Skip to content

Posts from the ‘links’ Category

Aug 24

2 Comments

Food Links, 24.08.2011

David Chang’s new food magazine, Lucky Peach, looks absolutely amazing.

Spain’s gastro burglars strike again!

Photographs of the last meal ever served at El Bulli. (It reopens in 2014 as a think tank.)

Niger and Somalia: A Tale of Two Famines.

On Beekeeping without Borders in Afghanistan.

Participation in the United States’s food stamp programme is at a record high.

American bread packaging from the 1940s and 1950s.

This is such a brilliant idea: Eat Your Books helps you to find recipes in your cook book collection.

Consider pasta.

The El Bulli dish name generator.

On the American government’s efforts to regulate the food industry.

This is fascinating: a new study published by the FAO argues that global demand for edible oils and cereals is actually slowing down. This means that high food prices are not the result of increased demand from China and India.

How to make Viking heather beer. (I imagine that one could use fynbos in South Africa?)

Aug 17

Food Links, 17.08.2010

A history of El Bulli.

Oh dear – it would seem that Zabar’s lobster salad doesn’t contain any…lobster.

Duck hearts on toast.

On food, design, politics, and the counterculture in 1960s San Francisco.

Hamburgers from McDonald’s don’t age….

On cooking in a small kitchen.

The Royal Academy has a new restaurant.

How utterly bizarre: a restaurant in the Ukraine which serves only pork fat moulded in a variety of forms (including Van Gogh’s ear and Marilyn Monroe’s lips).

A history of milk.

‘cookery as the counterfeiter’s art: dietary restrictions reframed as sensory surrogates’ – a dinner for vegetarians and omnivores in which it’s impossible to tell meaty and non-meaty dishes apart.

How drought becomes famine.

The science of beer.

Aug 10

Food Links, 10.08.2011

‘the discerning and liberal media consumer prefers: ginger and chocolate cookies; amaretti; shortbread; butter thins, and almond florentines.’ This is the study of the year.

Take a look at urban farming around the world.

On the rise of ‘White People Food’.

These are the five best and five worst proteins for our and the planet’s health (although I assume the study is US-based).

Jay Rayner asks if farmers’ markets will really change the world.

High food prices have caused an increase in the numbers of Americans eligible for food stamps.

Close-ups of food.

Here’s more on bread prices and the Arab Spring.

Will placing a tax on junk food change eating habits?

Olivier the Schutter, the UN’s Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, argues after a visit to South Africa that the country must ‘build a food economy that benefits the majority of the population.’ The report is really worth a read.

High food prices won’t be dropping anytime soon.

Hippy kitchens.

Russia has now classified beer as alcoholic. Better late than never.

Another study shows up the link between high food prices and food-based biofuels.

Aug 3

Food Links, 03.08.2011

‘It’s very difficult to define’ – the Staggers attempts to pinpoint what is meant by ‘British food’. And gives up.

Eating while black: on food and race.

The Middle Class Handbook considers the rise of strange snack foods.

McDonald’s removes McFalafel from its menu in Israel.

Twelve signs that we’re running out of food.

David Lebovitz lists ten strange things to be found in French supermarkets.

We need a ‘brave new menu’ to be the basis of a sustainable food system.

Surprisingly, America doesn’t consume the most meat in the world – take a look at this fantastic infographic to see which country does.

Where do baby vegetables come from?

The equitable redistribution of rigatoni. (Thanks, Mum!)

What are the chances of substitutes – like seitan and soy – replacing meat in our diets?

Check out Nourish – an amazing project aiming to raise awareness about food and sustainability in schools and communities.

‘encouraging agricultural diversity and local food production – particularly of vegetables – can help communities boost their self-sufficiency and protect vulnerable populations from price shocks’. In other words, the diversity and quality of the food supply are more important than quantity in ensuring food security.

Ferran Adria has written a book about cooking staff meals.

Where is all the safe drinking water?

This is the most amazing project: what we eat.

Jul 27

Food Links, 27.07.2011

Ever wondered what it’s like to intern at El Bulli? Here are two articles which describe the experience.

The glory of eggs.

I can’t wait to read this: Frank Dikötter’s Samuel Johnson Prize-winning new account of the 1958-1962 Great Famine in China.

Why industrial agriculture won’t feed the world – and why we need to stop industrial farms from denying us access to their operations.

