Lettuce

Ancient Greeks and Romans were the people most responsible for what we in the West view as “what’s for dinner.” They were the ones who added lettuce-based salads and desserts to a menu that had previously focused on just getting enough calories to survive. I’ve actually noticed in my travels that, in areas outside the [...]

Indian Odyssey – Tamil Nadu

A few years ago, I had the great pleasure of traveling through southern India with four other members of the Culinary Historians of Chicago. Our itinerary had been arranged by Culinary Historians president, Dr. Bruce Kraig, who had just finished filming a TV special on the foodways of southern India. This had the tremendous advantage [...]

Iceland

When I visited Iceland in mid-February, it was actually a little warmer than Chicago. Iceland’s winters average around 28–34 degrees, with the country’s proximity to the Arctic Circle offset by the warmth of the Gulf Stream. Iceland’s wild wind adds a challenge of its own, but it does keep things moving, so the weather can [...]

The Original Potato

“What’s in a name?” Well, sometimes a good bit of confusion—take yams and sweet potatoes, for example. If you’re in the United States and you’re calling something a yam, odds are you’re talking about a sweet potato, in which case, you’re wrong. Sweet potatoes are members of the morning glory family. Yams, on the other [...]

Okra

I find that most people are surprised to learn that there is a plant called the marshmallow. It grows in marshy areas and, like most mallows, has pretty flowers—though the flowers are not as showy or large as those of the related hibiscus and hollyhock. The marshmallow has a root that was at one time [...]

Newfoundland

One of the most important aspects of traveling to Newfoundland is to pick the right destination. Fortunately, we did fly into the right city—St. John’s—but met several people during our stay who had booked flights to St. John, which is in New Brunswick. Some of these people had used travel agents, too. They then had [...]

Welsh Eggs

If you say “Welsh” when speaking of food, probably the first thing to come to mind is Welsh rabbit, a tasty treat that usually consists of toast topped with a cheddar sauce flavored with Worcestershire sauce and dried mustard. Of course, a few of you will have thought “Welsh rarebit.” But interestingly, “rabbit” is the [...]

Simply A-Maize-ing

One thing of which we are all relatively certain here in the U.S. is that European settlers learned about corn from American Indians. Right? Well, not really. What they learned about from the indigenous peoples of the New World was maize, not corn. Sound like double talk? Well, as it turns out, the word corn [...]

Which Came First?

A farmer in Morocco sells free-range eggs by the side of the road.
On this blog, it was the chicken, but elsewhere, the question still remains, which came first—the chicken or the egg?
That eggs are worthy of admiration has been recounted by many of the great chefs and gastronomes of the last few centuries. The sixteenth-century [...]