food

The islands of Erba Verde, reached by secular humanists fleeing the late 15th century Venetian tyrant-priest Girolamo Savonarola, remained a lost, mythical place for centuries. Tales of this magical land, whose name could mean "green grass" or "green herb," fascinated the Portuguese and Spanish, but did not distract them from their obsessive pursuit of gold. […]

It was all part of someone’s insidious plan, and I fell for it. As I wheeled my cart through the door of the supermarket, I saw the display of carefully arranged peaches, looking, well, just peachy — and in February. Knowing full well that peaches are a summer fruit, which meant these came from halfway […]

Recent quarter-page displays in local newspapers have advertised The Martha Washington Cookbook, by mail, $24. The headline says "Old Cookbook Reveals Amazing Detail’s of Washington’s Dining Habits." There is such a relic, but it is not a cookbook. Several annotated editions have been published since the original manuscript was given to the Pennsylvania Historical Society […]

Story and Spirito di contraddizione was one of the epithets my mother would use in reference to me. I tend to do the opposite of what I am told. I refuse to buy red things and chocolates on Valentine’s Day, but this year I spent the days leading to the celebration of the patron saint […]

When I was 16 and had my learner’s permit, my father conscripted me to drive him to a mine site several hours into the Chiricahua Mountains. We left Tucson at 5 a.m. and had breakfast around 7 at a truck stop in Wilcox. For the first time in my life, I could order anything I […]

Fish has always had one problem in American cuisine: Americans don’t much like it, except battered and fried. Prior to the Age Of Sushi, you pretty much had to go to a fish restaurant to get anything except fish and chips. Not counting shrimp, which we adore (the longest lines in Vegas buffets are for […]

I immediately recognize myself in the little girl dressed as Snow White. I also identify my best friend, in an elegant kimono. I can actually recognize all our costumed classmates. A bit to my surprise, their first names and almost all of their last names travel effortlessly from a remote corner of my memory to […]

For nine weeks during the summer of 1962 I was in northern New Mexico, on a fellowship to the Santa Fe Opera. In Santa Fe I was introduced to a new kind of Mexican-American food; it was the first since my childhood in Southern Arizona, which had been limited to the tapatio cuisine of Sonora. […]

Back in June, Journal publisher Judy Hodgson took a stroll down cookbook memory lane in this space. Her story about a meal she’d made for her husband’s birthday touched on favorite recipes and their sources, in particular her worn-out copy of The Silver Palate Cookbook (held together with rubber bands) and The Playboy Gourmet, a […]

I open my eyes, smell onion cooking in olive oil and immediately know two things: I am awake and it is Sunday morning. It is the day and time when my mother makes the tomato and meat sauce that she will then use to season pasta for several days. I know this sounds like a […]

A pox on all your damned pasteurized cheeses! There, I’ve said it! I am now the enemy of American cheesemakers, and you will doubtless hear from them in response to this column. Well, after all, they are colleagues and friends. But just as significantly, they profit from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s delusion that […]