Tag: Food
What Does it Take to Understand a Culture’s Cuisine?
by Joanna Kakissis | 06.18.08 | 12:41 PM ET
Gourmet contributor Shoba Narayan recently dined with her mother at Masala Klub, a new high-end eatery at the Taj West End hotel in Bangalore. The meal began well enough, with white wine and a good lemongrass rasam (“the holy grail of our community, the Tamil Brahmin people”). But the main course—a collection of too-chewy paneer, undercooked spiced haricots verts and other “forgettable” dishes—left the women underwhelmed. Why couldn’t the savvy chef at Masala Klub impress these compatriot foodies? Narayan says it’s because Indians are so famously possessive of their cuisine that even the most talented haute and fusion chefs rarely stand a chance in the kitchen.
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Yahoo! BuzzCross-Cultural Theme Restaurants on the Rise in Los Angeles
by Jim Benning | 06.13.08 | 12:20 PM ET
The Los Angeles Times covers this very cool shrinking planet phenomenon. Just one example: “[I]n Culver City, you will find a New York art collector’s interpretation of a Japanese maid cafe (or “maid-kissa”)—Royal/T Cafe, which opened last month in the Royal/T art gallery. Works by the likes of Takashi Murakami, Yayoi Kusama and Chris Ofili are featured.” I know where I’m going for dinner soon.
Photo by forklift via Flickr, (Creative Commons).
Belgian Brewer Bids on Bud
by Elyse Franko | 06.13.08 | 9:31 AM ET
For years, Anheuser-Busch has been duking it out with a Czech brewery over the name Budweiser. Now Belgium’s InBev has bid to take over the iconic U.S. maker of Budweiser and other beers. Could a war to protect the American-as-apple-pie integrity of our keg beers be next?
Related on World Hum:
*Global Warming’s Next Victim: Beer?
*American Beer: Beyond Bud Light
Food Odysseys: Overstuffed?
by Julia Ross | 06.12.08 | 11:37 AM ET
Reading Fuchsia Dunlop’s description of “fish fragrant aubergines” in her recent China travel memoir, Shark’s Fin and Sichuan Pepper, left me oddly dissatisfied. There’s no question the British food writer knows her stuff—she apprenticed at a Sichuanese culinary school and is the author of two Chinese cookbooks—but every couple chapters, after further meditations on the mouth feel of sea cucumbers, I was tempted to snap the book shut and push it away like a picked-over dinner plate. Enough, I thought.
Should Czech Travelers (and Everyone Else) Leave Their Food at Home?
by Eva Holland | 06.11.08 | 12:10 PM ET
Nearly 10 percent of Czechs take their summer holidays in Croatia, and most of them fill their cars with groceries from home before they cross the border. So when Croatia banned the import of meat and dairy products last week, self-catering Czech travelers were incensed. But, says Guardian blogger Kevin Rushby, tourists who travel with BYO groceries are missing half the fun.
Texas Monthly: ‘The State of Our Barbecue Union is Strong’
by Michael Yessis | 06.10.08 | 12:57 PM ET
Global barbecue threat? Ha! Texans shouldn’t be concerned. Texas Monthly has put together an incredibly comprehensive survey of Texas barbecue joints, many of which are arguably not just the best in Texas but the finest in the world. The top 50 are presented alphabetically by city and on a Google map. Coming in at No. 1: Snow’s BBQ in Lexington. Two places with some of the best barbecue I’ve ever tasted made the top five: Smitty’s and Kreuz Market, both in Lockhart.
Related on World Hum:
* Barbecue Goes Global
* Notes from the Barbecue Trail: From Lockhart, Texas to Lexington, North Carolina
‘Dichos’: The Southwest’s Newer, Cooler Fortune Cookie?
by Joanna Kakissis | 06.06.08 | 10:41 AM ET
Where’s the World’s Largest Restaurant?
by Jim Benning | 06.04.08 | 12:03 PM ET
In a suburb of Damascus, Syria, of all places. “The 6,012-seat Damascus Gate has taken the accolade from a Bangkok eatery serving a mere 5,000 diners,” the BBC reports. According to the article, the restaurant “has a huge open air area complete with pools, fountains and replicas of archaeological ruins for the summer, and separate themed areas for Chinese and Indian cuisine.”
Jalalabad’s Sweet Ice Cream Shop
by Joanna Kakissis | 06.03.08 | 11:33 AM ET
You never know when you might find yourself in eastern Afghanistan in need of a little ice cream. Try Pakiza in Jalalabad, which is lit up like a casino. NPR’s Ivan Watson recently sampled the handmade, cardamom-flavored ice cream, which comes plain and topped with a tangle of thick white noodles (an Afghan specialty called jalla). His verdict? “It melts fast, but for a sweet moment offers a much-needed escape from the Jalalabad heat.”
Photo by zoonie via Flickr (Creative Commons).
Kim Sunée: Travel, Food and the Search for Home
by Joanna Kakissis | 06.02.08 | 2:31 PM ET
Joanna Kakissis asks the author of "Trail of Crumbs" about her journey back to South Korea, the benefits of "not fitting in" and her view of wanderlust
‘Where on Earth is a Casual Public-Transport Drinker To Go?’
by Eva Holland | 05.30.08 | 11:26 AM ET
That’s the question on Laura Barton’s mind now that London’s new mayor has announced a plan to ban drinking on the city’s underground train system. In The Guardian this week, she rails against the ban and laments the state of public-transit-drinking worldwide.
