Sausage
A sausage is a cylindrical meat product made from ground meat pork, beef, or veal, along with salt and other flavourings, breadcrumbs, encased by a skin. A sausage is formed in a casing traditionally made from intestine, but sometimes from synthetic materials. Sausages that are sold raw are cooked in many ways, including pan-frying and barbecuing; some sausages are cooked during processing and the casing may be removed. Sausage making is a traditional food preservation technique. Sausages may be preserved by curing, smoking, or freezing; some cured or smoked sausages can be stored without refrigeration. Most fresh sausages must be frozen until they are cooked. Sausages come in a huge range of national and regional varieties, which differ by their flavouring or spicing ingredients, the meat used in them and their manner of preparation; the word "sausage" was first used in English in the mid-15th century, spelled "sawsyge". This word came from Old North French saussiche"; the French word came from salsicus.
Sausage making is an outcome of efficient butchery. Traditionally, sausage makers would salt various tissues and organs such as scraps, organ meats and fat to help preserve them, they would stuff them into tubular casings made from the cleaned intestines of the animal, producing the characteristic cylindrical shape. Hence, sausages and salami are among the oldest of prepared foods, whether cooked and eaten or dried to varying degrees. An Akkadian cuneiform tablet records a dish of intestine casings filled with some sort of forcemeat; the Chinese sausage làcháng, which consists of goat and lamb meat, was first mentioned in 589 BC. The Greek poet Homer mentioned a kind of blood sausage in the Odyssey, Epicharmus wrote a comedy titled The Sausage, Aristophanes' play The Knights is about a sausage vendor, elected leader. Evidence suggests that sausages were popular both among the ancient Greeks and Romans, most with the various tribes occupying the larger part of Europe; the most famous sausage in ancient Italy was from Lucania and was called lucanica, a name which lives on in a variety of modern sausages in the Mediterranean.
During the reign of the Roman emperor Nero, sausages were associated with the Lupercalia festival. Early in the 10th century during the Byzantine Empire, Leo VI the Wise outlawed the production of blood sausages following cases of food poisoning. Traditionally, sausage casings were made of the cleaned intestines, or stomachs in the case of haggis and other traditional puddings. Today, natural casings are replaced by collagen, cellulose, or plastic casings in the case of industrially manufactured sausages; some forms of sausage, such as sliced sausage, are prepared without a casing. Additionally, luncheon meat and sausage meat are now available without casings in tin jars. A sausage consists of meat cut into pieces or ground, mixed with other ingredients, filled into a casing. Ingredients may include a cheap starch filler such as breadcrumbs and flavourings such as spices, sometimes others such as apple and leek; the meat may be from any animal, but is pork, beef, or veal. The lean meat-to-fat ratio depends upon the producer.
The meat content as labelled may exceed 100%. In some jurisdictions foods described. For example, in the United States The Department of Agriculture specifies that the fat content of different defined types of sausage may not exceed 30%, 35% or 50% by weight. Many traditional styles of sausage from Asia and mainland Europe use no bread-based filler and include only meat and flavorings. In the United Kingdom and other countries with English cuisine traditions, many sausages contain a significant proportion of bread and starch-based fillers, which may comprise 30% of ingredients; the filler in many sausages helps them to keep their shape. As the meat contracts in the heat, the filler absorbs moisture and fat from the meat; when the food processing industry produces sausages for a low price point any part of the animal can end up in sausages, varying from cheap, fatty specimens stuffed with meat blasted off the carcasses and rusk. On the other hand, the finest quality contain only choice cuts of seasoning.
