- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
When you see honey bees foraging on the early blooming oxalis, that's a sure sign that February is approaching.
And that means it's time for some mead, music and a bee-influenced dinner.
The UC Davis Honey and Pollination Center is hosting its third annual fundraiser, The Feast: A Celebration of Mead and Honey, from 6 to 9 p.m., Saturday, Feb. 6 in the Robert Mondavi Institute of Wine and Food Science. Reservations are now underway. (See registration page.)
Mead, says Amina Harris, director of the Honey and Pollination Center, is "the world's oldest fermented beverage."
What's mead? "It's a fermented blend of honey, water and often fruits, yeast, or spices that dates back to about 7000 BCE," Harris says. Ceramic shards found in Jiahu, Henan Province, China held a mead-like residue, according to Patrick McGovern, the leading authority on ancient alcoholic beverages. According to the BBC the number of meaderies in the United States has increased from 30 to 40 to more than 250 in the last 10 years.
The event, to take place in the Mondavi Institute's Sensory Building on Old Davis Road, will begin at 6 with cocktails, live music, hors d'oeuvres and the featured ginger mead from Schramms Mead in Michigan. Select wines, honey lemonade and sparkling mead also will be served.
Ann Evans, author of the Davis Farmer's Cookbook, and Kathi Riley, caterer and former chef at Zuni Cafe, San Francisco, will serve a Mediterranean-style dinner.
Harris says the menu will include a triple avocado salad, followed by "a tagine of chicken, vegetables and couscous served family-style. A light cheese course will accompany a dessert mead flight with a wonderful citrus almond torte closing the festive evening."
Proceeds from the dinner will be used to support the outreach and education programs of the Honey and Pollination Center. Its mission is “to make UC Davis a leading authority on bee health, pollination and honey quality," Harris says.
Tickets for the dinner are $125 and are available online at http://honey.ucdavis.edu/. For more information contact Amina Harris at aharris@ucdavis.edu.
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
You're in luck.
The UC Davis Honey and Pollination Center is hosting an educational honey tasting on Wednesday night, Jan. 27 in the Sensory Theater of the Robert Mondavi Institute for Wine and Food Science on Old Davis Road. If you'd like to enroll, you need to register today (Monday, Jan. 20), To register, access this site.
The event, conducted by Amina Harris, director of the Honey and Pollination Center, will take place from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. and will feature California honeys. Extension apiculturist Elina Niño of the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology will talk about bees, honey and beekeeping.
Harris calls the event "a unique tasting experience, complemented with a short lecture delving into related beekeeping practices and issues." The cost is $30 (general), $25 (UC Davis affiliates), $12.50 (students).
The Honey Flavor Wheel production involved six months of research and development. “We brought together a group of 20 people--trained tasters, beekeepers and food enthusiasts--who worked together with a sensory scientist to come up with almost 100 descriptors,” Harris recently said. “This wheel will prove invaluable to those who love honey and want to celebrate its nuances.”
"Honey is honey, it's just that simple," according to the National Honey Board. "A bottle of pure honey contains the natural sweet substance produced by honey bees from the nectar of plants or secretions of living parts of plants. Nothing else." The 60,000 or so bees in a hive may "collectively travel as much as 55,000 miles and visit more than two million flowers to gather enough nectar to make just a pound of honey!"
The United States is home to more than 300 unique kinds of honey, according to the National Honey Board. Among the most popular? Clover and orange blossom.
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
Soon the honey bees will be buzzing all over them.
And soon will be the third annual "The Feast: A Celebration with Mead and Honey," formerly known as the "Mid-Winter Beekeepers' Feast."
Sponsored by the Honey and Pollination Center of the Robert Mondavi Institute for Wine and Food Science, "The Feast" will take place Friday night, Friday, Feb. 6 in the Sensory Building of the Robert Mondavi Institute, Old Davis Road, UC Davis campus.
"A Mediterranean-inspired menu is being created by Ann Evans, author of the Davis Farmer's Cookbook, and Kathi Riley, caterer and former chef at Zuni Cafe, San Francisco," said Amina Harris, director of the Honey and Pollination Center.
The event begins at 6 with mead cocktails, softened by candlelight and music by the UC Davis Jazz Trio. Next a four-course meal, and the night will end with the "after dinner mead flight" led by legendary Darrell Corti.
What's mead? Basically, honey wine, an ancient alcoholic beverage.
