Tasting and learning about salt tolerant plants
From 13-15 August 2021 SalFar partner Aarhus University (AU FOOD) participated in Aarhus Food Week, where visitors could learn about SalFar, salt tolerant plants and even taste them.
Food Week is a festival based on passion and enthusiasm for food, which takes place in Denmark’s second largest city, Aarhus. Here visitors could meet chefs, food producers, restaurant owners, researchers and other people within the food sector. According to the organisers, over 38.000 people visited the festival.
“Visitors had the opportunity to learn about various aspects of our current research in sustainable food production. In that context, saline farming was one of the main topics presented during that weekend,” Thayna Mendanha, Postdoctoral Researcher at the Department of Food Science, AU FOOD explains.
The visitors were presented with the main goals of the SalFar project, including the fact that we need to reclaim salt affected areas, and the reasons why we need to better understand salt tolerant plants. They also had the opportunity to taste some of the salt tolerant plant varieties studied in the project, including Salicornia and Ice plant, which have been grown under different saline conditions (irrigated either with fresh water or a solution containing salt). In this way, the visitors were able to sense the distinct effect salt has on the taste.
“Overall, we aim to create alternatives for organic saline soils and reduce freshwater consumption and thereby reclaim salt affected areas. By describing a sensory profile for each species under the different salt concentrations, we also hope to be able to brand different vegetables as terroir-based quality food, promoting economic growth and supporting green economies.” Thayna Mendanha concludes.