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The Korean Immigrant and Michigan Farm Boy Who Taught Americans How to Cook Chow Mein

In 1922, two college classmates in Detroit — a Korean immigrant named Ilhan New and an American named Wally Smith — founded La Choy, a company that mass-produced Chinese food products. One hundred years later, to Chinese Americans the brand is “synonymous with cultural inauthenticity, even appropriation.” But, as Cathy Erway explores for Taste, the […]

Posted inEditor's Pick

Wings, Sweat, and Tears

While it’s not the first in-depth story about the capsaicin-fueled mayhem of YouTube talk show Hot Ones (see: this 2019 Verge story), Jaya Saxena’s piece goes beyond profile to something more like exegesis. We know that Scoville units introduce a candid new wrinkle to the tired celebrity interview; now, the question becomes what to do […]

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The Sizzler: The California Origin Story Behind One of India’s Flashiest Dishes

Whether you’re a fan of culinary cross-pollination or just loaded nachos/fries/[insert substrate here], you’ll leave this gustatory lineage story with a growling stomach. And if you’re lucky enough to live near a place that serves sizzlers? Well, you’ll just have to try to beat me there. About ten minutes after we put in our order, […]

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