“Menus provide a window into history, a vital connection to our foodways.”
Food
Posted inEditor's Pick
Hungry Ghosts
“I think of all the hurts she can never outlive — the ghosts that can never be satisfied, no matter how much of herself she feeds to them.”
Posted inEditor's Pick
There Is No Such Thing As Italian Food
“Italy’s cuisine has long been defined by foreign flavors. But with anti-immigration sentiment rising and the climate changing, will Italians continue to embrace new ingredients and ideas from abroad?”
Posted inEditor's Pick
Of Tacos y Heartbreak
“The tacos I eat here in the U.S. are not the tacos my family eats in Mexico. They come close but there’s something missing. Maybe it’s the salt.”
Posted inEditor's Pick
Milk Money
Reeves Wiederman reports on how the baby-formula shortage in the U.S. created an opportunity for new companies to enter an industry historically dominated by a few corporations. Laura Modi, a Google and Airbnb alum who founded the baby-formula startup Bobbie, is one such CEO hoping to transform an industry “that has grown complacent.” As Modi […]
Posted inCuration, Nonfiction, Top 5
The Top 5 Longreads of the Week
This week, our editors recommend stories by Bushra Seddique, Simon van Zuylen-Wood, Laura Mauldin, Kathryn Miles, and Lucas Mann.
Posted inEditor's Pick
When Baking and Real Estate Collide
For The New Yorker, Anna Wiener explores the cuisine-real-estate business model and traces the rise of Tartine, the artisanal San Francisco bakery known for its delicious breads and pastries and hip, airy spaces. How did this beloved spot in the Mission become a world-renowned brand? And is this food empire really what it seems? Certain […]
Posted inEditor's Pick
Will Northwest Seaweed Farming Finally Take Off?
In this piece from late 2020, Stefan Milne explores the incredible potential of kelp as “a tool to fight ocean acidification, feed the world, and restore Native food sovereignty.” One study estimated a “marine garden” the size of Washington state could provide enough protein to feed earth’s population, all while cleaning pollutants. He dove into […]
Posted inStory
Our Braided Bread
In my native New York, I don’t feel the need to perfume the air around me with the sweet scent of challah. But here in Iowa, there is a void I need to fill.
Posted inEditor's Pick
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 […]