The New Gastronomes

Some advice about the three-letter word that may make you crash-land during a flight to tostón paradise: fat. No panic. Yes they are fried, but so what! Just don’t overindulge (whatever that means to you!), and remember to accompany your tostones rendezvous with abundant greens and salad. Other than that, it is important also [...]

Another wonder from the American food culture of convenience. And now it’s organic.

We UNISG students may have prepared ourselves for the upcoming year by packing our Italian dictionaries and reading up on Brillat-Savarin’s The Physiology of Taste, but none of us knew what to expect of our fellow classmates. For reasons still unbeknownst to me, the University decided to save the surprise of who we’d be sharing [...]

Frying became a distinction of traditional Puerto Rican cuisine most probably because of our African heritage. But most every culture has its share of fritolanga, or deep-fried stuff, food that we crave and long for (many times secretly) with feverish desire. Its moist crispiness, the crunchy bite, and the crackling sound, the tender inside (in [...]

About Tostones or How to Eat Fried Muses on Paradise
Part I
It is my belief that there are foods that nature itself intended us to eat deep-fried. Period. Foods that reveal their fullest organoleptic expressions after sizzling and bubbling for a while in a hot, oil-filled pan. Moreover, it is also my conviction that tostones or [...]

What is the relationship between an encyclopaedia and a DOP? An obscure question, you might think, but one relevant to the study and communication of food culture and food products. It is a question that has crept into my mind while writing an entry on Romanian food culture for a Food Cultures of the World [...]

The pie arrived early. A 40-minute well-planned wait had turned into 15 minutes. Fate had played a little game and made an extra pheasant pie that night and allowed a tragic comedy of a scene to unfold. A table of men mumbled amongst themselves over, tripe, terrine and fresh radishes. Looking over, they gathered fuel [...]

Within a crisp crust
Steam rises from hand to mouth
Tastes linger in autumn

My father says he has everything he needs. Each year I deliberate, so this birthday I decided to cook. But what? Luckily, while working in Alice Water’s office, the food writer Francine Segan gave me her cookbook on Opera. She had interviewed Alice and we chatted about my time in Italy, and my family’s infatuation [...]

They came in their best clothes, filthy and sweaty from the heavy farm work. I invited them over to rest, have a meal, and wash. They were welcome in my house, like ambassadors from a foreign country visiting me.
They were smiling and being friendly. They showed guests’ manners and sociable behavior. They did not tell [...]