In Britain, "meat" declared on labels could in the past include fat, connective tissue, MRM. These ingredients may still be used, but must be labelled as such, up to 10% water may be included without being labelled. Sausages are emulsion-type products, they are composed of solid fat globules, dispersed in protein solution. The proteins function by stabilizing them in water. Sausages classification is subject to regional differences of opinion. Various metrics such as types of ingredients and preparation are used. In the English-speaking world, the following distinction between fresh and dry sausages seems to be more or less accepted: Cooked sausages are made with fresh meats, fully cooked, they are either eaten after cooking or must be refrigerated. Examples include hot dogs and liver sausage. Cooked smoked sausages are cooked and smoked or smoke-cooked. T
Cuisine of Hawaii
The cuisine of Hawaii incorporates five distinct styles of food, reflecting the diverse food history of settlement and immigration in the Hawaiian Islands. In the pre-contact period of Ancient Hawaii, Polynesian voyagers brought plants and animals to the Islands; as Native Hawaiians settled the area, they fished, raised taro for poi, planted coconuts, sweet potatoes and yams, cooked meat and fish in earth ovens. After first contact in 1778, European and American cuisine arrived along with missionaries and whalers, who introduced their own foods and built large sugarcane plantations. Christian missionaries brought New England cuisine while whalers introduced salted fish which transformed into the side dish lomilomi salmon; as pineapple and sugarcane plantations grow, so did demand for labor, bringing many immigrant groups to the Islands between 1850 and 1930. Immigrant workers brought cuisines from China, Japan, the Philippines, Puerto Rico and Portugal after arriving in Hawaii, introducing their new foods and influencing the region.
The introduction of new ethnic foods, such as Chinese char siu bao, Portuguese sweet bread and malasadas, the Japanese bento, combined with the existing indigenous and American foods in the plantation working environments and in the local communities. This blend of cuisines formed a "local food" style unique to Hawaii, resulting in plantation foods like the plate lunch, snacks like Spam musubi, dishes like the loco moco. Shortly after World War II several well known local restaurants, now in their 7th decade, such as Highway Inn and Helena's Hawaiian Food opened their doors to serve "Hawaiian Food". Chefs further refined the local style by inventing Hawaii Regional Cuisine in 1992, a style of cooking that makes use of locally grown ingredients to blend all of Hawaii's historical influences together to form a new fusion cuisine; when Polynesian seafarers arrived on the Hawaiian Islands in 300–500 AD, few edible plants existed in the new land, aside from ferns and fruits that grew at higher elevations.
Botanists and archaeologists believe that the Polynesian voyagers introduced anywhere between 27 and more than 30 plants to the islands, known as canoe plants for food. The most important of them was taro. For centuries taro, the poi made from it, was the main staple of their diet, it is still much loved today. In addition to taro the Polynesians brought sweet potatoes; the latter are believed to have come from Polynesian contact with the New World. The Marquesans, the first settlers from Polynesia, brought breadfruit and the Tahitians introduced the baking banana; these settlers from Polynesia brought coconuts and sugarcane. They found plenty of fish and limu in the new land. Flightless birds were easy to catch and nests were full of eggs for the taking. Most Pacific islands had no meat animals except bats and lizards, so ancient Polynesians sailed the Pacific with pigs and dogs as cargo. Pigs were raised for religious sacrifice, the meat was offered at altars, some of, consumed by priests and the rest eaten in a mass celebration.
The early Hawaiian diet was diverse, may have included as many as 130 different types of seafood and 230 types of sweet potatoes. Some species of land and sea birds were consumed into extinction. Sea salt was a common condiment in ancient Hawaii, Inamona, a relish made of roasted, mashed kukui nutmeats, sea salt and sometimes mixed with seaweeds accompanied the meals. At important occasions, a traditional feast, ‘aha‘aina, was held; when a woman was to have her first child, her husband started raising a pig for the ‘Aha‘aina Mawaewae feast, celebrated for the birth of a child. Besides the pig, shrimp, crab and taro leaves were required for the feast; the modern name for such feasts, lū‘au, was not used until 1856, replacing the Hawaiian words ‘aha‘aina and pā‘ina. The name lū‘au came from the name of a food always served at a ‘aha‘aina — young taro tops baked with coconut milk and chicken or octopus. Prior to cooking and dogs were killed by strangulation or by holding their nostrils shut, in order to conserve the animal's blood.
