Fast Food Nation
ShareAmerica was booming in the Gilded Age, the era after the Civil War when robber barons hammered out vast empires and enormous fortunes were made overnight in New York, Baltimore and Philadelphia....
View ArticleRarebit Dreams
ShareMy father does not have an illustrious history with cooking. You wouldn’t know that looking at him in the kitchen now – when my grandmother’s health was failing, he studied with her so that he...
View ArticleThe Dutch Country Waffle Dinner
ShareThere is an old Pennsylvania Dutch saying: weeche Waffle sin Dudelarwet ferlore, which means “soft waffles are love’s labor lost.” In the Pennsylvania Dutch universe, there is probably nothing...
View ArticleFrom the Lobster Palace
ShareI am from New England stock. (I’m tempted to call us “hearty New England stock,” but the truth is that my immediate family skews more to the side of thin, independent, and quiet weirdos. Which is...
View ArticleA Plateful of Penitence
ShareIf you are an inmate in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania’s prison system, and you misuse food items, refuse to return uneaten food items, destroy or throw food items, or use food containers to...
View ArticleTaking the Cake
ShareA marriage may be between two people, but weddings tend to be between the couple and everyone else. Wedding guests called upon to bear witness to the ceremony, and to shower a new couple with...
View ArticleJell-o Fiascos
ShareThe title of this column is Forgotten Foods; the idea is that I am showing you recipes that, though wonderful and worthwhile, have become less popular over time — maybe new cooking technology made...
View ArticleThe Birth of the Blueberry
ShareAmericans love a blueberry festival. This year, they’ll celebrate the small fruit in Florida, Georgia, Mississippi, Texas, North Carolina, Alabama, Pennsylvania, Oregon, Virginia, Wisconsin,...
View ArticleEmbracing the Anchovy
ShareThere is a category of foods for adults that I call “stink foods.” These are the foods that people appreciate after they’ve eschewed the plain pasta of their picky eater days and developed a more...
View ArticleBeef Tea for the Soul
ShareI can’t figure out where to get a lump of coal in September. In Los Angeles. In 2013. Not activated charcoal, which is sometimes used by present-day hospitals to help suck up ingested poison. But...
View ArticleIPA to Z
Share“I don’t order IPAs anymore because I never know what I’m going to get.” This sentiment from one newcomer to the craft beer scene is becoming an issue for others in a similar position. Fueled by...
View ArticleTool Time
ShareIn this excerpt from Kitchen Things: An Album of Vintage Utensils and Farm-Kitchen Recipes, Richard Snodgrass explores the stories our kitchen tools tell through photography and text. The book is...
View ArticleCutting Remarks
SharePity the turkey. Capons are sauced, cranes are lifted, partridges are allayed, geese are reared. Turkeys are, to use the proper historical carving vocabulary, simply cut up. The ritual carving of...
View ArticleGourd To Death
ShareRallying against the overabundance of “pumpkin” flavored and scented items that fill our coffee-shop menus and store shelves is like worrying about Miley Cyrus’s future or whether you left the...
View ArticleOn The Line
ShareI was just about to roll out my homemade pie crust when I encountered my first problem. As I reached for a rolling pin from my cabinet, I realized I didn’t own one. Normally, I’d just grab my...
View ArticleHealth Nuts
ShareIt’s January, which means that all across America, people are resolving to eat better. And that means that they’re also resolving to smugly tell you about it. But the next time your newly...
View ArticlePours from the Past
ShareSometime between 7,000 and 5,600 BC, along the banks of the Yellow River, an early inhabitant of modern-day China left behind a jug that was once filled with the earliest known example of a...
View ArticleThe Chocolate Cure
ShareAny women’s health magazine worth its low-sodium salt substitute can tell you about three things: How to flatten your abs, how to please your man (yoga helps, ladies!!!!!!), and how to...
View ArticleFuture Perfect
ShareIf the Marx brothers had ever taken to food writing, they might have produced something very like F.T. Marinetti’s marvelously slapstick work, The Futurist Cookbook. The provocative (and...
View ArticleA Snack Called Death
ShareOh, how many of us yearn for a simpler time and place? A time before cell phones, when people couldn’t always reach us. A time before the Internet, when we didn’t accidentally read Game of Thrones...
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