Tag: Food
New Travel Book: ‘The Year of the Goat’
by Michael Yessis | 08.02.07 | 10:41 AM ET
Full title: “The Year of the Goat: 40,000 Miles and the Quest for the Perfect Cheese”
Authors: Margaret Hathaway, with photographs by Karl Schatz. Hathaway, according to the book’s Web site, “loves any combination of the following: reading, writing, cooking, napping, animal watching, traveling, making puppets, and being outdoors.” She also managed New York’s famed Magnolia Bakery. Schatz is “a photographer, picture editor, web designer, and journalist,” and the former online picture editor for Time Magazine.
Released: August 1, 2007
Travel genre: Food narrative, cheese-and goat-based
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Yahoo! BuzzBourdain: ‘What Right Minded Person Would NOT Travel the World if…Given the Chance?’
by Jim Benning | 07.30.07 | 4:20 PM ET
Long before World Hum was acquired by the Travel Channel, we were fans of Anthony Bourdain and his show No Reservations. We wrote about his experience in Beirut and his Graham Greene worldview. We even went so far as to call him a street-thug-poet-chef. Gadling just posted an interview with Bourdain, whose new season starts tonight. “What right minded person would NOT travel the world if and when given the chance?” Bourdain told the site—quite reasonably, we think—via e-mail. “I began to travel seriously as soon as I COULD. It took a successful book—and an indulgent network to allow me the opportunity—and I’m making the most of it.” Right on, Anthony. Let’s hear it for travel and indulgent networks.
Related on TravelChannel.com:
* Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations Wiki
The U.S. Taxicab Capital is…Bethel, Alaska?
by Michael Yessis | 07.24.07 | 10:23 AM ET
Likely so. Bethel, a city of 5,900 located about 400 miles west of Anchorage, has one cab for every 84 people, according to the AP. New York City has one cab for every 149 people. Bethel owes its cab-happy status to its geography: It’s ringed by thousands of ponds and you can’t drive in or out of town.
World Hum’s New Seventh Wonder of the Shrinking Planet: The Irish Pub
by Michael Yessis | 07.23.07 | 5:15 PM ET
The Irish pub has long intrigued us, both as a subject to write about and as a fine place to drink the occasional pint of Guinness. Thanks to Eva Holland for reminding us that the Irish pub also embodies many ways the globe is shrinking and cultures are colliding. It’s a worthy addition to our Seven Wonders of the Shrinking Planet. As Eva wrote in response to our call for a replacement to the now-closed Starbucks in China’s Forbidden City—hers was among a number of terrific suggestions; thanks to everyone who posted an idea—Irish pubs can be found just about everywhere in the world.
The Delicacy of the Andes
by Matt Villano | 07.23.07 | 12:13 PM ET
In Peru, people go crazy for cuy. In the U.S., they're household pets. When faced with eating them, Matt Villano confronts childhood memories, nausea and the costs of cultural immersion.
How to Eat Weisswurst in Munich
by World Hum | 07.12.07 | 10:49 AM ET
Photo by Chris Gray It's hard to find a restaurant in the German city that doesn't serve weisswurst. But it's said that the white sausages should never hear the noon church bells. Chris Gray explains.
Is It Bad Form to Order a Cappuccino After 11 A.M. in Italy?
by Jim Benning | 07.11.07 | 2:44 PM ET
Not only did a friend tell John Flinn never to order a cappuccino after 11 a.m. in Italy “because Italians think it’s barbaric,” but Flinn found the same advice repeated on countless Web sites. Anyone who breaks the 11 a.m. rule, common wisdom seems to dictate, will immediately be exposed as a good-for-nothing ignorant tourist. Flinn wondered whether Italians were really that judgmental. “I tried to imagine the reaction if a Belgian tourist walked into a McDonalds in, say, Cincinnati, and asked for mayonnaise for his fries,” he writes in Sunday’s San Francisco Chronicle. “It would draw, at most, a bemused shrug, wouldn’t it? Would an Italian waiter react to a post-11 a.m. cappuccino request any differently?” Flinn set out to find the answer on his last trip to Italy. What did he discover?
