The most lucrative of all the forest’s products, and the most dangerous to gather.
Food
Cooking’s Eternal Struggle: Who Am I Doing This For?
I made my decision not to cook anymore two weeks ago, and I have stuck to it. I have a feeling I have done this before, but this time, I really mean it. I am tired of the struggle to win and impress, to impress even myself, to be engaged mentally with food, which, if […]
The Evolution of Our Diet and What Modern Menus are Doing to Us
Ann Gibbons in National Geographic on how our diets have evolved and whether returning to a “Stone Age diet” would help prevent high blood pressure, diabetes, and cardiovascular disease.
All You Have Eaten: On Keeping a Perfect Record
An experiment in food as a mnemonic device.
The Part of Culinary School Nobody Tells You About
Laurie Woolever, in The Billfold, on how she ended up becoming Anthony Bourdain’s assistant: With my dad’s help, I took out a loan and did a 6-month professional course at the French Culinary Institute, while continuing to work part-time for the family for a few months. I soon learned that I was poorly equipped to […]
Food For Thought: A Reading List
This week, we return to your regularly scheduled Longreads programming. The theme? Food: queering food, eating Pokemon, the potential of Soylent, tasting curly fries for a living, and Canadian food trucks. 1. “America, Your Food is So Gay.” (John Birdsall, Lucky Peach, June 2013) “It’s food that takes pleasure seriously, as an end in itself, an […]
Food For Thought: A Reading List
This week, we return to your regularly scheduled Longreads programming. The theme? Food: queering food, eating Pokemon, the potential of Soylent, tasting curly fries for a living, and Canadian food trucks. 1. “America, Your Food is So Gay.” (John Birdsall, Lucky Peach, June 2013) “It’s food that takes pleasure seriously, as an end in itself, an […]
The $100 Billion Antioxidant Market, and Why You're Having Fish for Dinner
Health food trends continue to grow because they are a cash cow. It’s estimated that the global antioxidant market will generate nearly $100 billion in a few years, even though most of us have no idea what an antioxidant is, and their long-term benefits are far from certain. But that doesn’t stop the California Walnut […]
John Jeremiah Sullivan Discovers the Secret of the Quince
The quinces were weird. We didn’t know what to make of them, figuratively or literally. Did people eat them? They could have come from space. In fact on Sesame Street there used to be a skit that involved two aliens. They couldn’t reach the fruit on their planet’s fruit trees. One alien was too short, […]
Why Soda First Became Popular: It Wasn't Just the Cocaine
“Recipes I’ve seen suggest it was about 0.01 grams of cocaine used in fountain sodas. That’s about a tenth of a line of coke,” he says. “It’s hard to be sure, but I don’t think it would’ve given people a massive high. It would definitely be enough to have some kind of effect, probably stronger […]