The American Dietetic Association – an organisation providing supposedly objective and scientific advice on diet – has been accepting money from Coca-Cola and Pepsico. Not good.

The amazing ‘jellymongers’ Bompas and Parr organised a Rabbit Cafe in Brighton to celebrate Easter. It’s partly in celebration of the hundredth anniversary of the opening of the first Futurist restaurant. The Cafe, though, isn’t the first homage to Futurism’s fascination with food – this is an account of one recreation of the Futurist aerobanquet.

Jul 20

Food Links, 20.07.2011

How will fracking impact on our food supply?

Partly because of its emphasis on increasing yields, the Gates Foundation, in partnership with the evil empire Monsanto, is pushing genetically engineered crops in Uganda, Tanzania, Kenya, and Malawi.

Seven food and drinks trends in the US for 2011.

Famine looms in the Horn of Africa. This is why.

Sarah Lohman cooks ‘temporal fusion cuisine’ and keeps an amazing website called Four Pounds of Flour. Here she plots changing tastes in America.

Chefs go wild about Nathan Myhrvold and Chris Young’s Modernist Cuisine: The Art and Science of Cooking.

Tom Philpott discusses the link between catastrophic flooding and industrial agriculture.

Consider corn.

There’s recently been a gloriously self-important spat between (some) South African food bloggers and food writers. This is Mandy de Waal’s excellent article for the Mail and Guardian which started it, and this is the hilariously bonkers response from one blog.

Jay Rayner considers the latest research into the relationship between meat consumption and cancer.

The UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation reports that the world wastes or loses 1.3 billion tons of food per year – that’s a third of the total supply.

Donald Paul for the Daily Maverick discusses South Africa’s food security.

How to make Cornish pasties. (And flapjacks – crunchies to South Africans.) And in praise of sandwiches.

Jul 13

Food Links, 13.07.2011

This is possibly the best blog ever (other than this one, obviously): a guide to historic bars.

Ella McSweeney reports on proposed legislation in Ireland to ban the sale of raw – or unpasteurised – milk.

Ferran and Albert Adrià have opened tapas and cocktail bars in Barcelona: ‘We’ll do the impossible right away. For the miracles we need a little more time.’

This is a fantastic interview with food historian Steven Kaplan on food history.

Some lovely-looking American pie recipes.

Consider the bagel. Or the beigel.

How long can humans survive without food and water?

The Observer Food Monthly takes a look at a decade of eating in Britain – and at the top ten trends in food.

Madhur Jaffrey talks about her career.

The New York Times unpacks the marketing behind ‘functional foods’.

Wow, Georgia O’Keeffe had a taste for utterly revolting cooking.

Exploding watermelons demonstrate particularly well why it’s a generally a good idea to regulate properly what farmers may and may not use to fertilise their crops.

Jul 4

Food Links, 06.07.2011

Gordon Conway considers the global food crisis.

The Guardian lists the ten best literary picnics.

Although hugely successful, organic farming faces a range of challenges in India – despite the growing  evidence that organic farming can feed the world.

On Thomas Jefferson, food, and slavery.

How can cruelty to animals in American factory farms be prevented?

Border conflicts – between Isreal and Palestine, Mexico and the United States – are made worse by competition over water and food insecurity.

Behold Coralie Bickford-Smith’s beautiful covers for Penguin’s Great Food series.

One third of the world’s food is wasted.

‘Sponge cakes for all!’ Is baking a feminist act?

Why do Americans insist upon not using scales to measure ingredients when cooking?

Jun 29

Food Links, 29.06.2011

Consider the lettuce.

Raj Patel makes the important point that cheap food addresses only the symptom of hunger – and not its cause.

What’s really in your cup of tea?

Can the world feed ten billion people?

This excellent article surveys eating contemporary eating habits in Britain.

Tim Hayward takes a look around the amazing-looking new restaurant – the Gilbert Scott – of the St Pancras Hotel.

Is Sbarro the most boring restaurant in the United States?

A brief history of – mainly US-based – food blogs.

Did you know that it’s still illegal to trade in onion futures in the US? Strange, but true. (Thanks Dad!)

Jun 25

2 Comments

Palate Cleanser

I’m away this week, so I leave you with:

This picture:


This small opinion piece on cupcakes which I wrote for Food24.

This recipe for cinnamon buns by Dan Lepard.

And this video:

« Older Entries
Newer Entries »