Photo by slimmer_jimmer via Flickr (Creative Commons)
Foodie Alert: ‘Clotilde’s Edible Adventures in Paris’
by Joanna Kakissis | 05.29.08 | 10:01 AM ET
Clotilde Dusoulier, the popular food blogger from France, has written a new guidebook that features her favorite restaurants, markets and shops in Paris. The 28-year-old former software engineer’s book gives tips not only on where to find the best Tarte-Gateau Poire Chocolat (pear and chocolate cake-tart) but on how to mind your manners when it comes to dining and food-shopping with the French. (Hint: Don’t dis the food.)
Photo by grahamandsheila via Flickr (Creative Commons).
Oysters, Cheesecake and a Russian Girl’s Magic Pot of Faraway Food
by Joanna Kakissis | 05.28.08 | 12:09 PM ET
When Lara Vapnyar was a child living in Russia, she wrote an essay for school about the thing she most wanted a Magi to give her: a magic pot that would create any food in the world. She had grown up reading European and American novels that featured exotic delights such as cheesecake, asparagus and oysters, and she longed to know if they tasted as good as they did in her imagination. The descriptions of these foods were not only words; they took on a power that transported her to other worlds.
Ten Things to Eat Before They Disappear
by Joanna Kakissis | 05.27.08 | 11:39 AM ET
Because it might not be around much longer, Imraguen mullet bottarga—a kind of Mauretanian caviar—was one of the “endangered foods” from around the world that was featured at a unique feast in Newcastle, England, The World reports. The “Ten Things to Eat Before They Die” menu also included Saxon village berry preserves from Translyvania, Herat raisins from Afghanistan, golden lentils from France and Huehuetenango highland coffee from Guatemala. Globalization and mass marketing have increasingly homogenized the world’s menus, often suffocating the strange, delightful ingredients in traditional foods cultivated or made by a handful of producers.
Do They Serve Polygamy Porter at the Merry Wives Cafe?
by Joanna Kakissis | 05.23.08 | 11:11 AM ET
The Merry Wives Cafe in Hilldale, Utah is the only sit-down restaurant on the 55-mile stretch of highway between Fredonia, Arizona, and Hurricane, Utah. And, yes, it’s run by polygamists. The Work of Jesus Christ of Centennial Park opened the cafe last year in part to sweeten polygamy’s really, really bad image. The Centennial Park group broke off decades ago from the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints—whose chapter in Texas has been the focus of damning media reports about child sexual abuse—and says it condemns underage marriage and child labor.
A ‘Redneck Taco’ in the Deep-Fried United States
by Joanna Kakissis | 05.23.08 | 10:33 AM ET
Martin’s Barbecue Joint in Nolensville, Tennessee, makes a good one, at least according to Southern food guru John T. Edge. Martin’s “redneck taco” is pork-shoulder barbecue on hoecakes, which Edge calls “a cross between a cornpone and a blini.” Visitors might cackle over the name, especially if they’re dainty eaters, but ignore this beautiful open-faced sandwich at your own peril. Barbecue should be anointed the eighth wonder of the world, and hoecakes should be worshiped at least as much as hush puppies. Edge sampled hoecakes across Georgia, Tennessee and Kentucky for a recent Gourmet story.
Related on World Hum:
* Barbecue Goes Global
Foie Gras Returns To Chicago
by Eva Holland | 05.22.08 | 10:23 AM ET
It’s a victory for duck-liver lovers: the Chicago city council has overturned a ban on foie gras that was originally imposed two years ago at the urging of animal rights groups. Said one council member: “This is clearly a matter the council should stay out of and let the educated consumer and chefs make their own menu choices.” The repeal of the ban also means the end of another chapter in Chicago’s historic resistance to food-and-drink laws, as the illegal “duckeasies”—restaurants that had gone on serving foie gras without charging for it—will now return to the straight and narrow.
Related on World Hum:
* Sardines, Sushi and the Healthiest Diets on Earth
Barbecue Goes Global
by Michael Yessis | 05.21.08 | 5:17 PM ET
Memphis in May’s World Championship Barbecue Cooking Contest, aka the Super Bowl of Swine, took place last weekend with some fresh blood: teams from Belgium, Norway and Estonia. How’d they do? Well, give ‘em a little something for the effort. “[I]t takes sheer guts to fly over from a part of the world where this way of cooking is fledgling at best and to try to speak the complicated language of barbecue with a French, Estonian or Norwegian accent,” writes the Washington Post’s Joe Yonan. “To then try as the Belgians did to win the whole-hog contest using the antithesis of barbecue—and a mere six hours—is like soccer star David Beckham jumping onto the field with the Patriots and the Giants and attempting to head a football pass.”
American Beer: Beyond Bud Light
by Eva Holland | 05.19.08 | 10:45 AM ET
I’m not sure I agree with the Toronto Star’s theory that the rise of quality craft beer in the United States is a new trend. It seems to me that anyone who’s been paying attention has known there’s more to the American brewing scene than the Silver Bullet and the King of Beers for quite some time. Still, I enjoyed Josh Rubin’s take on the state of the beer nation and, among things, its “hop-heads.” Whlle we’re on the subject, if you’re headed to Denver, Portland or San Francisco this summer, Fodor’s suggests beer-related tours, festivals, brewpubs and day trips in those “hoppy cities.”
Related on World Hum:
* Rural Pubs in Ireland Becoming ‘So Yesterday’
Photo by spcummings via Flickr (Creative Commons)
The International Banana Club: One Appealing Museum
by Joanna Kakissis | 05.16.08 | 3:40 AM ET
James Frey may have redeemed his fake-memoir self with his latest book, at least according to a rave review by Janet Maslin of The New York Times. But I’m more interested in Frey’s (random?) nod to an L.A.-area museum devoted entirely to bananas.