Eat This Podcast: Coffee, but not as we know it
Hello I thought I was pretty savvy about coffee taxonomy knowing that there were two kinds, arabica and robusta. Not surprisingly, perhaps, a research paper...
Eat This Newsletter 126: Hop off
Hello Frog legs have never really appealled to me. I can see that they might provide useful protein as well as pest-control services to a rice farmer, but as...
Eat This Podcast: Alexis Soyer: The very model of a modern chef
Hello Long before the current crop of celebrity chefs, Alexis Soyer showed how it should be done. He cooked unimaginably luxurious — and expensive — dinners...
Eat This Newsletter 125: Bad apples
Hello It has been a difficult couple of weeks, even sitting on the sidelines, trying to listen rather than to speak. However, speak I must, if only to...
Eat This Podcast: Questions of Taste
Hello This is the third in a little mini-series on taste. Can we disentangle aspects of gustatory taste that are common to all human beings from those that...
Eat This Newsletter 124: Indigenous
Hello Bit of a mixed bag this time, so let’s start with possibly the most useful news of the past two weeks: New test could guarantee the perfect avocado. No...
Eat This Podcast: You are what you drink
Or maybe you drink what you are. Hello This is the second episode in my little mini-series on taste. Chad Ludington, author of The Politics of Wine in...
Eat This Newsletter 123: Meat matters
Hello Last time I tried hard to find stories that were not about Covid-19. What has emerged clearly, though, is that the disease has suddenly opened people’s...
Eat This Podcast: What is good taste? What tastes good?
Hello Can we say anything sensible about taste? Part of me knows that taste is entirely subjective. But another part of me is quite willing to think about...
Eat This Newsletter 122: a series of smooth segues
Hello It is all but impossible to avoid Covid stories about food, or anything else. I’ve tried, honest. Other diseases are still around Not to make light of...
Eat This Podcast: The Man Who Tried to Feed the World
Hello The Man Who Tried to Feed the World is the title of a new TV documentary about Norman Borlaug, the plant breeder credited with launching the Green...
Eat This Newsletter 121: Ooops. I forgot one of the links.
Hello I hope everyone is bearing up. We certainly are, and if my homemade pizza isn’t as good as the stuff we’re accustomed to, well … too bad. At least it...
Eat This Podcast: The true heart of Russian Food
Hello Darra Goldstein combines a scholar’s knowledge of history and literature with a cook’s interest in recipes and ingredients. Her latest book took her on...
Eat This Newsletter 120: An opportunity?
Hello I’m honestly torn about today’s issue of the newsletter. People are sharing all sorts of tips about how to cook in a time of crisis, some more paranoid...
Eat This Podcast: Remembering the food of the past, no matter how bad it was
Hello The Book of Tasty and Healthy Food – published in 1939 – was a complete guide for Soviet citizens. It was both practical and propaganda, with pictures...
Eat This Newsletter 119: Ceci n’est pas une poire
Hello Few but good, that’s the underlying narrative for this edition of Eat This Newsletter. Apples and pears A charming story about Isabella dalla Ragione,...
Eat This Podcast: Orange-fleshed sweet potato
Hello You can be perfectly well fed, maybe even too well fed, and yet still malnourished. Hidden hunger reflects a lack of essential micronutrients in the...
Eat This Newsletter 118: Toot toot
Hello Maybe it’s because I have now been at this lark for almost seven years, but everything I see as I wander the interwebs seems to relate to something...
Eat This Podcast: Another cup of coffee culture
Hello The UK was not a big coffee drinker for quite a while after the first proper espresso machines made their appearance in Soho. Not so the United States,...
Eat This Newsletter 117: Old and new
Hello I’ve been doing a bit of an early spring clean in some of the places where I keep lists of things I want to read at some point, and in the process...