Food & Nutrition

All About Prosciutto I don't eat prosciutto often, but I'm never disappointed when I do. Prosciutto is an Italian dry-cured ham famous worldwide for its delicate texture, rich flavor, and complex aroma.  Not to be confused with pancetta or guanciale, prosciutto is a dry-cured pig product that can be expensive but so great on pizza, in pasta, or served as an appetizer. Making prosciutto involves carefully salting and air-drying the hind leg of a pig over several months or even years. During this time, the meat loses water and gains flavor as it is exposed to the air and cured with salt and other seasonings. What's In a Name? The word "prosciutto" comes from the Italian word "prosciugare," which means "to dry." This is fitting, as the key to prosciutto's distinctiv...

All About Garlic Garlic is one of the most important ingredients in my cooking. I love what garlic does to my meals. Of course, too much may ruin a dish for some, but I haven't had that experience yet.  Garlic is a widely used culinary herb enjoyed by people worldwide for centuries. It belongs to the Allium family, including onions, leeks, and chives. It has a uniquely pungent and spicy flavor and aroma, which adds a distinctive taste to various dishes. In addition to its culinary uses, garlic has been used for medicinal purposes since ancient times. Where Does Garlic Come From? Garlic is native to Central Asia and has been cultivated for over 5,000 years. It was widely used in ancient Egypt, where it was given to workers to improve their strength and endurance. In an...

Wine earns all the editorial think pieces, and coffee gets the five-year leases, but these days I find myself increasingly drawn to camellia sinensis, the drink popularly known as tea. Those blue-green oolongs, licorice pu’ers, rock candy yanchas, and amaro-like Sichuan greens have something to say—and they are no longer content to do it with whispers or play second fiddle behind other, more flashy craft consumption trends. Tea is unbelievably delicious and flavorfully diverse; it’s compelling and historic and urgent and nootropically potent—it is a multiverse, a vast ocean, a deep and abiding rabbit hole. It’s every tea, everywhere, all at once.  I was pulled into loving tea a decade ago, thanks to the ongoing café beat I work as one of the cof...

All About Rice We cook with a lot of rice in our house. It goes well with many dishes and makes a beautiful meal conduit. In this post, I'd like to look at rice from several points of view, so you can better understand how important rice is in so many cultures. What Is Rice and How Is It Used In Cooking? Rice is a cereal grain and one of the most important staple foods for many of the world's human population, especially in Asia. It is the seed of the grass species Oryza sativa (Asian rice) or Oryza glaberrima (African rice). Moreover, it is the agricultural commodity with the third-highest worldwide production, after sugarcane and maize. Popularity Rice is one of the world's most widely consumed staple foods, particularly popular in Asian countries. According to th...

All About Tartar Sauce Who hasn't tried tartar sauce at some point in their life? Unfortunately, most versions I've eaten were commercial brands served with fried seafood. I will go out on a limb by suggesting that any homemade version will be better than a store-bought. The ingredients may be the same, but all those chemicals won't be added to preserve it. What Is Tartar Sauce? It is a creamy and tangy condiment commonly used as a dipping sauce for fried seafood, such as fish and chips, shrimp, and calamari. It is typically made with mayonnaise, chopped pickles or relish, capers, lemon juice, and spices. The ingredients of tartar sauce can vary slightly depending on the recipe, but the base is always mayonnaise. The mayonnaise is typically mixed with chopped pickles ...

Strawberry Corn Flake Cake Is Part of a Complete Breakfast By: Zola Gregory Photos: Eli Lu While there is nothing morally wrong with eating cake for breakfast—I do it all the time—there’s always a small whisper in the back of my head telling me that I’ll be hungry again in half an hour. Even though a cake contains what are arguably the building blocks for an acceptable breakfast—eggs, flour, and milk—wouldn’t I be better off with a hearty omelet? Then I remember the cereal commercials of my early 2000s childhood, where a bowl of milky cereal was announced as being “part of a complete breakfast.” If a bowl of strawberries and a glass of orange juice could tur...

A few years ago, I found myself in a pinch. I had borrowed a friend’s cabin that sat along the Housatonic River in the shadow of northwest Connecticut’s Bear Mountain, an equally short distance from the New York and Massachusetts borders. I brought my dog, my laptop, a pair of hiking boots, not one but two hunting knives, a bottle of Blanton’s Single Barrell Bourbon, a can of bear spray, and the hope that I wouldn’t have to use it. Since I was there to knuckle down and finish the book I’d been working on, I only brought two things to read: a novel, and a copy of The L.L. Bean Game and Fish Cookbook by publishing legends Angus Cameron and Judith Jones. My intention was to cook all three dinners I would eat at the cabin using recipes supplied by Cam...

Fly By Jing chili crisp, the breakout sensation from Jing Gao’s line of Sichuan pantry items, is currently everywhere (and it almost felt like all at once). It’s carried in practically all of the small, hyper-curated grocery stores across the country (the “shoppy shops”), but it’s also sold at big-box big boys Target and, remarkably, Costco. It’s been an impressive rise for a brand launched only in 2018 by a former marketing executive turned condiment queen. Fans of Gao’s spicy, crispy, mouth-numbing condiment often use it as a hot sauce to add flavor (and, in this case, texture) to a finished dish. But Gao first started making and jarring her take on the staple Chinese pantry item to minimize prep work for the supper club she formerly ran in Shan...

I was ten years old when I tasted pizza for the first time. My family had moved to Rome in the middle of the school year, and my brother and I were dropped into a fancy private school improbably run by Irish nuns near Piazza di Spagna in the city’s Centro Storico (historic center). It was an abrupt introduction to Italian bourgeois culture, including the Italian pizza ritual. Every morning as we filed into class, we passed the school custodian selling neatly wrapped packets of pizza rossa and pizza bianca. In the classroom, we slid our paper-packaged snack in between the radiator columns to keep them warm until our midmorning break. I’m not sure if anything has ever tasted as delicious since.  Pizza bianca was a little basic, just straight dough...

What Is Food Fraud and How to Avoid It? I had never thought of food fraud until my oldest daughter brought it up and thought I should research it. So in this post, I will look at some of the issues surrounding food fraud and what foods we should keep our eyes on. Food fraud intentionally deceives consumers by misrepresenting food products or ingredients through substitution, dilution, or mislabeling. It is a global issue that affects the entire food supply chain, from producers and manufacturers to retailers and consumers. The motivations for food fraud are typically financial gain, as fraudulent products can be sold at a higher price or with less expensive ingredients or to circumvent regulatory requirements. What Does It Look Like? Food fraud can take many form...