Meat was prepared by flattening out the whole eviscerated animal and broiling it over hot coals, or it was spitted on sticks. Large pieces of meat, such as fowl and dogs, would be cooked in earth ovens, or spitted over a fire during ceremonial feasts. Hawaiian earth ovens, known as an imu, combine steaming in a method called kālua. A pit is dug into earth and lined with volcanic rocks and other rocks that do not split when heated to a high temperature, such as granite. A fire is built with embers, when the rocks are glowing hot, the embers are removed and the foods wrapped in ti, ginger or banana leaves are put into the pit, covered with wet leaves, mats and a layer of earth. Water may be added through a bamboo tube to create steam; the intense heat from the hot rocks cooked food — the quantity of food for several days could be cooked at once, taken out and eaten as needed, the cover replaced to keep the remainder warm. Sweet potatoes, taro and other vegetables were cooked in the imu, as well as fish.
Saltwater eel dried before being put into the imu. Chickens and dogs were put into the imu with hot rocks inserted in the abdominal cavities. Men did all of the cooking, food for women was cooked in a separate imu; the ancient practice of cooking with the imu continues for special occasions. In 1778, Captain James Cook arrived at the island of Niihau, leaving a ram goat
Greek cuisine
Greek cuisine is a Mediterranean cuisine. Contemporary Greek cookery makes wide use of vegetables, olive oil, fish and meat. Other important ingredients include olives, cheese, lemon juice, herbs and yoghurt; the most used grain is wheat. Common dessert ingredients include nuts, honey and filo pastries, it is influenced by Ottoman cuisine and thus cuisine of anatolian Greeks shares foods such as baklava, gyro, dolmades and keftethes with the neighboring countries. To an greater extent it is influenced by Italian cuisine and cuisines from other neighboring south European countries, thus in southern regions and the islands it includes several kinds of pasta, like hyllopites and tziolia. Greek cuisine has a culinary tradition of some 4,000 years and is a part of the history and the culture of Greece, its flavors change with its geography. Greek cookery a forerunner of Western cuisine, spread its culinary influence, via ancient Rome, throughout Europe and beyond, it has influences from the different people's cuisine the Greeks have interacted with over the centuries, as evidenced by several types of sweets and cooked foods.
Ancient Greek cuisine was characterized by its frugality and was founded on the "Mediterranean triad": wheat, olive oil, wine, with meat being eaten and fish being more common. This trend in Greek diet continued in Roman and Ottoman times and changed only recently when technological progress has made meat more available. Wine and olive oil have always been a central part of it and the spread of grapes and olive trees in the Mediterranean and further afield is correlated with Greek colonization. Byzantine cuisine was similar to the classical cuisine, with the addition of new ingredients, such as caviar and basil. Lemons, prominent in Greek cuisine and introduced in the second century, were used medicinally before being incorporated into the diet. Fish continued to be an integral part of the diet for coastal dwellers. Culinary advice was influenced by the theory of humors, first put forth by the ancient Greek doctor Claudius Aelius Galenus. Byzantine cuisine benefited from Constantinople’s position as a global hub of the spice trade.
The most characteristic and ancient element of Greek cuisine is olive oil, used in most dishes. It is produced from the olive trees prominent throughout the region, adds to the distinctive taste of Greek food; the olives themselves are widely eaten. The basic grain in Greece is wheat, though barley is grown. Important vegetables include tomato, potato, green beans, green peppers, onions. Honey in Greece is honey from the nectar of fruit trees and citrus trees: lemon, bigarade trees, thyme honey, pine honey. Mastic is grown on the Aegean island of Chios. Greek cuisine uses some flavorings more than other Mediterranean cuisines do, namely oregano, garlic, onion and bay laurel leaves. Other common herbs and spices include basil and fennel seed. Parsley is used as a garnish on some dishes. Many Greek recipes in the northern parts of the country, use "sweet" spices in combination with meat, for example cinnamon and cloves in stews; the climate and terrain has tended to favour the breeding of goats and sheep over cattle, thus beef dishes are uncommon.
