Tag: Food
‘Beyond the Great Wall’: Exploring China’s Edges
by Julia Ross | 01.05.09 | 11:53 AM ET
Inspired by a recent New Yorker profile of the food writer/adventurer couple Naomi Duguid and Jeffrey Alford, I ordered a Christmas present for myself this year: the duo’s wonderful cookbook and travelogue, Beyond the Great Wall: Recipes and Travels in the Other China. It’s an affectionate look at the cultures and foodways of China’s outlying regions, including Tibet, Yunnan and Xinjiang.
The recipes, for simple dishes like Ginger and Carrot Stir-Fry, are surprisingly low maintenance. But my favorite sections are Duguid’s and Alford’s recollections of traveling in China in the mid-1980s, when the country was just opening up to foreign tourists. Alford, who taught English in Taiwan in 1982, remembers the mystique China held for Westerners at the time:
“Every once in a while I’d hear a story about someone visiting ‘the Mainland,’ traveling independently, but it seemed very hard to believe. The rumor was that a visa could be arranged in Hong Kong from a travel agent in Chungking Mansions, a low-life building full of bottom-end hostels, Indian restaurants and drug deals. It all seemed a bit unlikely—it was ‘Communist China,’ after all.”
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Yahoo! BuzzEating Like a Viking in Minneapolis
by David Farley | 12.29.08 | 6:45 PM ET
The first indication I knew I was in trouble was when the waitress told me I was the youngest person to order the dish since they put it on the menu a month ago. And I’m 37. The second—and the worst part—occurred when the dish actually arrived. Staring at me from a plus-sized plate was a variation on the theme of pale: diced boiled potatoes, golf ball-sized pearl onions, lefse (a flatbread not unlike lavash or tortilla), a thimble of butter, and, the plate’s tour de force, a three-inch quivering gelatinous beast. Otherwise known as lutefisk.
Stockholm and San Francisco: Two Capitals of Eco-Cool?
by Joanna Kakissis | 12.29.08 | 1:23 PM ET
Stockholm has organic jeans, eco-guidebooks and Michelin-starred chefs specializing in natural cuisine. San Francisco has eco-boutiques, enviro-warriors and dating sites for “eco-sexuals.”
The no-bad-news folks at The Optimist lavished praise on Stockholm, which has been shortlisted as a European green capital for 2010 and 2011 and even has its own eco-focused blog. The pub calls the city “eco-cool.”
Meanwhile, a Qantas blogger obsessed with the evils of plastic bags gave some love to plastic-bag-banning San Francisco.
I don’t know exactly what eco-cool means. If we’re talking style and sustainability, then I’d also give a shout out to Amsterdam, Reykjavik, Vancouver, Sydney, Copenhagen, Portland, Oregon and Boulder, Colorado.
Who would you nominate?
Smuggling Cinnamon Rolls
by Terry Ward | 12.29.08 | 12:09 PM ET
Photo by Frank Murray Terry Ward packed a couple of tubes for a trans-Atlantic flight. Then she encountered airport security.
The Year in Eating
by David Farley | 12.23.08 | 4:44 PM ET
Food experts are rolling out their predictions for 2009 and they’re really going out on a limb forecasting, for example, that recession specials are going to be huge. Here’s what we think about eating in 2009: there will be no food because there will be no restaurants because no one will have much money to eat anything. Which will then make things that were previously unappetizing, very edible. (Yes, we’re looking at you dog!) Really, though, rather than look forward—after all, the future of eating doesn’t look so pink in the middle right now—let’s take a breather from all this fortunetelling and glance backwards to better times. This was the year of both Greek yogurt and mixologists. It was the year that Korean cuisine pissed all over Chinese food (Chinese will make a huge comeback in 2010, we think). And it was another great year for David Chang. But here are a few things we’d like to dwell on:
The Rise and Fall and Rise of Beer in the U.S.
by David Farley | 12.22.08 | 6:52 PM ET
Hhmm…beer. It’s hard to believe now, but in 1873, there were 4,000 breweries in the United States. Brooklyn alone boasted 50. But Prohibition followed by industrialization wiped out nearly all the breweries. And by 1965 there were only a couple megalithic beer factories serving watered-down suds and just one craft beer maker in the country (Anchor Steam). This info comes to us from a recently published New Yorker piece by Burkhard Bilger on Dogfish Brewery.
