A blog about food, history, data visualization, and more
The Buttolph Collection of Menus at the New York Public Library shows what people were eating in restaurants decades ago through its collection of tens of thousands of menus, most from the early 20th century. Let’s take a look at three seasonal menus and a creative menu for bankers.
I don’t like celery, so it might have been a defense mechanism when I started noticing it on menu after menu from the late-19th and early-20th centuries. As I looked through the Buttolph Collection of Menus for food conservation messages on World War I-era menus, it seemed that nearly every menu included celery as a […]
This post was inspired by Taco USA: How Mexican Food Conquered America, by Gustavo Arellano (2012, Scribner), an ambitious and entertaining book that reviews the history of America’s love of Mexican food using profiles of business people, restaurateurs, cooks, and more (my 2017 review of Taco USA). Chain restaurants played a critical role in expanding […]
Reports about seasonal food from the farmers market are common today: for example, KCRW’s Good Food has a weekly farmers market report, the San Francisco Chronicle covers seasonal produce in the Sunday Food and Home section, there are apps about seasonal produce for your phone, and guides printed on paper. I have been following these reports for a […]
This is part 2 of my posts on sushi mislabeling (see part 1 on sushi mislabeling). “Buyer beware” should be watchwords for anyone who eats fish in a restaurant. For various reasons — including fraud, ignorance, and sloppy supply chains — there’s a good chance that some of the fish served don’t match what the menu says. […]
You’ve just arrived at your favorite sushi restaurant, Edo, and the greeter takes you to your table and gives you the menu and a sheet with the nightly specials. The specials menu looks different. Instead of what you’re used to — a list of fish that are featured that night — there are also little red […]
Reducing food consumption on the homefront was a major initiative of the U.S. government during the First World War, even before U.S. troops were fighting “Over There.” The U.S. Food Administration (run by future president Herbert Hoover) spearheaded the effort with promotional posters, outreach to restaurants, public education efforts, encouragement of gardens, and more. Some […]
An Old Approach from Ancient Rome In ancient Rome, it was common for guests at a banquet or dinner to bring their own container – usually a napkin – and carry something home. This worked well for everyone, as there were no storage facilities for cooked food and it allowed the host’s generosity to be […]
As a follow-up to my piece on okara — which is a by-product of tofu — I’m happy to report that I have finally seen okara “in the wild” and gave it a try. When I visit San Diego for work, I often stay in the Kearny Mesa area near the intersection of CA-163 and […]
(Updated 10/15/16: fixed broken links, removed two photos. 12/10/16: update on candy cap cheesecake) Some time ago I heard about a mushroom that smells like maple syrup, and given my interest in fenugreek’s maple aroma (Fenugreek’s Flavors, When Fenugreek Leads to a False Diagnosis), I had to find out more. A quick search in […]