Fish dishes are common on the islands. A great variety of cheese types are used in Greek cuisine, including Feta, Kefalotyri, Anthotyros, Metsovone, Kalathaki, Katiki-Tsalafouti and Mizithra. Too much refinement is considered to be against the hearty spirit of the Greek cuisine, though recent trends among Greek culinary circles tend to favour a somewhat more refined approach. Dining out is common in Greece, has been for quite some time; the Taverna and Estiatorio are widespread, serving home cooking at affordable prices to both locals and tourists. Fast food has become more widespread, with local chains such as Goody's springing up, though most McDonald's have closed. Locals still eat Greek cuisine. In addition, some traditional Greek foods souvlaki, pita such as tyropita and spanakopita are served in fast food style. Greece has an ancient culinary tradition dating back several millennia, over the centuries Greek cuisine has evolved and absorbed numerous influences and influenced many cuisines itself.
Some dishes can be traced back to ancient Greece: lentil soup, fasolada and pasteli. There are many ancient and Byzantine dishes which are no longer consumed: porridge as the main staple, fish sauce, salt water mixed into wine. Many dishes entered Greek cuisine from Ottoman cuisine: moussaka, yuvarlakia, boureki, so on. Distinct from the mainstream regional cuisines are: Cuisine of the Aegean islands Arcadian cuisine Cuisine of the Ionian islands Ipirotiki Kritiki Kypriaki (C
African cuisine
Traditionally, the various cuisines of Africa use a combination of locally available fruits such as, cereal grains and vegetables, as well as milk and meat products, do not have food imported. In some parts of the continent, the traditional diet features an abundance of milk and whey products. Central Africa, East Africa, North Africa, Southern Africa and West Africa each have distinctive dishes, preparation techniques, consumption mores. Central Africa stretches from the Tibesti Mountains in the north to the vast rainforest basin of the Congo River, remained free from culinary influences of the outside world until the late 19th century, with the exception of the widespread adaptation of cassava and chili pepper plants, which arrived as part of the Columbian exchange along with the slave trade during the early 16th century; these foodstuffs have had a large influence on the local cuisine, if less on the preparation methods. Central African cooking has remained traditional; the basic ingredients are cassava.
Fufu-like starchy foods are served with grilled meat and sauces. A variety of local ingredients are used while preparing other dishes like spinach stew cooked with tomato, chillis and peanut butter. Cassava plants are consumed as cooked greens. Groundnut stew is prepared, containing chicken, okra and other spices. Another favorite is a porridge of rice, peanut butter and sugar. Beef and chicken are favorite meat dishes, but game meat preparations containing crocodile, elephant and warthog are served occasionally. Angolan cuisine Cameroonian cuisine Cuisine of the Central African Republic Chadian cuisine Congolese cuisine Cuisine of Equatorial Guinea Gabonese cuisine Cuisine of São Tomé and Príncipe The cuisine of East Africa varies from area to area. In the inland savannah, the traditional cuisine of cattle-keeping peoples is distinctive in that meat products are absent. Cattle, sheep and goats were regarded as a form of currency and a store of wealth, are not consumed as food. In some areas, traditional East Africans consume the milk and blood of cattle, but the meat.
