For centuries grandmothers have been prescribing vinegar as a panacea for ailments ranging from hiccups to dandruff to tummy aches to arthritis. The link between vinegar and medicine is so established that the Italian word balsamico actually comes from the same origin as the word balsam in English: a resinous liquid with medicinal benefits. Perhaps, […]
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In the mountains and valleys that stretch across North Africa, there’s no guarantee of a good harvest from year to year. That’s nothing new for the Berbers. They’ve been farming olives, wheat, vegetables, and fruits there since before Carthage was founded in 814 BCE. (The name “Berber” actually comes from the Roman name for the […]
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Let’s start off by addressing the elephant in the room. Eels get a bad rap. We think of them as slippery, ugly, mean, slimy, snaky. They’ve held an odd fascination for us since Aristotle’s time; he wrote that they emerged from earthworms. (They don’t—European and American eels all leave their homes to migrate thousands of […]
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Our spring shipment of imports arrived at our warehouse a few weeks ago. Each year, this delivery is the one that includes our newest harvest of olive oils—in this case, we just got the 2014 harvest. It takes until May for the new oils to arrive because after the olives are picked and pressed around […]
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The first thing to know about Rangpur limes is that they’re not really limes at all. They’re a hybrid of mandarins and lemons that look like clementines: smallish, bright orange, with a smooth, thin peel that comes off easily to reveal segments that readily pull apart. The resemblance stops, however, when you pop a piece […]
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Admit it: for years, you’ve had a jar of capers sitting in the door of your fridge, forgotten amongst the mustards and jams. They’re packed in cheap vinegar and that’s pretty much all they taste like. It’s no wonder you never used them except for that one recipe you now forget. Why bother? I used […]
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Pop Quiz: what’s Kentucky’s biggest foreign export? Horses? Bourbon? Coal? Nope. It’s barrels. Specifically, used bourbon barrels. Most are shipped to Scotland where distillers use them to age scotch. Fifteen years ago, there weren’t too many other people interested in buying the used barrels. But since then they’ve come into vogue. Suddenly it seems like […]
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In the last two decades, piquillo peppers have taken the culinary world by storm. From nowhere they became the darling ingredient of chefs across the world, including Michelin-starred gastronomic titans Alain Ducasse and Ferran Adria. What’s different about piquillos from nearly every other vegetable making it big time (I’m talking to you, kale) is that […]
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Right now, somewhere in northern Florida, I bet there are a bunch of trucks filled with bees headed to the Apalachicola river. In the next couple of weeks ogeechee tupelo trees will erupt in blossom along those river banks. It’s not a showy blossom, like the cherry trees that will soon bloom here in Michigan. […]
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In Spain, drinking chocolate is as common as drinking coffee. Just like we have coffeeshops, Spain has chocolaterías serving drinking chocolate and churros to dunk in it. Some of them are open 24 hours a day, just in case of 4 AM chocolate emergencies. When you find good Spanish drinking chocolate it’s a far cry […]
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