Archives

It’s hard to know what this episode is really about. Government bullying private enterprise? An evil conspiracy to crush a competitor? Confused consumers unable to read a label? All of the above? In a nutshell, on 12 August 2015 the US Food and Drug Administration sent a warning letter to Josh Tetrick, CEO of Hampton […]

I bought a sandwich that proclaimed it was made of “artisan baked bread”. The bread was brown pap which, to be honest, I could see from the start. So, I wrote an obituary for artisan.

Seedlessness explained, beer economised, beef priced, normcore food. Just another despatch from the food front lines.

Megan Kimble — that’s her on the left — is a young journalist in Tucson, Arizona. Back in 2012, she set out to stick it to the processed food man, by eating only unprocessed food for a year. Her book Unprocessed: My City-Dwelling Year of Reclaiming Real Food tells the whole story. It’s odd that […]

Lyrical fermented foods in China, matter-of-fact fermented foods in Japan and “I can’t believe it’s not mayo or that it doesn’t contain eggs!”.

With good grace. Dublin chef Oliver Dunne explains why, come 17 September, he won’t be too upset to lose the Michelin star he worked so hard to win.

Have you ever stopped to wonder what drives the incessant innovation in processed food? Who thought that an energy bar would be a good thing to exist? What was the logic that drove the development of the cheese-flavoured powder that coats so many snacks? Even instant coffee; why was that needed? The answer to all […]

Recipe plagiarism, organic recalls, too much milk and more. Some things I’ve found interesting over the past couple of weeks.

A lot of people have been talking about the gender divide in restaurant kitchens; I had no idea sushi was a bastion of male privilege. Great story from AP about women challenging sushi norms in Tokyo. Via Lauren Bohn.

The O-Pipin-Na-Piwin Cree Nation have suffered generations of maltreatment at the hands of various official entities. Moved from their homelands further south, they now occupy small scattered settlements in northern Manitoba, where summers are short and the land infertile. Having adapted to some extent to their new circumstances, large dams, built to supply energy to […]