Elsewhere, other peoples are farmers who grow a variety of vegetables. Maize is the basis of the local version of West Africa's fufu. Ugali is a starch dish eaten with stews. In Uganda, steamed green bananas called. Around 1000 years ago and Yemeni merchants settled on the Swahili Coast. Middle Eastern influences are reflected in the Swahili cuisine of the coast – steamed or cooked rice with spices in Persian style. Several centuries the British and the Indians came, both brought with them foods such as Indian spiced vegetable curries, lentil soups, chapattis and a variety of pickles which have influenced various local dishes; some common ingredients used in this region include oranges, limes, capsicum peppers, maize and strawberries. In the Horn of Africa, the main traditional dishes in Eritrean cuisine and Ethiopian cuisine are tsebhis served with injera and hilbet. Eritrean and Ethiopian cuisine are similar, given the shared history of the two countries. Eritrean and Ethiopian food habits vary regionally.
In the highlands, injera is eaten daily among the Tigrinya. Injera is made out of teff, barley, sorghum or corn, resembles a spongy sour pancake; when eating, diners share food from a large tray placed in the center of a low dining table. Numerous injera is topped with various spicy stews. Diners break into the section of injera in front of them, tearing off pieces and dipping them into the stews. In the lowlands, the main dish is a porridge-like dish made from wheat flour dough. A ladle is used to scoop out the top, filled with berbere and butter sauce and surrounded by milk or yoghurt. A small piece of dough is broken and used to scoop up the sauce; the best known Ethio-Eritrean cuisine consists of various vegetable or meat side dishes and entrées a wat, or thick stew, served atop injera, a large sourdough flatbread made of teff flour. One does not eat with utensils, but instead uses injera to scoop up the entrées and side dishes. Tihlo, prepared from roasted barley flour, is popular in Amhara and Awlaelo.
Traditional Ethiopian cuisine employs no pork or shellfish of any kind, as they are forbidden in the Jewish and Ethiopian Orthodox Christian faiths. It is very common to eat from the same dish in the center of the table with a group of people. Somali cuisine varies from region to region and consists of an exotic mixture of diverse culinary influences, it is the product of Somalia's rich tradition of commerce. Despite the variety, there remains one thing that unites the various regional cuisines: all food is served halal. There are therefore no pork dishes, alcohol is not served, nothing that died on its own is eaten, no blood is incorporated. Qaddo or lunch is elaborate. Varieties of bariis, the most popular being basmati serve as the main dish. Spices like cumin, cloves and sage are used to aromatize these different rice dishes. Somalis serve dinner as late as 9 pm. During Ramadan, dinner is served after Tarawih prayers, sometimes as late as 11 pm. Xalwo or halva is a popular confection served during special occasion
Italian cuisine
Italian cuisine is food typical of Italy. It has developed through centuries of social and economic changes, with roots stretching to antiquity. Significant changes occurred with the discovery of the New World and the introduction of potatoes, bell peppers and sugar beet, this last introduced in quantity in the 18th century. Italian cuisine is known for its regional diversity between the north and the south of the Italian peninsula, it offers an abundance of taste, is one of the most popular and copied in the world. It influenced several cuisines around the world. Italian cuisine is characterized by its simplicity, with many dishes having only two to four main ingredients. Italian cooks rely chiefly on the quality of the ingredients rather than on elaborate preparation. Ingredients and dishes vary by region. Many dishes that were once regional have proliferated with variations throughout the country. Italian cuisine has developed over the centuries. Although the country known as Italy did not unite until the 19th century, the cuisine can claim traceable roots as far back as the 4th century BCE.
Food and culture were important at that time as we can see from the cookbook which dates back to first century BC. Through the centuries, neighbouring regions, high-profile chefs, political upheaval, the discovery of the New World have influenced its development. Italian food started to form after the fall of the Roman Empire, when different cities began to separate and form their own traditions. Many different types of bread and pasta were made, there was a variation in cooking techniques and preparation; the country was split. Regional cuisine is represented by some of the major cities in Italy. For example, Milan is known for its risottos, Bologna is known for its tortellini and Naples is famous for its pizzas and spaghettis; the first known Italian food writer was a Greek Sicilian named Archestratus from Syracuse in the 4th century BCE. He wrote a poem, he said that flavors should not be masked by herbs or other seasonings. He placed importance on simple preparation of fish. Simplicity was replaced by a culture of gastronomy as the Roman Empire developed.
