The New Gastronomes

First day in Corsica. Very early in the morning, after spending the night on a ferry, the  four of us arrived in Corsica’s capital, Ajaccio. I was about to spend my summer holidays with a lovely French family on the Island of beauty, la Corse. I couldn’t be more excited to discover a land that [...]

If asked by a traditional lambic brewer whether you are familiar with what constitutes a lambic beer do not nod and follow up by mumbling fruit beer. While this answer is not 100% incorrect, why not attempt a response that does not provoke eye-rolling and head-shaking, which I experienced during my visit to Cantillon Brewery [...]

Hanus Hachenburg (1929-1944)
Terezin, 1943
(No changes have been made to this poem or the way it was cited/displayed in the Museum)

A little dirt within the dirty walls and round about a little bit of wire and thirty thousand sleeping there, who will awake one day and who see their life blood spilled around them. [...]

So here you are, a future gastronome staying for a year in the culinary heartland that is Italy. You move into your apartment and run directly to the kitchen, eager to assess its offerings: a four-burner stove (expected), a nice big oven (great!), a dishwasher (marvelous!). You open the cupboards to check on the dining [...]

Outside, the temperature was high. We arrived in Giaveno, at the Lussiana cheese producer, pretty late and a bit tired after a hearty buffet lunch.
It was another typical dairy farm with the usual barking dog, numerous smelly cows and large walk-in refrigerators used to store cheese. We first got to see the cow shed, followed [...]

E is for exchange. Yet it is an exchange of a non-monetary variety in which words complemented by different languages, cultural norms, and predispositions suddenly make sense. Here we are exchanging our need and desire to communicate. This is the true currency of the world. Through the simple act of speaking with the postman, taking [...]

 IT ALL STARTED WITH ONE BOTTLE.
When I arrived in Parma, neither knowing what my new home for the next year would look like, nor who my new two flat mates would be, I was excited just like before a first date. I knew their names and where they were from. Curious as I was, [...]

Some weeks ago I had a dinner with my classmates in Colorno. Each time we do this, someone prepares something to eat, and Jules had decided to cook spaghetti with vegetables. I was surprised because the dish was perfect, also the cooking time…. The problem came when we started to eat: looking around, I realized [...]

In the days before I ventured to Italy, my friends bid me adieu with requests of “drink some good wine for me!” and “eat some good pasta for me!” I dreamt of a life of pasta picnics in an olive grove here and sips of Chianti in the rolling hills of Tuscany there.
But as my [...]

I didn’t know I had a cheddar problem until I moved to Italy. You don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone, but you do know you’re an addict when you’re begging your visitors to illegally lug two-pound chunks of that extra-sharp awesomeness on their transatlantic journeys. While working at a cheese shop with an [...]