Coincidentally, Czech beer buff and author of The Good Beer Guide Prague & The Czech Republic, Evan Rail, recently wrote about the numerous (and long-gone) breweries in 19th-century Prague. But let’s not start weeping in our pints of PBR just yet. According to Bilger there are now 1,500 breweries in the United States, and when I checked in with Evan Rail, he had this to say about brewing in the country that consumes more beer per capita than anywhere in the world: “When my book was published, there were about 102 (plus or minus) total breweries in the Czech Republic, counting brewpubs, micros and industrial brewers. Now it’s 122. That’s a gain of just under 20% in 18 months.”
We’ll most certainly toast to that.
Morning Links: Wynn’s Encore, a ‘Sadistic’ Geography Quiz and More
by Michael Yessis | 12.22.08 | 8:18 AM ET
- Continental Flight 1404 crashed in Denver Saturday night. Thirty-eight passengers were injured. There were no casualties. Investigators are on the scene.
- The first news about the crash apparently came via Twitter—from a guy on board the plane. Here’s his colorful tweet.
- “60 Minutes” examines the state of TSA screening. It’s “security theater,” says one expert.
- Steve Wynn’s Encore opens today in Las Vegas. When asked if he’s worried about opening a new resort In this economic climate, Wynn said, “Are you nuts?” He added: “If I didn’t say yes, you would walk out of here thinking I was crazy.”
- Southwest may begin service to New York City in 2009.
- Matt Gross hit seven airports in four days in search of good eats. He talked a little about it on All Things Considered.
- Thomas Friedman “had no idea that many of those oil paintings that hang in hotel rooms and starter homes across America are actually produced by just one Chinese village.”
- Concierge’s It List 2009 is out.
- The Passports With Purpose fundraiser enters its final week. The raffle was organized by four travel bloggers, including World Hum contributor Pam Mandel.
- The latest in the Washington Post’s excellent Time Zones series: The boom in used car auctions in Johannesburg.
- John Flinn unleashes his “most sadistic geography quiz ever.” No matter how you score, just remember: When it comes to geography, you’re no Sarah Palin.
Morning Links: GlobalPost, 3 a.m. Dining and More
by Michael Yessis | 12.19.08 | 9:54 AM ET
- Behind the scenes at GlobalPost, a new venture that, in the face of the crumbling newspaper industry, will attempt “to create a new model for overseas reporting.”
- A great interactive graphic shows the rise of megacities.
- Christopher Elliott asks: “Is the U.S. travel industry on the verge of a ‘collapse’?”
- Patrick Smith asks: Will the airlines follow Detroit to the government trough?
- Sarah Hepola interviews Brian Raftery, author of Don’t Stop Believin’: How Karaoke Conquered the World and Changed My Life.
- Restaurants across the U.S. are catering to 3 a.m. diners.
- TravelBlogs rounds up some travel bloggers to reveal the books and movies that inspired them to travel.
- IgoUgo picks 10 intriguing New Year’s celebrations.
- National Geographic serves up an interactive graphic of hangover cures from around the world. Tripe soup, anyone?
Pigging Out
by David Farley | 12.18.08 | 2:55 PM ET
David Sedaris put it best in Me Talk Pretty One Day when he recalled meeting his boyfriend and eventually settling in France: “I wound up in Normandy the same way my mother wound up in North Carolina: you meet a guy, relinquish a tiny bit of control, and the next thing you know, you’re eating a different part of the pig.”
It’s true—at least about the pig part: I once watched a sow get slaughtered in the Czech hinterlands and the first offerings turned out to be the beast’s brains, followed by its heart, its blood (as soup), and, finally, fried nuggets of pig fat. But I’d never encountered such parts on the menus of restaurants in the United States. That is, until now.
Dirt Candy, Anyone?
by David Farley | 12.17.08 | 12:44 PM ET
Hi there. I’m David Farley, World Hum’s resident food blogger. World Hum asked me to cover dining and food after recently watching me consume food and drink with eyebrow-raising fury at a New York restaurant. When I was young—we’re talking five and six years old—I received constant accolades from my mom for my eating prowess. And while I’m not necessarily in the same league with, say, Andrew Zimmern, I’ll still try just about anything at least once. Which means I’ve eaten everything from insects to the innards of large mammals. But when it comes to food, I can be quite the fancy boy (I love foie gras) and completely unfussy (I also love burgers and fried chicken).
With that behind me, Dirt Candy, anyone?
You can’t judge a book by its cover, so should you judge a restaurant by its name? Probably not. But would you want to eat at a vegetarian restaurant called Dirt Candy? Metromix recently named the worst-named new restaurants in New York.