By the time De re coquinaria was published in the 1st century CE, it contained 470 recipes calling for heavy use of spices and herbs. The Romans employed Greek bakers to produce breads and imported cheeses from Sicily as the Sicilians had a reputation as the best cheesemakers; the Romans reared goats for butchering, grew artichokes and leeks. With culinary traditions from Rome and Athens, a cuisine developed in Sicily that some consider the first real Italian cuisine. Arabs invaded Sicily in the 9th century, introducing spinach and rice. During the 12th century, a Norman king surveyed Sicily and saw people making long strings made from flour and water called atriya, which became trii, a term still used for spaghetti in southern Italy. Normans introduced casseroles, salt cod, stockfish, all of which remain popular. Food preservation was either physical, as refrigeration did not exist. Meats and fish dried, or kept on ice. Brine and salt were used to pickle items such as herring, to cure pork. Root vegetables were preserved in brine.
Other means of preservation included immersing meat in congealed, rendered fat. For preserving fruits, liquor and sugar were used; the northern Italian regions show a mix of Germanic and Roman culture while the south reflects Arab influence, as much Mediterranean cuisine was spread by Arab trade. The oldest Italian book on cuisine is the 13th century Liber de coquina written in Naples. Dishes include "Roman-style" cabbage, ad usum campanie which were "small leaves" prepared in the "Campanian manner", a bean dish from the Marca di Trevisio, a torta, compositum londardicum which are similar to dishes prepared today. Two other books from the 14th century include recipes for Roman pastello, Lasagna pie, call for the use of salt from Sardinia or Chioggia. In the 15th century, Maestro Martino was chef to the Patriarch of Aquileia at the Vatican, his Libro de arte coquinaria describes a more elegant cuisine. His book contains a recipe for Maccaroni Siciliani, made by wrapping dough around a thin iron rod to dry in the sun.
The macaroni was cooked in capon stock flavored with saffron. Of particular note is Martino's avoidance of excessive spices in favor of fresh herbs; the Roman recipes include cabbage dishes. His Florentine dishes include eggs with Bolognese torta, Sienese torta and Genoese recipes such as piperata, squash and spinach pie with onions. Martino's text was included in a 1475 book by Bartolomeo Platina printed in Venice entitled De honesta voluptate et valetudine. Platina puts Martino's "Libro" in regional context, writing about perch from Lake Maggiore, sardines from Lake Garda, grayling from Adda, hens from Padua, olives from Bologna and Piceno, turbot from Ravenna, rudd from Lake Trasimeno, carrots from Viterbo, bass from the Tiber and shad from Lake Albano, snails from Rieti, figs from Tuscolo, grapes from Narni, oil from Cassino, oranges from Naples and eels from Campania. Grains from Lombardy and Campania are mentioned as is honey from Taranto. Wine from the Ligurian coast, Greco from Tuscany and San Severino, Trebbiano from Tuscany and Piceno are mentioned in the book.
The courts of Florence, Rome and Ferrara were centra
Australian wine
The Australian wine industry is the world's fifth largest exporter of wine with 780 million litres a year to the international export market with only about 40% of production consumed domestically. The wine industry is a significant contributor to the Australian economy through production, employment and tourism. There is a $2.8 billion domestic market for Australian wines, with Australians consuming over 530 million litres annually with a per capita consumption of about 30 litres – 50% white table wine, 35% red table wine. Norfolk Islanders are the second biggest per capita wine consumers in the world with 54 litres. Only 16.6% of wine sold domestically is imported. Wine is produced in every state, with more than 60 designated wine regions totalling 160,000 hectares; the wine regions in each of these states produce different wine varieties and styles that take advantage of the particular Terroir such as: climatic differences and soil types. The major varieties are predominantly Shiraz, Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Pinot noir and Sauvignon blanc.
