Showing titles in Gastronomy

Curry is a dish that doesn't quite exist, but, as this wildly funny and sharp essay points out, a dish that doesn't properly exist can have infinite, equally authentic variations. By grappling with novels, recipes, travelogues, pop culture, and his own upbringing, Naben Ruthnum depicts how the distinctive taste of curry has often become maladroit shorthand for brown identity. Ruthnum sinks his teeth into the story of how the beloved flavor calcified into an aesthetic genre that limits the imaginations of writers, readers, and eaters.

Hot drinks, cold drinks, and everything in-between - this is the history of beverages through the ages. This book aims to describe the development of beverages and drinking habits, as well as their connection with other facets of life. This information will be of universal interest, no matter the listener's occupation or background. What Will You Drink? is a rather uncommon history book, as books on history generally tend to disregard the topic of food and drink. However, this book is all about quenching thirst.

It was when traveling on assignment in India that journalist Stephen Henderson first learned of soup kitchens operated by Sikh houses of worship (or gurudwaras). After volunteering for a week at the Gurudwara Bangla Sahib in Delhi - which feeds 20,000 men, women, and children every day - Henderson became curious to research global gastrophilanthropy, or the very different ways in which hungry people are served free meals around the world.

Meg Muckenhoupt begins with a simple question: When did Bostonians start making Boston Baked Beans? Storekeepers in Faneuil Hall and Duck Tour guides may tell you that the Pilgrims learned a recipe for beans with maple syrup and bear fat from Native Americans, but in fact, the recipe for Boston Baked Beans is the result of a conscious effort in the late 19th century to create New England foods. This toothsome volume reveals the effort that went into the creation of these foods and lets us begin to reclaim the culinary heritage of immigrant New England.

We live in a culture awash with advice on nutrition and eating. Who do we believe? And what does it really mean to eat healthy? FoodWISE is for anyone who has felt unsure about how to make the "right" food choices. It is for food lovers who want to be more knowledgeable and connected to their food, while also creating meaningful dining experiences around the table. Professor and food fanatic Gigi Berardi shows readers how to buy foods and prepare meals that are W.I.S.E: Whole, Informed, Sustainable, and Experienced with friends and family.

From awkward schoolgirl to caterer to the stars, Mary Giuliani weaves together a collection of hilarious memories, from professional growing pains to her long journey to motherhood, never losing her sense of humor and her love for everyone's favorite party food, pigs in a blanket.

Neither an advocate nor a critic of cultured meat, Benjamin Aldes Wurgaft spent five years researching the phenomenon. In Meat Planet, he reveals how debates about lab-grown meat reach beyond debates about food, examining the links between appetite, growth, and capitalism. Could satiating the growing appetite for meat actually lead to our undoing? Are we simply using one technology to undo the damage caused by another? Like all problems in our food system, the meat problem is not merely a problem of production. It is intrinsically social and political.

Cider is the quintessential American beverage. Drank by early settlers and founding fathers, it was ubiquitous and pervasive, but following Prohibition when orchards were destroyed and neglected, cider all but disappeared. In The Cider Revival, Jason Wilson chronicles what is happening now, an extraordinary rebirth that is less than a decade old.

God is a foodie who wants to transform your supper into sacrament. One of America's most beloved teachers and writers, Margaret Feinberg, goes on a remarkable journey to unearth God's perspective on food. Taste and See is a delicious listen that includes dozens of recipes for those who, like Margaret, believe some of life's richest moments are spent savoring a meal with those you love.

Joe Berkowitz loves cheese. Or at least he thought he did. After stumbling upon an artisanal tasting at an upscale cheese shop one Valentine’s Day, he realized he’d hardly even scratched the surface. These cheeses were like nothing he had ever tasted - a visceral drug-punch that reverberated deliciousness - and they were from America. He felt like he was being let in a great cosmic secret, and instantly he was in love.

When it opened a decade ago, the acclaimed Los Angeles speakeasy The Varnish - owned, designed, and managed by award-winning cocktail aficionado Eric Alperin - quickly became the stylish standard bearer for modern bars. Unvarnished is a candid, voice-driven, no-holds-barred look at the workings of a bar, and the foundation of The Varnish’s success: attention to hospitality and an abiding belief in the nobility of service.