The Pleasure of an All-American Hamburger—In Egypt
by Julia Ross | 07.09.07 | 8:55 AM ET
I just spent my first Fourth of July outside the U.S., and I found myself craving something hot off the backyard grill, slathered with all the fixins. Oh, to have access to a place like Lucille’s, which, according to Time’s Cairo Bureau Chief, serves the best all-American burger this side of, well, anywhere. In a Postcard from Cairo, Scott MacLeod pays homage to his favorite greasy spoon, located in the city’s Maadi district and run by an up-by-her-bootstraps American woman—Lucille—who he likens to Erin Brockovich. Lucille’s draws its share of U.S. expats hungry for a taste of home (she even serves a little Tex-Mex), but its no-alcohol and halal meat-only policies have been a big hit with locals; 70 percent of the diner’s customers are Egyptian.
Wanted: Cambodian Noodle Joint in New York
by Julia Ross | 06.27.07 | 3:26 PM ET
If New York is the food capital of the world, why is a good bowl of kuy thiew so hard to come by? That’s the question writer Matthew Fishbane poses in a Salon essay examining America’s reluctance to embrace Cambodian cuisine. Recalling his days slurping noodles at sidewalk stands in Phnom Penh, he desperately searches the city for an authentic taste of fish sauce and lemongrass, but finds only one Cambodian joint on the Lower East Side, and its offerings don’t quite measure up.
Bambi Roll, Anyone? Inside Japan’s Sushi Crisis.
by Michael Yessis | 06.25.07 | 4:01 PM ET
How about raw horse meat? Japanese chefs are considering both because, given fishing limits and international demand for sushi, the country can’t get enough tuna. Martin Fackler writes in the New York Times that Japan has fallen into a “national panic,” with news programs devoting much airtime to the crisis. In Japanese sushi bars, the search is on for replacements. “At nicer restaurants, sushi chefs began experimenting with substitutes, from cheaper varieties of fish to terrestrial alternatives and even, heaven forbid, American sushi variations like avocado rolls,” Fackler writes.
South Korea Develops ‘Five-Point Kimchi Scale’
by Michael Yessis | 06.21.07 | 11:41 AM ET
Do you like your kimchi mild, slightly hot, moderately hot, very hot or extremely hot? The South Korean Ministry of Agriculture recently announced it has developed a five-point kimchi scale—Foreign Policy’s Blake Hounshell likens the “kimchi alert system” to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s threat advisory system—to help Westerners figure out what type of kimchi best suits their palates. The system will also measure fermentation levels. It’s all part of an ongoing effort to promote kimchi as a global food.
In Morocco, a Khubz in Every Communal Oven
by Terry Ward | 06.18.07 | 2:15 PM ET
In every neighborhood in Morocco, from Tangier to Agadir, five places are open to the public: a mosque, a school (madrasa), a public fountain, a hammam (public bath) and a communal oven. In Fes, where I studied Arabic in 2003, my host family was fairly well off, so we had our own oven in the garden—a gas-fired number that we had to shoo the pigeons from when we baked.
Zagats on Chinese Cuisine: U.S. Needs ‘Dumpling Diplomacy’
by Jim Benning | 06.18.07 | 7:40 AM ET
One day in Beijing, not far from Tiananmen Square, I stumbled upon Wu Da Niang, a dumpling restaurant I later learned was part of a popular Chinese chain. I ordered a plate of boiled fish dumplings. A woman soon appeared at my table and filled a bowl with chili oil, soy sauce and vinegar, creating a spicy, tangy dipping sauce. One bite and I was hooked. It was the first of many occasions in China when I realized we in the U.S., with our countless Chinese restaurants, were missing out on some seriously great Chinese food. Tim and Nina Zagat argue just that in an op-ed piece piece in Saturday’s New York Times. The co-founders of Zagat guides decry the sorry state of Chinese cuisine in the U.S., noting that while Thai, Vietnamese, Korean and Japanese restaurants have continued to improve, Chinese restaurants, which have a long, storied history in the U.S., have stagnated.
British Food in India: Fish and Chips With Turmeric and Chili Powder, Anyone?
by Terry Ward | 06.15.07 | 11:48 AM ET
When I visited London for the first time earlier this year, I was torn. For my first UK meal, would it be fish and chips in a pub or a bowl of curry on Brick Lane? Both meals are about as typically British as you can get. In fact, according to the”‘Curry factfile” on a UK Food Standards Agency Web site , there are more Indian restaurants in London than in Bombay and Delhi. Britain’s first curry house opened in 1809, and Indian food has since become a UK favorite, accounting for more than 40 percent of all ethnic food sales. The love affair, however, is decidedly one-sided. British cuisine—the term alone elicits snickers from food snobs worldwide—hasn’t exactly taken the Subcontinent by storm. But that’s a fact that one British celebrity chef is out to change.