Wines are labelled with the name of their grape variety, which must constitute at least 85 percent of the wine. Vine cuttings from the Cape of Good Hope were brought to the penal colony of New South Wales by Governor Phillip on the First Fleet. An attempt at wine making from these first vines failed, but with perseverance, other settlers managed to cultivate vines for winemaking, Australian made wine was available for sale domestically by the 1820s. In 1822 Gregory Blaxland became the first person to export Australian wine, was the first winemaker to win an overseas award. In 1830 vineyards were established in the Hunter Valley. In 1833 James Busby returned from France and Spain with a serious selection of grape varieties including most classic French grapes and a good selection of grapes for fortified wine production. Wine from the Adelaide Hills was sent to Queen Victoria in 1844, but there is no evidence that she placed an order as a result; the production and quality of Australian wine was much improved by the arrival of free settlers from various parts of Europe, who used their skills and knowledge to establish some of Australia's premier wine regions.
For example, emigrants from Prussia in the mid-1850s were important in establishing South Australia's Barossa Valley as a winemaking region. In smaller scale, winemakers from Switzerland helped in establishing Geelong wine region in Victoria in 1842. Early Australian winemakers faced many difficulties due to the unfamiliar Australian climate, but because it is warm and Mediterranean overall, making Australia ideal for wine production, they achieved considerable success. "At the 1873 Vienna Exhibition the French judges, tasting blind, praised some wines from Victoria, but withdrew in protest when the provenance of the wine was revealed, on the grounds that wines of that quality must be French." Australian wines continued to win high honours in French competitions. A Victorian Syrah competing in the 1878 Paris Exhibition was likened to Château Margaux and "its taste completed its trinity of perfection." One Australian wine won a gold medal "first class" at the 1882 Bordeaux International Exhibition and another won a gold medal "against the world" at the 1889 Paris International Exhibition.
That was all before the destructive effects on the industry of the phylloxera epidemic. Australia has become a world leader in both the quantity and quality of wines it produces. For example, Australian wine exports to the US rose from 578,000 cases in 1990 to 20,000,000 cases in 2004 and in 2000 it exported more wine than France to the UK for the first time in history; the industry has at times suffered from its own productivity. In the late 1980s, governments sponsored growers to pull out their vines to overcome a glut of winegrapes. Low grape prices in 2005 and 2006 have led to calls for another sponsored vine pull. Cleanskin wines were introduced into Australia during the 1960s as a means to combat oversupply and poor sales. In recent years organic and biodynamic wines have been increasing in popularity, following a worldwide trend. In 2004 Australia hosted the First International Biodynamic Wine Forum in Beechworth, Victoria which brought together biodynamic wine producers from around the globe.
Despite the overproduction of grapes many organic and biodynamic growers have enjoyed continuing demand thanks to the premium prices winemakers can charge for their organic and biodynamic products in the European market. Major grape varieties are Shiraz, Cabernet Sauvignon, Chardonnay, Sauvignon blanc, Sémillon, Riesling; the country has no native grapes, Vitis vinifera varieties were introduced from Europe and South Africa in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Some varieties have been bred for example Cienna and Tarrango. Although Syrah was called Shiraz in Australia and Syrah elsewhere, its dramatic commercial success has led many Syrah producers around the world to label their wine "Shiraz". About 130 different grape varieties are used by commercial winemakers in Australia. Over recent years many winemakers have begun exploring so called "alternative varieties" other than those listed above. Many varieties from France and Spain for example Petit Verdot, Pinot grigio, Pinot noir, Sangiovese and Viognier are becoming more common.
