29 September 2009The IV International Fig Symposium started today at the National School for Agriculture near Meknès. It was an interesting day. I talked with a number of people, Moroccan, as well as others. A Lebanese woman I met said she recognized my name…she had been at a grape seminar I gave in Lebanon a couple of years ago. She said she used my PowerPoint presentation as a model for her students of what a good presentation was, which was very flattering! From today’s presentations, and from the Masters student presentations I saw last week in Ait Melloul, I think a lot of people need help in putting together a coherent, readable and effective presentation. I’m thinking of offering to do a session on how to do a presentation the audience will comprehend!
I also met the woman who runs the Tunisian germplasm center…she told me a bit about the Maltese orange, and said she was interested in finding out more about the different varieties of it. She said she thought there were many, most unnamed. So I will try to meet with her in Tunis when I get there.
The Meknès Ag School is, unfortunately, way out of town. A bus brought all the out-of-town people out there, but then we were stuck there until the end of the day, which was very long. The conference organizers seem to be a bit shaky on scheduling and there were numerous technical problems.
They forgot the morning coffee break, so we had the coffee break immediately before lunch…with coffee and pastries. Then we sat around in the dining hall for an hour or so waiting for lunch to be ready. Lunch was enormous, which might be why it took so long. First, a Moroccan salad which is piles of different vegetables, many of them shredded, some lightly seasoned, some not…it included raw fennel, which I don’t think I’ve ever had, but quite liked. I thought it needed to be cooked.
Next came a pastilla - chicken and fish cooked in a flaky pastry… a 2” thick pastry about a foot and a half across - enough to serve about 15 people at a table of 8. Then came bread with four whole cooked chickens (for eight of us!), seasoned with saffron and onions. After we ate the chicken, the waiters came around with one of the huge ornate serving bowls, and collected all the leftover bread. Wonder what happens to it? Then we had a huge bowl of fruit for dessert: grapes, apples, pears, peaches, plums, kiwi. No bananas in this region, though; I think it’s too cold. The fruits were all Moroccan grown, but unfortunately, many were not ripe. The pears were ripe, and very tasty, but all of us were so full by then, it was hard to appreciate the fruit!
They had more technical problems in the afternoon, and Maxwell Norton, another UC Farm Advisor from Merced County who is also attending, convinced me to go up and try to help them. I don’t know if I did help or if they finally just figured it out. We spent a lot of the day waiting, and the program ran late by over an hour, even though half the afternoon presentations were not given, as people didn’t show up for one reason or another. Sitting in a conference from 9 AM til 6:45 PM is way too long for me, so I was only holding onto my patience by a thread at the end.
However, there were some very interesting talks after we got done with all the official speeches in the morning. I’m learning a lot more about figs, and finding out that they are very sensitive to microclimate differences, and cultural practices. Well worth the time!
I also met the woman who runs the Tunisian germplasm center…she told me a bit about the Maltese orange, and said she was interested in finding out more about the different varieties of it. She said she thought there were many, most unnamed. So I will try to meet with her in Tunis when I get there.
The Meknès Ag School is, unfortunately, way out of town. A bus brought all the out-of-town people out there, but then we were stuck there until the end of the day, which was very long. The conference organizers seem to be a bit shaky on scheduling and there were numerous technical problems.
They forgot the morning coffee break, so we had the coffee break immediately before lunch…with coffee and pastries. Then we sat around in the dining hall for an hour or so waiting for lunch to be ready. Lunch was enormous, which might be why it took so long. First, a Moroccan salad which is piles of different vegetables, many of them shredded, some lightly seasoned, some not…it included raw fennel, which I don’t think I’ve ever had, but quite liked. I thought it needed to be cooked.
Next came a pastilla - chicken and fish cooked in a flaky pastry… a 2” thick pastry about a foot and a half across - enough to serve about 15 people at a table of 8. Then came bread with four whole cooked chickens (for eight of us!), seasoned with saffron and onions. After we ate the chicken, the waiters came around with one of the huge ornate serving bowls, and collected all the leftover bread. Wonder what happens to it? Then we had a huge bowl of fruit for dessert: grapes, apples, pears, peaches, plums, kiwi. No bananas in this region, though; I think it’s too cold. The fruits were all Moroccan grown, but unfortunately, many were not ripe. The pears were ripe, and very tasty, but all of us were so full by then, it was hard to appreciate the fruit!
They had more technical problems in the afternoon, and Maxwell Norton, another UC Farm Advisor from Merced County who is also attending, convinced me to go up and try to help them. I don’t know if I did help or if they finally just figured it out. We spent a lot of the day waiting, and the program ran late by over an hour, even though half the afternoon presentations were not given, as people didn’t show up for one reason or another. Sitting in a conference from 9 AM til 6:45 PM is way too long for me, so I was only holding onto my patience by a thread at the end.
However, there were some very interesting talks after we got done with all the official speeches in the morning. I’m learning a lot more about figs, and finding out that they are very sensitive to microclimate differences, and cultural practices. Well worth the time!
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