When you think of the Mediterranean, what comes to mind? Perhaps sipping an espresso at a cafe tucked along the French riviera? Cruising in a sailboat between rocky Greek islands? How about soaking up the sun on the beaches of Tunisia?
Continue Reading →
The origin of the word “curry” is like the story of “kangaroo”—it’s based on a British misunderstanding. Historians suggest that a few centuries ago the Tamil word kari referred to a spiced sauce or to black pepper. British colonizers took that term, anglicized it to “curry,” and used it to describe a wide range of […]
Continue Reading →
Fresh or dried pasta, which is better? Are people concerned about this? Are you talking about it at dinner, arguing for one pasta style over the other? Frankly, I don’t know if this is a debate or not. If it is I’m sure it ranks very low on the scale of disputes, somewhere far under […]
Continue Reading →
“Extra virgin” is a legal term used to categorize olive oil. It’s like the USDA ratings for beef: Prime, Choice, and Select. For olive oil, the standards are set by the IOC, or International Olive Council, an organization set up by the UN to coordinate and promote olive and olive oil production.
Continue Reading →
Are foods past their expiration dates unsafe to eat? Probably not. The dates printed on foods—whether they are labeled as “sell by,” “best by,” “use by,” or any other variation on the language—have very little to do with safety, or even when the food will “expire.”
Continue Reading →
Think of springerles as the medieval greeting card of cookies for the 14th century’s 1%. Many of the foods we sell started out as peasant foods, the cuisine of the 99% in a way. Springerles are not one of them. Springerles (pronounced shpring-er-lees) are cookies originally from the Swabia region in southern Germany, where they’re […]
Continue Reading →
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 […]
Continue Reading →
A few farmers are raising the breeds of turkeys our grandparents would remember from their childhood. This is a story of one of them.
Continue Reading →
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.
Continue Reading →
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 […]
Continue Reading →