"It's a fermented blend of honey, water and often fruits, yeast, or spices," Harris says. It dates back to at least 7000 BCE or Before the Common (Current) Era. Ceramic shards found in Jiahu, Henan Province, China held a mead-like residue, according to Patrick McGovern, leading authority on ancient alcoholic beverages.
Meaderies are rising in popularity. According to the BBC the number of meaderies in the United States within the last 10 years has spiked from 30-40 meaderies to more than 250.
To attend The Feast, the cost is $125 per person or $1250 for an eight-table sponsorship. If you want to learn more about the specific honeys served in the four-course meal, you can sign up for an "early bird"--er, "early bee"--tasting activity. Harris will lead a honey tasting of the menu's varietal honeys. The "Early Bee" activity, limited to 35 sign-ups, is free with dinner purchase.
Bon Appétit! (Or would that be Bee Appétit?)
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
Like to learn how to make mead? You know, transform honey into honey wine?
The UC Davis Honey and Pollination Center at the Robert Mondavi Institute and the UC Davis Department of Viticulture and Enology are offering a beginners' introduction to mead making on Friday and Saturday, Nov. 13-14 at the Mondavi Institute on Old Davis Road.
"Explore the rich history of this fascinating fermented beverage from its ancient origins to its recent rebirth in America," teases Amina Harris, director of the Honey and Pollination Center. "Taste and learn styles, ingredient selection and steps to making good mead."
Mead is known as the ancestor of all fermented drinks.
This is a hands-on learning experience. "We have about 35 seats left and we would like to fill every one," Harris said. "So far, folks have enrolled from all over the United States and from Canada and India."
Here's a link to the Honey and Pollination Center's website and registration: http://honey.ucdavis.edu/events/introduction-to-mead-making
Or, if you want to chat with Harris and learn how delicious mead is--it's called "the drink of the gods"--contact her at (530) 754-9301 or email her at aharris@ucdavis.edu.
Honey, will you pour me some mead?
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
Make way for the Good Food Awards competition, opening July 6.
This year is the second consecutive year for the honey category. Last year more than 50 beekeepers from throughout the United States entered their honey.
Amina Harris, director of the UC Davis Honey and Pollination Center, Robert Mondavi Institute for Wine and Food Science, is chairing the committee. She's joined by fellow members Emily Brown, owner of AZ Queen Bee and winner of a 2014 Good Food Award in Honey; Kim Flottum, editor of Bee Culture magazine; Marina Marchese, founder of the American Honey Tasting Society and co-author (with Kim Flottum) of The Honey Connoisseur; and Mea McNeil, writer, beekeeper and organic farmer.
Here's what Harris advises:
- Put July 6, 2015 (sometime in the afternoon) on your calendar
- Go to the website: http://www.goodfoodawards.org/
- Click on the ‘Honey' link to read the NEW criteria (also listed below)
- Click on Entrant Information to download a form.
So, what are the rules? Among them:
- All honey must be the bona fide produce of the entrant's own bees.
- It must be harvested between August 2014 – August 2015.
- It must be extracted with minimal heat (100°) and after extraction, not exposed to heat greater than 120°.
- It must be strained and/or filtered to leave in pollen.
- It can be made with inclusions (such as fruit, alcohol and herbs):
- That grow domestically, inclusions are locally sourced wherever possible; traceable; and grown without synthetic herbicides, pesticides, fungicides or fertilizers.
- That are not grown domestically on a commercial scale; they are farm-direct, certified organic, or Fair Trade certified.
- It must be produced in the United States
There are other rules as well, including being responsibly reproduced.
Is honey the nectar of the gods? Or the soul of a field of flowers? Both. How many flowers must honey bees tap to make one pound of honey? Two million, according to the National Honey Board. The average worker honey bee makes only 1/12 of a teaspoon in her lifetime. How long have bees been producing honey from flowering plants? 10-20 million years. How many flowers does a honey bee visit during one collection trip? 50-100. See more questions here.
The Good Food Awards, according to its website, is all about celebrating "tasty, authentic and responsibly produced foods." The organization presents the awards at the Ferry Building in San Francisco. This year, the sixth annual, will include 13 categories: beer, cider, charcuterie, cheese, chocolate, coffee, confections, honey, pickles, preserves, spirits, oil and the newest category, pantry. Awards will be given to producers and their food communities from each of five regions of the U.S.
Meanwhile, Amina Harris says we're tasting honey all wrong! Read the interview in Civil Eats.