Wines from many other varieties are being produced. Australian winemaking results have been impressiv
Species
In biology, a species is the basic unit of classification and a taxonomic rank of an organism, as well as a unit of biodiversity. A species is defined as the largest group of organisms in which any two individuals of the appropriate sexes or mating types can produce fertile offspring by sexual reproduction. Other ways of defining species include their karyotype, DNA sequence, behaviour or ecological niche. In addition, paleontologists use the concept of the chronospecies since fossil reproduction cannot be examined. While these definitions may seem adequate, when looked at more they represent problematic species concepts. For example, the boundaries between related species become unclear with hybridisation, in a species complex of hundreds of similar microspecies, in a ring species. Among organisms that reproduce only asexually, the concept of a reproductive species breaks down, each clone is a microspecies. All species are given a two-part name, a "binomial"; the first part of a binomial is the genus.
The second part is called the specific epithet. For example, Boa constrictor is one of four species of the genus Boa. None of these is satisfactory definitions, but scientists and conservationists need a species definition which allows them to work, regardless of the theoretical difficulties. If species were fixed and distinct from one another, there would be no problem, but evolutionary processes cause species to change continually, to grade into one another. Species were seen from the time of Aristotle until the 18th century as fixed kinds that could be arranged in a hierarchy, the great chain of being. In the 19th century, biologists grasped. Charles Darwin's 1859 book The Origin of Species explained how species could arise by natural selection; that understanding was extended in the 20th century through genetics and population ecology. Genetic variability arises from mutations and recombination, while organisms themselves are mobile, leading to geographical isolation and genetic drift with varying selection pressures.
Genes can sometimes be exchanged between species by horizontal gene transfer. Viruses are a special case, driven by a balance of mutation and selection, can be treated as quasispecies. Biologists and taxonomists have made many attempts to define species, beginning from morphology and moving towards genetics. Early taxonomists such as Linnaeus had no option but to describe what they saw: this was formalised as the typological or morphological species concept. Ernst Mayr emphasised reproductive isolation, but this, like other species concepts, is hard or impossible to test. Biologists have tried to refine Mayr's definition with the recognition and cohesion concepts, among others. Many of the concepts are quite similar or overlap, so they are not easy to count: the biologist R. L. Mayden recorded about 24 concepts, the philosopher of science John Wilkins counted 26. Wilkins further grouped the species concepts into seven basic kinds of concepts: agamospecies for asexual organisms biospecies for reproductively isolated sexual organisms ecospecies based on ecological niches evolutionary species based on lineage genetic species based on gene pool morphospecies based on form or phenotype and taxonomic species, a species as determined by a taxonomist.
A typological species is a group of organisms in which individuals conform to certain fixed properties, so that pre-literate people recognise the same taxon as do modern taxonomists. The clusters of variations or phenotypes within specimens would differentiate the species; this method was used as a "classical" method of determining species, such as with Linnaeus early in evolutionary theory. However, different phenotypes are not different species. Species named in this manner are called morphospecies. In the 1970s, Robert R. Sokal, Theodore J. Crovello and Peter Sneath proposed a variation on this, a phenetic species, defined as a set of organisms with a similar phenotype to each other, but a different phenotype from other sets of organisms, it differs from the morphological species concept in including a numerical measure of distance or similarity to cluster entities based on multivariate comparisons of a reasonably large number of phenotypic traits. A mate-recognition species is a group of sexually reproducing organisms that recognize one another as potential mates.
Expanding on this to allow for post-mating isolation, a cohesion species is the most inclusive population of individuals having the potential for phenotypic cohesion through intrinsic cohesion mechanisms. A further development of the recognition concept is provided by the biosemiotic concept of species. In microbiology, genes can move even between distantly related bacteria extending to the whole bacterial domain; as a rule of thumb, microbiologists have assumed that kinds of Bacteria or Archaea with 16S ribosomal RNA gene sequences more similar than 97% to each other need to be checked by DNA-DNA hybridisation to decide if they belong to the same species or not. This concept was narrowed in 2006 to a similarity of 98.7%. DNA-DNA hybri
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