How to Drink Kava in Fiji
by Laurie Pritchard | 12.16.08 | 4:35 AM ET
iStockphoto Laurie Pritchard explains how to properly imbibe with village chiefs, virgins and ancestral spirits
Emergency Rations: Lessons From a 16-Hour Amtrak Ride
by Eva Holland | 12.15.08 | 1:17 PM ET
I have this theory about successful budget transit: that the key to surviving a cross-country Greyhound ride, or a bargain-basement flight with three changes (all in small regional airports without so much as a Starbucks, naturally) is to never, ever be caught without a snack. After all, the only thing worse than being forced to buy, and eat, that simultaneously-stale-and-soggy packaged tuna sandwich at the truck stop is not having the option of eating anything at all. Right?
I first started packing what I think of as my “emergency rations” on a trip to India several years ago. The granola bars I’d stuffed into every corner of my backpack were handy on long train rides—and after I (inevitably) got sick, they became invaluable, my sole source of nutrition until I could stand to contemplate curry again. That success led to more advanced efforts: I can still remember the looks I got from other passengers when I boarded a Halifax-Montreal overnight train with an enormous Tupperware full of cold stir fry under my arm. But my habit of packing lunch didn’t evolve into a full-blown theory until one fateful Amtrak ride, from New York to Montreal, around this time last year.
Eight Best Cities for Street Food
by Terry Ward | 12.15.08 | 12:16 AM ET
iStockphoto Terry Ward lifts the lid on a few of the world's tastiest places to eat the people's cuisine
Michelin Goes to Hong Kong and Macau
by Eva Holland | 12.05.08 | 6:32 AM ET
The first-ever Michelin guide to Hong Kong and Macau was released yesterday, and a few restaurants—one in each city—landed the coveted three-star rating. Another 21 Hong Kong eateries received one or two stars, as did five in Macau. The renowned foodie guide publisher made waves earlier this year by granting Tokyo top honors among all Michelin-ranked cities. Given Hong Kong’s strong start this year, and the fact that locals swear the foreign reviewers missed many of the city’s best spots, there may soon be another Asian culinary powerhouse on the Michelin-star horizon. (Via Gadling)
Washington D.C. To World: During Inauguration Weekend, We’re Keeping our Bars Open Late For You
by Michael Yessis | 12.03.08 | 11:58 AM ET
The D.C. Council voted to allow bars, nightclubs and restaurants to pour booze until 5 a.m., and to serve food 24 hours a day, from January 17-20. That’s the long weekend before Barack Obama will be sworn in as the 44th president of the United States. So you may not be able to find a place to sleep, but you’ll always be able to find a place for a Yuengling and a crab cake.
What Food Writers Really Think of Thanksgiving
by Eva Holland | 11.26.08 | 2:09 PM ET
Turns out, they can’t stand the annual turkey fest—at least according to Slate’s Regina Schrambling, who offers a hilarious rant on the subject, just in time for the holidays. “What makes me totally crazy,” she writes, “is the persistent pressure to reinvent a wheel that has been going around quite nicely for more than 200 years. Every fall, writers and editors have to knock themselves out to come up with a gimmick—fast turkey, slow turkey, brined turkey, unbrined turkey—when the meal essentially has to stay the same.”
‘Street Food Doesn’t Have to Mean Rat on a Stick’
by Eva Holland | 11.24.08 | 11:56 AM ET
So says the Times of London. We’re inclined to agree.
Honoring the Tamale Calls of Mexico City
by Jim Benning | 11.24.08 | 10:28 AM ET
It’s not quite a call to prayer. It’s more like a call to chow down. The Los Angeles Times pays homage to the sounds of the city’s neighborhood food vendors with this fine little video. Writes Ken Ellingwood: “You hear it from a block away: an amplified, singsong call with an uncanny power to slice through the urban din. The tone is cheap and tinny—as kitschy as a sound can be. And it’s my favorite in Mexico City.”
‘Tea and Wallaby’: What Photojournalists Eat Around the World
by Michael Yessis | 11.21.08 | 11:08 AM ET
It’s long, but it’s good: Twelve photojournalists display and talk about memorable meals they’ve eaten on the job in an audio slideshow at the New Yorker.
Alain Ducasse: ‘I Am Not a Fan of Airline Food’
by Eva Holland | 11.20.08 | 10:33 AM ET
The legendary chef recently shared some tidbits about his travel habits with the Telegraph’s Lisa Grainger. His favorite thing about traveling? No surprise there: the local food. “For me, going to markets is the best way to understand the soul of a place,” Ducasse said. “I taste everything, wherever I am. There is nothing quite like the simple pleasure of a marvellous piece of local fruit; it tells you so much about where you are.”