Out: Bad Hotel-Room Coffee. In: Gourmet Joe.
by Terry Ward | 06.05.07 | 4:37 PM ET
When checking in to my room at the Jury’s Inn in Limerick, Ireland recently, I noticed a coffee trolley labeled “Il Barista” in the lobby. It was adjacent to the reception desk and had a sleek espresso machine and mini-pastries. Mind you, there was no warm-blooded barista in sight. But my hotel, it seems, was latching on to an emerging trend. USA Today’s Roger Yu reports that access to quality coffee both inside guest rooms and in public hotel spaces is increasingly common.
The Upside of Delays and Security Lines: Better Airport Cuisine
by Michael Yessis | 05.31.07 | 11:59 AM ET
Regina Schrambling makes the link in a Los Angeles Times food-section story about the rise of local restaurants and cuisine at airports across the U.S. “Hard as it is to believe, the most dreaded places in the country—thanks to flight delays and security hassles—also happen to be sources of excellent local food,” she writes. “And now that travelers are spending more time waiting, the pickings are improving.”
Trouble in Margaritaville: Is a Tequila Shortage Looming?
by Jim Benning | 05.30.07 | 2:45 PM ET
Not long ago, we read about problems stemming from a glut of agave on the market. Now, Reuters reports that Mexican farmers are burning fields of blue agave used to make tequila so they can plant more corn. The price of the crop has been steadily rising as a result of growing demand for the alternative, corn-based fuel ethanol. As a result, officials estimate that as much as 35 percent less agave will be planted this year. “Those growers are going after what pays best now,” said an official with Mexico’s Tequila Regulatory Council. We’re all for cleaner-burning fuels, but let’s not get crazy here. Think of the poor citizens of Margaritaville. We’re talking severe dehydration possibilities.
Related on World Hum:
* Jimmy Buffett at 60: Still Selling ‘Unsentimental’ Tropical Fantasies
* Jimmy Buffett: Celebrating Changes in Lattitudes
* Ernest Hemingway Sofas, Frida Kahlo Tequila, Renoir Mineral Water and Now Lady Chatterley Thongs?
Inside Great Sushi and the World’s Biggest Fish Market
by Jim Benning | 05.24.07 | 10:48 AM ET
As we’ve noted a number of times lately, Japanese cuisine is getting lots of press these days, from stories about the sudden popularity of 500-year-old kaiseki among hip Western chefs to Tokyo’s thriving restaurant scene. But among the, uh, meatiest pieces I’ve read recently is Nick Tosches’s story in the June issue of Vanity Fair about the world’s greatest fish market, officially called the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Central Wholesale Market, but often referred to simply by its place name, Tsukiji. It’s huge, spanning nearly 40 football fields. Roughly 60,000 people work there. But the most stunning statistic is this: An estimated 2,000 tons or more of fish move through the market daily—by comparison, Tosches notes, at the world’s second largest market, Fulton Fish Market in New York City, 115 tons pass through in an entire year.
Notes from the Barbecue Trail: From Lockhart, Texas to Lexington, North Carolina
by Michael Yessis | 05.23.07 | 11:20 AM ET
On the spectrum of barbecue love, I fall between someone satisfied with a McRib and the kind of crazed person who would shell out $12,500 for this gold-plated grill. Essentially, I like barbecue enough that I’ll travel to eat the good stuff. Some days I brave the traffic on I-95 south of Washington D.C. for smoked pork shoulders and muddy spuds at Dixie Bones in Woodbridge, Virginia, and not too long ago, inspired by an outstanding series by David Plotz in Slate, my dad and I made the pilgrimage to Lockhart, Texas.
Western-Style Supermarkets Threaten Traditional Indian Vendors
by Michael Yessis | 05.22.07 | 2:04 PM ET
Local markets where Indians—and many travelers—have traditionally purchased their food staples are losing about 40 percent of their business to Western-style supermarkets, according to a BBC story. And that’s before Wal-Mart and Tesco move in with markets of their own next year.