Cyrilla Suwarsa grew up in Indonesia eating her grandma’s roasted cashews. Now, inspired by grandma’s recipes, she and her sister roasts Indonesian cashews. They start with great nuts. They roast them in tiny batches. And the results are really, really good.
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White asparagus isn’t all that popular in the US. In Europe, though, it’s practically a rock star. Home cooks snatch it up. Chefs design entire menus around it. Even the king of Spain gets excited about it. And when it’s not in season, people buy it in cans and gobble it up.
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Basil pesto from Liguria is a food with working class roots, eaten by sailors to stay healthy at sea. Today people around the world make basil pesto, but the best is still made in Italy. And when you use it to sauce good pasta, you have the ultimate summer dinner.
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Twenty years ago, fennel pollen was a secret to everyone except a few cognoscenti in rural Tuscany. Today, thanks to an eccentric Tuscan butcher, it’s the secret ingredient of famous chefs and adventurous home cooks.
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Just like the flavor of wine varies based on its terroir, the flavor of tomatoes depends on its terroir, too. To grow the most flavorful tomatoes, you want super fertile soil and plenty of sunshine. Basically, you want to grow them at the foot of an Italian volcano. If you don’t live by the foot […]
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In the Styrian region of Austria, locals use pumpkin seed oil like Italians use olive oil. That is to say, a lot: about a liter a month. In Austria the oil is such a big deal that they grow pumpkins just for their seeds. The pumpkin itself is a byproduct that gets discarded on the […]
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The Northern Italian region of Piedmont is famous for its hazelnuts. That reputation might come from the fact that it’s the birthplace of the genius-level chocolate-hazelnut pairing called gianduja. When Napoleon instituted a Mediterranean naval blockade that caused the price of cacao to skyrocket, an enterprising chocolatier in Turin stretched out his chocolate supply by […]
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Goat’s milk cheeses run the gamut of flavors, but when most of us hear the term one type comes to mind: soft, earthy, citrusy cheese, with a chalky edge and a barnyardy bite. We don’t lump all cow’s milk cheeses into one flavor category. Why are we so cavalier with goats? Fresh goat cheese should […]
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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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