Food Links, 16.11.2011

The fascinating history of maple syrup.

The best chocolate recipe books.

If you read any of these links this week, make it this one: an interview with a former big food executive.

How did 200,000 tonnes of rice go missing?

The Middle Class Handbook considers soup.

The link between our parents’ diets and our health.

Incredible advertisements for Pepsi.

‘A vigorous and energetic race is always carnivorous’. A Victorian view on Scottish diets. (Thanks Sarang!)

What chicken feed produces the best eggs?

Michael Pollan rethinks his stance on high-fructose corn syrup.

Ten more stubborn food myths. (Thanks Mum!)

Kitchens powered by leftovers.

Thoughts on the history of table manners.

The growing fashion for prickly pears.

The psychology of food aversion.

The American cocktail revival. (As someone who once had drinks at the Tonga Room and Hurricane Bar in San Francisco, I can only regard this as a Good Thing.)

Smuggling drugs in food.

George Orwell on British food.

A map of all the branches of McDonald’s in the US.

Tim Hayward on a year spent rescuing Fitzbillies cake shop in Cambridge.