh Produce Association and Treefruit/Treenut National Food Safety Research Symposium, Las Vegas, Nevada. I love those skies, thin blue or snowy gray, Those fields sparse-planted, rendering meager sheaves; That spring, briefer than apple-blossom’s breath... Elinor Wylie Wild Peaches Northwest Horticultural Council 105 South 18th Street, Suite 105 Yakima, Washington 98901, USA Voice: (509) 453-3193, Fax: (509) 457-7615 E-mail general@nwhort.org