Tag: food writing

If the personal is political, then food is political — and food writing should be, too.

The history of the chili pepper is entwined with the history of Chinese Communism and the fiery temperament of the Sichuanese people, but why?

It’s a recognition that comes in the aisle of a grocery store.

How California farmers are planning ahead for climate change while balancing their immediate economic concerns.

Is there anything peanuts aren’t good for?

A fan of MSG visits the world’s largest producer of this contentious flavor-enhancing agent.

We asked writers and editors to choose some of their favorite stories of the year in various categories.

Food writer Su-Jit Lin contemplates the role of a favorite dish in her relationship with her immigrant chef father.

Judith Jones, the legendary Knopf editor, has died at the age of 93.

In Nashville, an exploration of the current obsession with the city’s signature dish: hot chicken.

Eight must-read essays on how we cook and how we eat.

At The Ringer, Bryan Curtis examines how food writers became the rock critics of our time.

Have dinner with Harold McGee, the academic-turned-cookbook author who paved the way for Alton Brown and a whole generation of culinary scientists.

In Food52, Mayukh Sen explores the ways fruitcake became a homophobic slur, queerness, and his own personal attachment to the namesake food.

We asked a few writers and editors to choose some of their favorite stories of the year in various categories. Here, the best in food writing.

A story about a food writer, his guide, and bowl upon bowl of spicy Sichuanese noodles.

The James Beard Foundation announced the finalists for its 2016 food media awards last week, so it’s a great time to make a cup of tea and cozy up to some excellent food writing.

Canned sardines turn many Americans off to fresh sardines, which is a shame. In Tin House‘s 2009 Appetites Issue, Jeff Koehler shares the little fish’s pleasures, describing how eating canned sardines in his vagabond youth led him to savoring fresh sardines as an adult, which culminated in years of culinary experimentation in his adopted home of Barcelona. […]

As a ramen maniakku or enthusiast myself, I reread Lucky Peach‘s debut Ramen Issue once a year. The issue has an essay by chef Ivan Orkin, where he tells what it was like operating a ramen restaurant in Japan, as a gaijin, or outsider. Lucky Peach is a food quarterly started by chef David Chang and writer Peter Meehan in 2011. The […]

There are only so many ways to describe food. You become hyper-aware of your own clichés. If you’ve gotten tired of reading “lovely,” “tinged,” and “delightful” in my reviews over the past seven years, all I can say is that you should have seen the first drafts.

An Oxford grad learns to navigate boiling sugar, sleep deprivation, and exacting pastry chefs with whom she can barely communicate.

Monterey Park became the first suburb that Chinese people would drive for hours to visit and eat in, for the same reasons earlier generations of immigrants had sought out the nearest urban Chinatown. And the changing population and the wealth they brought with them created new opportunities for all sorts of business people, especially aspiring restaurateurs. The typical Chinese American restaurant made saucy, ostentatiously deep-fried concessions to mainstream appetites, leading to the ever-present rumor that most establishments had “secret menus” meant for more discerning eaters. It might be more accurate to say that most chefs at Chinese restaurants are more versatile than they initially let on—either that or families like mine possess Jedi-level powers of off-the-menu persuasion. But in a place like Monterey Park, the pressure to appeal to non-Chinese appetites disappeared. The concept of “mainstream” no longer held; neck bones and chicken feet and pork bellies and various gelatinous things could pay the bills and then some.