Food Links, 26.10.2011
The truth about right wing politics and cupcakes.
If you read any of these links, please make it this one: why being vegetarian is not a political choice.
The worst recipes ever.
Baking + the Tube = genius.
A history of pineapples in London.
Ferran Adrià has written a recipe book for families.
On the food served at festivals in India. And what do you eat at Diwali?
Interesting ice cream flavours.
The origins of anti-margarine laws in the US.
The psychology of yogurt.
Is a burrito a sandwich?
The appeal of novelty carrots.
On cooking from the first edition of Mrs Beeton’s Book of Household Management.
Fifty of the world’s best breakfasts. (Thanks, Sarang!)
Occupy the pasture.
These five links are courtesy of my eagle-eyed Mum:
On food as inspiration for fashion.
Moments of Zen in Sam Sifton’s restaurant reviews.
How to make apple-free apple pie.
On TV dinners and the making of an American identity.
Tangerine and Cinnamon 
Thanks Sarah Emily, for including my Guardian ‘word of mouth’ blog post on Diwali foods in your Food Links round-up. I’m most flattered! I recently discovered your blog when Sheila Dillon recommended it at a food lecture, and am a big fan. Thank you.
Not at all! It’s a great post. Also, thanks so much for mentioning the Sheila Dillon reference – I must thank her!
So glad you like my blog too!
Re ice cream flavors: I remember that Flayvors/Cook Farm (in Hadley, MA) — up the street from where I went to college — used to do a seasonal asparagus ice cream, which I now kinda wish I’d tried. (They also intentionally had this horrifying layout where you’d be looking at the cows while ingesting their processed bodily fluids…)
Asparagus ice cream – what an amazing idea, although I can understand why you never tried it.
It’s interesting you should mention how squeamish you felt when eating the ice cream while looking at cows. It’s something that organic/ethical butchers/eateries tend to do: they emphasise the link between the animal and the product. I’ve been thinking about it for a while. Does acknowledging this excuse – or even comfort – the eater? Or does it simply demonstrate the wholesomeness of the product?
Yes, I think there are two strands to this as with much of the post-Woodstock left, there’s the ethical angle (look, we don’t waterboard the cows, they’re right there!) and then there’s the aesthetic (getting-comfortable-with-ourselves/close-to-nature) angle. In practice there appears to be fairly little tension here as most people agree with the “ethical/organic” position either on both issues or on neither; personally I’m sensitive to it as I agree with the ethical impulse but not the aesthetic one.
Precisely – and it’s worth thinking about the nature of that aesthetic angle (the way it’s carefully sanitised, presented etc etc).