An ode to offal: Romans are proud of their city’s unique cuisine and borderline obsessed with their historic dishes. It’s one of the reasons local dishes dominate the city’s tables and other Italian regional cooking is treated as exotic and distinct. Many of Rome’s recipes were developed over the past 150 years as the city grew from a hungry rural village into a booming European capital of over 4 million. While the city’s economy has improved significantly, Romans continue to celebrate their humble and historic cucina povera(dishes fashioned from poor cuts of meat and offal) as a way to stay connected to the past. Today trattoria menus, butcher shops, supermarkets, and even fast food joints proudly showcase these ingredients. Thomas Keller, an Exacting Chef at a Crossroads: In the tight confines of a New York cab, Thomas Keller leaned against his interviewer’s shoulder. It was an intimate move for a chef whose hallmarks are precision, decorum and control. Mr. Keller wanted to talk … [Read more...]

Champagne - losing its fizz? For years champagne ran the most sophisticated and effective public relations machine in the world of wine. Consumers were convinced that champagne and only champagne was the socially acceptable lubricant for celebrations and smart dinner parties. Food 3.0: It's Time For A Food Revolution: Picture this. You’re born into a family of immense wealth. The family business is one of the most well-liked and popular companies in America. You’re the heir to the throne. All you need to do is take the keys and you’ll enjoy unbounded success and admiration. You’d probably take that gig, right? You wouldn’t dedicate your life to helping people avoid the very thing your family is known for. That would be crazy. The Next Great Age of Peruvian Cuisine: Trinidad Huamani and Francisco Quico are making an oven out of the earth. They collect stones and chunks of clay from the farmland around them, then form a small dome, held together by the shear force of gravity, with … [Read more...]

A job for life: the ‘new economy’ and the rise of the artisan career: Whatever you think of the gig economy, it does throw up some amusingly bizarre jobs. Set Sar, of Providence, Rhode Island, told this paper in 2015 that he earns a crust by looking at videos and web pages on his computer while having his eyeball movements tracked via webcam. The information this provides is valuable to advertisers — and earns him a dollar every few minutes. In its higher echelons, the gig economy has led to an array of jobs with “consultant” in their title, as people find ingenious ways to peddle niche services to the rich. In New York, for example, “play date consultants” charge up to $400 an hour to teach the progeny of millionaires to share their toys. The Real Cost and Benefit of (Temporarily) Moving an Entire Restaurant to the Other Side of the Globe: In less than a year, the restaurant Olmsted has become something of a fixture in its Prospect Heights neighborhood, with the dining experience … [Read more...]

If you’re a European, your body requires more vegetables and grains: A new study of hundreds of human genomes has revealed that groups in various regions of the world have evolved for diets with different amounts of meat and vegetables. People from Europe, particularly its southern regions, are optimized for a high-plant diet. But people from other areas, such as the Inuit of Greenland, have a biochemistry that is better able to process lots of meat fat. We can learn a lot from how the French do lunch: For many of us, a work lunch means clearing space between your keyboard and mouse for some hastily-eaten snacks. One 2014 study found that of those who did manage to get a lunch break, half ate at their desks. But, while it may seem more productive to catch up on emails while you eat, there’s plenty of research that suggests the opposite. Rene Redzepi on the new Noma: It’s a fair bet that come summer 2017, the eyes of the food world—always ready for the next, the new, and the … [Read more...]