A scientist in the kitchen

What’s in a name? And what’s that latinized name for all living things, you know, the italized name in parentheses that usually comes after the common name? Well, that is the scientific name. This is the permanent name given to an organism, so no matter what part of the world, people can still understand what organism they are referring to. Of course, there are thousands of organisms out there already whose common name is well known - think dog, cat and apples. But imagine in the Middle Ages, where communication between people must have been very difficult, organisms are described rather than named, often long descriptions which can be subjective. Linnaeus, the father of modern taxonomy, deviced a scheme, the binomial nomenclature as the scientific names of organisms. It is in Latin, well, because Latin is a dead language and it won’t change it’s meaning over the years. It consists of the genus and species (much like the surname and the first name). It is italized (if your typing in a computer) or underlined separately (if you are writing it down. The genus starts with a capital letter and the species name in small letters.

So the proper way to write the scientific name would be:

Oryza sativa or Oryza sativa

Not: ORYZA SATIVA, Oryza Sativa or Oryza sativa.

Can you guess what I’m featuring in this week’s Weekend Herb Blogging?

Right, it’s all about rice - the crop on which I do my research work. I’d like to share with a New Year tradition, a type of rice called palitaw which I have blogged about already. But, hey, we had extra rice flour so I made another batch. The recipe can be found here.

The sesame seeds I used are white ones. There are black sesame seeds which I will be using as another palitaw variation in the coming weeks.

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Lia of Swirling Notion’s is host this week. Ever wondered how a market looks like in other parts of the world? Check out “To market, to market”. Or you can share yours, too.

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