Over the years that I’ve been making fruit cakes, I’ve been asked to modify them for the health regimen or the passing fancy—possibly both—of any number of customers. Don’t change the taste, just make it vegan. Or gluten-free. Just leave out the eggs. The butter. Or the flour. The salt for one with heart problems, […]
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New England Yankees have made cider jelly since the 1600s. It was the standard way to preserve the apple crop in the days before refrigeration, and provided a year-round sweetener for cooking and baking. But by the mid-twentieth century it fell out of fashion. That it still exists commercially today is primarily due to the […]
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A few farmers are raising the breeds of turkeys our grandparents would remember from their childhood. This is a story of one of them.
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Here’s a general rule about good food that can help us all: the longer you keep food intact, the better the flavor will be.
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The counter to the side of your stove. It’s where you keep the foods you need most often. The ones you grab every day. Your kitchen’s speed dial. Your food friends list. Here’s a written snapshot of the space next to my stove, circa late spring 2019.
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More than half of the Australian state of Tasmania is preserved in national and state parks. That doesn’t mean there’s no enterprise. But instead of loggers or miners, the workers are much smaller.
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The first English written reference to toast appears in 14th century cookbooks. Back then, after grilling your bread over the fire, you didn’t slather on butter or jam. Instead, toast was served soaked in ale or hot wine and spices. (They called this dish sops, which turned into our words soup and supper—a light evening […]
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If you order “a coffee,” what will you get? It depends where you are in the world.
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In college, my roommate and I had a VCR with one tape: Braveheart. We watched it daily. Sometimes twice. I memorized the scenery as much as the dialogue. Regardless of the film’s historical accuracy, Scotland looked beautiful and I dreamed of going. Twenty years later, last spring, I finally had a reason. I had just […]
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“Territorial” is a term of art for traditional regional British cheeses. As a definition it’s a bit loosey goosey. It can mean an area as big as a county where a cheese was made, like when it’s used for Lancashire or Cheshire. Or it can be as specific as the town where the cheese was […]
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