Eat This Newsletter

Eat This Newsletter 180: Novel food debate

April 25, 2022

Hello No apologies for devoting a lot of space to protein in one form or another. It is an important topic that we need to understand better. Insect meal and...

Eat This Podcast -- Tomatoes: domestication and diversity

April 18, 2022

Hello The discovery of truly wild tomatoes in Mexico recently allowed researchers to finally tell a story of tomato domestication that fits all the available...

Eat This Newsletter 179: A fresh look at farming

April 11, 2022

Hello I have a problem with podcasts that goes way beyond making my own. It is that I can really only listen when I am walking, flying, boating or training....

Eat This Podcast: Aaron Vallance — 1dish4theroad

April 4, 2022

Hello Aaron Vallance's writing at his website 1dish4theroad has twice been shortlisted by the Guild of Food Writers, not bad for someone who admits to having...

Eat This Newsletter 178: Damned if you do and damned if you don’t

March 28, 2022

Hello Things have been a bit topsy-turvy lately, so please accept a newsletter instead of a podcast episode this week. Normal service will be resumed as soon...

Eat This Newsletter 177: Watchamacallit

March 21, 2022

Hello I'm still bleating on about the naming of things, and I suspect nothing will ever stop me. Cattle denazification There was an unfortunate, but all too...

Eat This Podcast: Yes, we have no plantains

March 14, 2022

Hello Jessica Kehinde Ngo recently wrote an impassioned piece bemoaning the fact that “the plantain has long been eclipsed by its banana cousin”. That...

Eat This Newsletter 176: Could be ...

February 28, 2022

Hello This newsletter is half hypothetical and half rooted in reality. Which is which? I couldn’t possibly say. What price patriotism? If there is a label on...

Eat This Podcast: Food Philosophy

February 21, 2022

Hello Discussions about food often “bump up against philosophy,” according to David Kaplan. He is a professor of philosophy at the University of North Texas,...

Eat This Newsletter 175: A wing and a prayer

February 14, 2022

Hello In last week’s podcast, I asked whether we should distinguish food poverty from poverty, pure and simple. Following up, this week’s newsletter is...

Eat This Podcast: Unconditional cash to improve nutrition

February 7, 2022

Hello Give Directly is a charity that was started by students at Harvard and MIT after their research showed that a lot of philanthopy was both very...

Eat This Newsletter 174: Bitter and dark

January 31, 2022

Hello Back in the swing of things now, alternating podcast episodes and newsletters. STOP PRESS: This just in (see item 3 below): An African immigrant's...

Eat This Podcast: New season, old food!

January 24, 2022

Hello Way back when, Neolithic people discovered that they could eat milk that had gone sour with impunity, even though ordinary milk upset their digestion....

Eat This Newsletter 173: January's point-counterpoint: "So, this is bacon!"

January 17, 2022

Hello I had fully intended to release a podcast today, but the honest truth is that I’m not ready. I am still trying to get more guests lined up for the next...

Eat This Newsletter 172: Policy, potato and Pleurotus

January 11, 2022

Hello I hope you had a good break over the holiday season, if you had a break at all. I know I did. So, here we go again, with my hand-picked selection of...

Eat This Podcast: High Art

December 20, 2021

Hello The 5th edition of the Biennial of Photography on Industry and Work in Bologna focussed attention on food. All of the 11 exhibitions were really...

Eat This Newsletter 171: Proletarian

December 13, 2021

Hello Lots to get your teeth into in this issue, from public relations idiocy to the idiocy of ideology. Oh Canada, about your chickens Here are some jaw-...

Eat This Podcast: Visit an ancient Roman bakery

December 6, 2021

Hello Down the River Tiber from Rome is the huge archaeological site of Ostia Antica, which used to be the main port for the city. It’s all ruins now, of...

Eat This Newsletter 170: From science to satire

November 22, 2021

Hello In general, things that delight, instruct or entertain are the order of the day here. Occasionally, though, I find it necessary to point to stuff I...

Eat This Podcast: The true history of the potato in Europe

November 15, 2021

Hello Perhaps you’ve heard stories about the history of the potato in Europe. Ignorant peasants shun the potato until a wily aristocrat — or even the monarch...

Eat This Newsletter 169: Turning back the clocks

November 1, 2021

Hello It was nice to wake up this morning with the sun shining, although it will be awful to drink my tea this afternoon in the dark. Still, I do love the...

Eat This Podcast: Twenty-one letters, fifty shapes, unlimited possibilities

October 25, 2021

Hello Rachel Roddy’s new book is An A-Z of Pasta: Stories, Shapes, Sauces, Recipes. She wisely recognised that there was little point in trying to be...

Eat This Newsletter 168: Nobody expects …

October 18, 2021

Hello A mixed bag, and that’s the way, uh-huh uh-huh, I like it. I hope you do too. An app to measure starvation … … but not to fix it This article – A new...

Eat This Podcast: Midnight’s chicken

October 11, 2021

Hello After the partition of India and Pakistan in 1947, a young chef brought the tandoor oven and his tandoori chicken from Peshawar to a new restaurant he...

Eat This Newsletter 167: Clear, simple and wrong

October 4, 2021

Hello Advanced technology is a wonderful thing — how else would I be able to communicate with you all? — but there are some problems that just aren't...

