A blog about food, history, data visualization, and more
After posts on 19th century complaints about plagiarism and the evolution of recipe writing style, we finally get to the recipe that originally attracted me to William Kitchiner’s 1818 book, The Cook’s Oracle: Mock Tomata Sauce [sic]. When I first saw Mock Tomata Sauce on my screen, I had a few thoughts. First: ????. Next: I need […]
When you’re looking for something hearty and warming as days become shorter and colder, consider the Japanese dishes called nabemono. These “simmered dishes” are often cooked in one pot (called a “nabe”), sometimes in the middle of the dining table over a portable burner. In the West, the most famous nabemono is probably sukiyaki — beef and vegetables […]
One of the many interesting ingredients in the Japanese pantry is konnyaku — a versatile, low calorie food with a highly distinctive texture. It’s rubbery and springier than even finger jello. Also called “devil’s tongue jelly,” konnyaku is more or less flavorless until it is simmered in broth, and so it is almost always part of […]
Now and then a food magazine contains a recipe that becomes a standard my kitchen. Even more rarely, a single issue will contain two standards. The May/June 1998 issue of Saveur was one of those rarities, with two recipes that I have made many, many times and consider critical parts of my cooking repertoire. The […]
As a follow-up to my post about achiote (annatto seeds), this post shows a way to use them in your kitchen to make a spicy rice and vegetable dish that can be a centerpiece of a vegetarian meal. Achiote has an interesting flavor that’s hard to define — it’s a great change of pace from […]
This recipe for carrots simmered with cumin, mint, and vinegar is really old: it’s derived from a book written more than 1,700 years ago, around the days of Caesar, Augustus, and Tiberius.
These days, kale’s most iconic role is in kale salad — one of this era’s hottest salad trends (though they were also making kale salads 100 years ago). Massaged with salt, dressed with a sharp dressing, tossed with all manner of vegetables, nuts, and other tasty items, it is often delicious and nearly always healthy […]
Winter squash are legendary for their versatility and hardiness. Ideal for soups, roasting, stews (Japanese or French to give two examples), and even some baked goods, they also are relatively resistant to damage and have long shelf lives — no padded carriers or stress when bringing home a few from the market. The sweetness and […]
Zucchini is the bane of many gardeners — it grows fast, seemingly doubling every time you turn around, quickly turning from flavorful to bland pulp — and so it has a slightly bad reputation. I have memories of huge home-grown zucchini and the struggles to use them. These days, though, my source of zucchini is […]
One of my summer dessert favorites is zucchini bread, something that could be called zucchini cake if it was baked in a shallow cylindrical pan instead of a loaf pan. It’s something I seem to only bake in the summer when zucchini is at the farmers markets, even though it would take an exceptionally skilled […]