Geo answer: 10 Foods To Eat Before They Die

Today’s Geo Quiz — is jammin’. There’s a place in Central Europe where you can find homemade jams like no other.

They’re made by Romanian women in a handful of villages that date back to the 13th century.

These villages lie in the shadow of the Carpathian Mountains in a historic region of what is now Romania.

Generations of women here have made fresh jams from locally grown rhubarb, wild strawberries, and sour cherries:

“It’s a rich flavor it’s quite unusual, quite tart, not as sweet as perhaps the jams we are used to, not as thick but it certainly has a rural and very wild flavor to it.”

These wild jams are on a list of so called “endangered foods”.

They’re delicacies that are vanishing from dinner tables and local markets. More about that list when we reveal the answer.

For now try and name this Central European region where you can still find wild cherry preserves like the kind your great, great, great grandmother used to make…

Some of the world’s most endangered foods are on the menu for today’s Geo Quiz. They’re being served at an unusual banquet in Newcastle, England tomorrow night.

The menu features ten ingredients from around the world from the “Slow Food” Ark of Taste list, the “endangered species” of the food world. These are artisan foods that are now made by just a small handful of producers, such as wild Ethiopian coffee, Irish raw milk cheese, Hungarian mangalica sausage from woolly pigs, or a famous Spanish delicacy Ballobar capers.

The menu also includes the traditional jams made from berries and fruit we asked you about in our Geo Quiz. It’s made in several Saxon villages in the historic region of Transylvania. Transylvania, Romania is the answer.

The complete international list of “endangered foods”

The United States list is here

It includes fruits such as American Heirloom Apples, Blenheim Apricot, Puebla Avocado, and Bronx Grapes and spices and herbs such as Traditional Sea Salt from Hawaii (Alaea), Desert Oregano, and Handmade File.

Listen to our interview with Simon Preston who’s designed a 10-course feast called: “Ten Things To Eat Before They Die.”

“Ten Things to Eat before they Die”:

* Lancashire asparagus: The Formby crop is down to a few farmers after the loss of the transatlantic liner market.
* Herdwick mutton: Staunchly produced since Beatrix Potter’s day but confined to the Lake District.
* Ballobar capers: Introduced to the Aragon region of Spain by the Moors but long since gone wild. Costly to harvest and outpriced by Andalusian and Moroccan rivals.
* Huehuetenango highland coffee: From Guatemala. Needs forest shade and laborious depulping and bean-raking for its famed flavour.
* Raw milk cow’s cheese: Traditional process reintroduced by Irish artisan producers in the 1970s to international acclaim, but a small market.
* Herat raisins: Known since the fourth century AD but the 120 varieties are struggling against Afghanistan’s disruption and more lucrative crops such as poppies.
* Perry pear juice: Unsuited to mass production and now limited to Gloucestershire, Herefordshire and Worcestershire.
* Imraguen mullet botarga: Mauretanian caviar confined to the Banc d’Arguin national park, whose nomads with motorless boats are the only people permitted to fish there.
* Saxon village preserves: Based on berries and other fruits from Transylvania, made by Romanian women to supplement low farming incomes.
* Saint Flour golden lentils: Thin skins absorb sauces well but livestock has taken over much of the French land used in its early 20th century heyday.