Eat This Podcast: Sushi: From Necessity to Ubiquity

September 27, 2021

Hello The California Roll was only the beginning. Or at least, the beginning of global domination, after a couple of thousand years of quiet evolution. In...

Eat This Newsletter 166: Interconnected

September 20, 2021

Interconnected Hello It isn’t possible to fix complicated problems with simple solutions. It’s all connected Are you worried about too much carbon dioxide in...

Eat This Podcast: How coffee ties Italy, Brazil and Italian East Africa to one another

September 13, 2021

Hello And we’re back, after a terrific summer break. Diana Garvin, an historian, recently published a paper that examines what she calls the Italian coffee...

Eat This Newsletter 165: A Podcast Delayed

September 6, 2021

Hello An unforeseen circumstance dashed my hopes, and perhaps yours too, of a new episode of the podcast today. But there’s no point in being your own boss...

Eat This Newsletter 164: Food News in Person

August 30, 2021

Hello The temperature suddenly dropped by about 10 degrees C a couple of days ago, a sure sign that I need to get back to producing episodes of the podcast....

Eat This Newsletter 163: Food Justice

August 23, 2021

Hello My thanks to the people who wrote to tell me that garlic noodles is indeed a dish worth pursuing, and especially to Lenore, a supporter, who pointed me...

Eat This Newsletter 162: Hyperlocal

August 16, 2021

Hello Is it voyeuristic to want to learn about things you are unlikely ever to experience? Obviously I don’t think so, or I wouldn’t be doing what I do....

Eat This Newsletter 161: Visionaries

August 9, 2021

Hello Nice to have a little uptick in subscribers this past week. Welcome, and thanks to Susan MacMillan, whose newsletter Taking Stock is one I enjoy...

Eat This Newsletter 160: Scrambled

August 2, 2021

Hello Straying somewhat from the beaten track, I blame the heat here, which has scrambled my brain. I take some solace from the observation that there are...

Eat This Newsletter 159: Fantasy

July 26, 2021

Hello At last, somewhat authoritative figures on the aggregate costs of cheap food. Will they change anything? You tell me. The cost that dare not speak its...

Eat This Newsletter 158: Cultured, innit?

July 19, 2021

Hello Some older items this week, which nevertheless are still well within their eat by date. Also, lots of historical contingency. And I'm still looking for...

Eat This Newsletter 157: Almost global

July 13, 2021

Hello It is so annoying when a headline or link promises a story that ought to be interesting and then fails to deliver. Normally, I just give a snort of...

Eat This Newsletter 156: Cereal

July 5, 2021

Hello Greetings from sunny Puglia, where some of the dead olive trees have been cleaned up and there are clear green shoots on newly planted trees. This is a...

Eat This Newsletter 155: Counterfactual

June 28, 2021

Counterfactual Hello This edition is arriving slightly late, because it contains a link to an embargoed scientific paper and I respect embargoes. Other than...

Eat This Podcast: Still hungry after all these years

June 21, 2021

Hello India, like most places on Earth, suffered its fair share of famines over the centuries. When Indian politicians gained independence in 1947, they...

Eat This Newsletter 154: Hyper-regional and hyper-diverse

June 14, 2021

Hello Why shouldn’t people in Alaska have strawberries year-round, if that’s what they want? And why shouldn’t students in Delhi latch onto an abominable...

Eat This Podcast: The original global food system

June 7, 2021

Hello Chris Otter’s book Diet for a Large Planet shows how the British Empire, starting in the late 18th century, outsourced much of its food supply, paving...

Eat This Newsletter 153: Not a prime (but divisible by 17)

May 31, 2021

Hello This week’s haul has prompted me to mull over how hard it is fully to understand other discourses. It’s good to be reminded how little I know. The cost...

Eat This Podcast: Can Fixing Dinner Fix the Planet?

May 24, 2021

Hello That’s the title of a new book from Jess Fanzo, a globally-recognized thinker on food systems and professor at Johns Hopkins University. The book...

Eat This Newsletter 152: Unadulterated

May 17, 2021

Hello If it seems to good to be true, it probably is. An optimistic piece from Puglia Puglia, the heel on the boot of Italy is, as you'll know if you've...

Eat This Podcast: A very modern spice merchant

May 10, 2021

Hello Arun Kapil first started selling spices from a farmers market stall in Cork, Ireland. That was about 15 years ago. This past month, Green Saffron, the...

Eat This Newsletter 151: Cringeworthy

May 3, 2021

Hello What is it about countries that makes them want a national dish? Or, indeed, a national myth? Rants from Down Under What a treat to read an Australian...

Eat This Podcast: Coffea stenophylla tastes terrific

April 26, 2021

Hello A little less than a year ago I talked to Professor Jeremy Haggar about his successful search for Coffea stenophylla in Sierra Leone. A hundred years...

Eat This Newsletter 150: One hundred and fifty not out

April 19, 2021

Hello Hard to believe this is edition No. 150 of Eat This Newsletter. When I started, in April 2015, I justified myself thusly: “Someone recently said that...

Eat This Podcast: What is agriculture for, really?

April 12, 2021

Hello Colin Tudge has been writing about food and farming for a long time in a series of thought-provoking books. His latest is The Great Re-Think, which...