The Food Of Love: Oh, forget about music already. What should you cook if you want to woo a lover? According to Lisa Hilton, it all depends on what nationality (s)he is and what country you're living in... P.S. Shame on The Observer for choosing the inflammatory but incidental title I've Never Had Good Sex With A Vegetarian!
posted by MiguelCardoso on May 15, 2004 - 23 comments

Go Ask Alice When She's Ten Feet Tall: Alice Waters's extraordinary influence on the way we shop, cook and eat makes her one of the great American heroes (and European too, check out the Larousse Gastronomique), mostly to those of us who have never been (and will never be) lucky enought to eat at Chez Panisse. [More inside.]
posted by MiguelCardoso on Mar 21, 2004 - 25 comments

Do Most People Even Know What They're Eating? Pork is served as veal; tilapia as red snapper and who knows what goes into sausages and other processed meat and fish products? You don't have to be an observant Jew or Muslim to be worried. How many years have those chicken pieces been frozen? How much pork and beef have been added to them? As food is increasingly disguised (fish fingers, chicken nuggets, beefburgers) to hide its origins, feeding on hypocritical popular revulsion with animals' existence, death - and carcasses! - aren't consumers setting themselves up for an ever greater measure of food fraud? That is, if they still care. (And no, it's not just an American phenomenon.) [Via The Daily Gullet. ]
posted by MiguelCardoso on Jan 23, 2004 - 49 comments

Is It Politically Incorrect To Decry The Eating And Killing Of Civet Cats? Is Western consciousness of hypocrisy (due to the enormous number of animals we kill for food) preventing us from criticizing countries, like China, where practically all animals are eaten? Is sentimentality and the protection of animals we regard as cute better than having no qualms at all? I'm sure that the ratio of animals killed-per-capita is higher in the West than in China. Is there any moral difference? Probably not. Why, then, is it so shocking?
posted by MiguelCardoso on Jan 19, 2004 - 24 comments

Food, Glorious Food - Of The Real Kind! What pumpkins? Forget about the pumpkins. What you really need is to get your lips round some courges d'hiver, you Yankee varmint philistines! (More inside.)
posted by MiguelCardoso on Oct 31, 2003 - 7 comments

Just Because They're Celebrity Chefs Doesn't Mean They Aren't Damn Fine Cooks: We're all supposed to yawn when it comes to TV Chefs, but that's just as silly as ignoring a writer or an actress because they're famous. Wolfgang Puck's website, for instance, is generously full of the most enticing recipes. On another note, my favourite TV chef, Rick Stein, has online a superb list of UK suppliers. Do you know of any other cuisine auteurs on the Web who are as generous with their savvy? Which chef wouldn't you mind having as your own private cook?
posted by MiguelCardoso on Jun 28, 2003 - 36 comments

Are You A Food Snob? Do you like Posh Nosh? Does it turn you on or put you off? Find out! Watch it, though: you might be a reverse food snob or a junkista. Aha! OK, I'll go first: "My name is Miguel, I'm 47 and I'm a food snob..." [ Real required to view the funny clips in the second link.]
posted by MiguelCardoso on May 25, 2003 - 19 comments

Yes! Gulp Your Food Down! Feast your eyes on snackist salamanders and this future classic: not a salamander, but a very strange suction-feeding tadpole. [Quicktime required. ]
posted by MiguelCardoso on May 23, 2003 - 3 comments

The Best Food You Never Had: Reading Jake Adam York's juicy essay on the art of the barbecue, I was once again sadly reminded I've never had the pleasure of tasting real, Southern U.S. open-pit barbecue. I have no idea whether it's better in Texas, Kansas, Louisiana, Alabama, Kentucky or Georgia; whether pork is better than beef; smoked is tastier than plain... Then I realized there are quite a number of other delicious foods (like fresh abalone sashimi; Alaskan king crab cooked live; a clam-bake on the beach; real wasabi; smoked sablefish; fresh unsalted caviar; an oyster Po'Boy...) I've never tried. It's an interesting gastronomic category: something you've read about and heard about and probably drooled over, that you just know you'd love if only you had a chance to try it! So forgive my curiosity: what's the best food you've never had? [Main link via Arts and Letters Daily]
posted by MiguelCardoso on Feb 12, 2003 - 95 comments

Feeling Peckish? Like a big bald eagle? Order one now! Humour might be one way of trying to protect endangered animals but the bushmeat trade is no joke and fighting it is damn difficult, probably as difficult as fighting world poverty. Does anyone else feel that these jokes just aren't funny anymore?
posted by MiguelCardoso on Sep 19, 2002 - 9 comments

Idiosyncratic Personal Recipes: You Say Yummy, I Say Yuck! Who the hell says de gustibus non disputandum est? On the other hand, doesn't everyone have a secret culinary delight that would have the rest of the world heaving and retching at the very mention of its ingredients? I know I do. Don't worry, though. Comfort is at hand, whatever your mental age: for we are not alone. Bwahahahaha!
posted by MiguelCardoso on Jul 21, 2002 - 102 comments

Forget the Anthrax, Honey: Eat your Apple Pie According to the NYT's restaurant critic William Grimes, comfort food is making a comeback in the wake of WTC. Mine is cream and butter-loaded mashed potatoes with garlicky lamb chops. What's yours? And what does it all mean? (This is No. 629 in the All-American Anti-Terrorist Counter-Measures Series) Reg: rebarba/pachacha
posted by MiguelCardoso on Oct 24, 2001 - 47 comments