The cooking lessons that stick with us are rarely the ones we read in books or learn through blog posts or YouTube videos (depending on your generation); they're the ones we pick up as we spend time with good cooks in the kitchen. Dorothy Kalins, founding editor of Saveur magazine, calls the people who pass on their cooking wisdom her Kitchen Whisperers. Consciously or not, they help make us the cooks we are—and help show the way to the kind of cooks we have the potential to become.

When 16-year-old Jessica Wragg applied for a job at her local farm shop in Derbyshire, England, she never expected to land a position behind the butchery counter. Wragg was younger than many of her colleagues by decades, and she was one of the few women on staff, struggling to earn her keep among colleagues who were reluctant to share the tricks of their trade with a novice. Breaking down carcasses by day, and studying animal anatomy by night, Wragg was soon hooked and determined to establish herself in an industry that is steeped in tradition, and often resistant to change.

In Bite by Bite, poet and essayist Aimee Nezhukumatathil explores the way food and drink evoke our associations and remembrances—a subtext or layering, a flavor tinged with joy, shame, exuberance, grief, desire, or nostalgia. Nezhukmatathil restores our astonishment and wonder about food through her encounters with a range of foods and food traditions. From shave ice to lumpia, mangoes to pecans, rambutan to vanilla, she investigates how food marks our experiences and identities and explores the boundaries between heritage and memory.

Did Marco Polo bring pasta back from China, or is that a myth? How did the Neapolitan "macharoni" turn into the ubiquitous spaghetti? Is it even an Italian dish? Hundreds of shapes and thousands of recipes give expression to the culture and products of the country's regions. But spaghetti with tomato sauce remains Italy's identity dish par excellence. Massimo Montanari goes in search of the dish's true origins, tracing its history along the multiple, intricate routes taken by its raw ingredients to merge and become a distinctive element of culinary tradition.

We’ve all got a friend who claims to know where you can get the best pint of Guinness. From the pub to the pour, it’s an experience. And if anyone knows this best, it’s London-based Corkman Ian Ryan – founder of Sh*t London Guinness and Beautiful Pints. From the all-important different elements of a Guinness pour to what to look for (and what to run a mile from) when sourcing beautiful pints, as well as a crème de la crème list of pubs around the world to visit, Ian shares his expertise from many a pint of plain sank and enjoyed.

America is more than just a fast food nation. Food Americana is the inside story of how generations of Americans have formed a national cuisine with tastes from all over the world. Fried chicken was a distinctly Southern dish - now it's the Sunday night special at the Chateau Marmont Hotel in Hollywood. A Utah restaurant won Maine's annual Best Lobster Roll competition. And perhaps the ultimate all-American dish, pizza, is served up in 30 different styles, a total of three billion pies a year, an average of 23 pounds for each of us.

Vanilla is one of the most expensive of flavorings—so valuable that it was smuggled or stolen by pirates in the early days—and yet it is everywhere. It is a key ingredient in dishes ranging from crème brûlée to Japanese purin. It is the quintessential ice cream flavor in the United States. Eric T. Jennings explains how the world's only edible orchid, originally endemic to Central America, became embedded in the international culinary and cultural landscape.

Aujourd’hui plus que jamais, notre rapport à ce que nous mangeons n’a rien d’anodin. Tout est calculé, pesé, désenchanté. Et si nous cessions de considérer l’alimentation comme un acte mécanique ? Si nous retrouvions un rapport joyeux à la nourriture ? Pour Constance Lasserre, «gastronome éclairée» à table et sur les réseaux sociaux, la gourmandise est un véritable projet de société, la promesse d’un rapport à soi et aux autres apaisé et exalté, d’une vie croquée à pleines dents, d’une curiosité plus grande que nos ventres.

Apples, a common New England crop, have been called the United States' most endangered food. The iconic Texas Longhorn cattle is categorized at critical risk for extinction. Unique date palms, found nowhere else on the planet, grow in California’s Coachella Valley, but the family farms that caretake them are shutting down. Apples, cattle, dates―these are foods that carry significant cultural weight. But they’re disappearing. In Endangered Eating, culinary historian Sarah Lohman travels the country learning about the distinct ingredients at risk of being lost.