An interview with the co-authors of The Gaza Kitchen, more than a cookbook, it's a portrait of Gaza history, politics, economics, and feminism.
Explore the intersection of food and culture with this complete list of culinary traditions designated UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity.
Kara Mae Harris hopes to archive every local cookbook.
Most people are blissfully unaware of the origins of their food, but not William Ross Newland. Fascinated by culinary anthropology and having a chronic love affair with new flavors and textures, Newland travels the world discovering culinary wonders that often took centuries to matriculate through Arab conquest. His favorite? The street food and comfort food eaten by locals on a daily basis. For Newland, food is much more than eating. It is about planning, cooking, and sharing. Food is the centerpiece while human interaction generated by the meal is the main event. Follow this short narrative to some of Newland's favorite recipes -- flavors that began in the Fertile Crescent, spread throughout the Mediterranean during the Ottoman Empire, and went on to Spain and eventually Mexico. Enjoy!
A team of archaeologists at the University of York have revealed new insights into cuisine choices and eating habits at Durrington Walls -- a Late Neolithic monument and settlement site thought to be the residence for the builders of nearby Stonehenge during the 25th century BC. Stonehenge [Credit: WikiCommons] Together with researchers at the University of Sheffield, detailed analysis of pottery and animal bones has uncovered evidence of organised feasts featuring barbeque-style roasting, and an unexpected pattern in how foods were distributed and shared across the site. Chemically analysing food residues remaining on several hundred fragments of pottery, the York team found differences in the way pots were used. Pots deposited in residential areas were found to be used for cooking animal products including pork, beef and dairy, whereas pottery from the ceremonial spaces was used predominantly for dairy. Such spatial patterning could mean that milk, yoghurts and cheeses were perceived as fairly exclusive foods only consumed by a select few, or that milk products -- today often regarded as a symbol of purity -- were used in public ceremonies. Unusually, there was very little evidence of plant food preparation at any part of the site. The main evidence points to mass animal consumption, particularly of pigs. Further analysis of animal bones, conducted at the University of Sheffield, found that many pigs were killed before reaching their maximum weight. This is strong evidence of planned autumn and winter slaughtering and feasting-like consumption. The main methods of cooking meat are thought to be boiling and roasting in pots probably around indoor hearths, and larger barbeque-style roasting outdoors -- the latter evidenced by distinctive burn patterns on animal bones. A reconstruction drawing of how the prehistoric village of Durrington Walls might have looked in 2500BC [Credit: English Heritage] Bones from all parts of the animal skeleton were found, indicating that livestock was walked to the site rather than introduced as joints of meat. Isotopic analysis indicates that cattle originated from many different locations, some far away from the site. This is significant as it would require orchestration of a large number of volunteers likely drawn from far and wide. The observed patterns of feasting do not fit with a slave-based society where labour was forced and coerced, as some have suggested. Dr Oliver Craig, Reader in Archaeological Science at the University of York and lead author on the paper, said: "Evidence of food-sharing and activity-zoning at Durrington Walls shows a greater degree of culinary organisation than was expected for this period of British prehistory. The inhabitants and many visitors to this site possessed a shared understanding of how foods should be prepared, consumed and disposed. This, together with evidence of feasting, suggests Durrington Walls was a well-organised working community." Professor Mike Parker Pearson, Professor at University College London and Director of the Feeding Stonehenge project who also led the excavations at Durrington Walls, said: "This new research has given us a fantastic insight into the organisation of large-scale feasting among the people who built Stonehenge. Animals were brought from all over Britain to be barbecued and cooked in open-air mass gatherings and also to be eaten in more privately organized meals within the many houses at Durrington Walls. "The special placing of milk pots at the larger ceremonial buildings reveals that certain products had a ritual significance beyond that of nutrition alone. The sharing of food had religious as well as social connotations for promoting unity among Britain's scattered farming communities in prehistory. " Dr Lisa-Marie Shillito, who analysed the pottery samples and recently joined Newcastle University, added: "The combination of pottery analysis with the study of animal bones is really effective, and shows how these different types of evidence can be brought together to provide a detailed picture of food and cuisine in the past." The study has been published in the Antiquity Journal. Source: University of York [October 12, 2015] Labels ArchaeoHeritage, Archaeology, Breakingnews, Europe, UK, Western Europe TANN you might also like Newer Post Older Post
“One student made Russian Rye kvass yesterday and he’s over the moon about it. It’s his favorite Russian beverage and he can’t find it anywhere near campus.” I received this note from Jeffrey Yoskowitz, half of the team, with Liz Alpern, behind Brooklyn’s The Gefilteria and the new “Gefilte Manifesto” cookbook, the day after I...
Lauren Moore University of Kentucky This month, we hear from Willa Zhen, Associate Professor at The Culinary Institute of America. She discusses teaching anthropology at an applied institution, and…
READ IN JAPANESE Sylvia Woods, whose namesake Harlem soul-food restaurant was frequented by local and national politicians, international celebrities, tourists, epicures and ordinary neighborhood r…
The seminar entitled "An Anthropological Approach to Ancient Cooking Techniques" is the second one of the 2012-2013 series "Minon Seminar". It will be given by Tom Brogan, Jerolyn Morrison and Jad Alyounis at the American School of Classical Studies.
The dining room, with the dining table at its center, didn't catch on in America before the late 1700s. These rooms — and the family meals held in them — became a place to cultivate social values.
A new book surveys the globalisation of India’s staple cuisine.
Stretching a meal over several days was once a necessity. And in the 1940s, leftovers were a culinary art. Historian Helen Zoe Veit dishes on America's complicated relationship with leftovers.
A blog about healing with food. Delicious recipes for foods that energize and heal your body and information about how foods heal.
A copper jardiniere with a hidden history New insights into Britain's extraordinary culinary history sometimes turn up in quite unexpected ways. A few weeks ago a great friend of mine, the sharp eyed Michael Finlay, a fellow Cumbrian with a lifetime's experience of dealing and collecting fine antiques, turned up at my house with an object he had just purchased. The vendor had described it as a Victorian jardiniere. This handsome looking copper vessel did indeed look like it may once have been given pride of place on a window sill, perhaps with a large aspidistra growing out of it. But careful scrutiny of its structure alerted the ever watchful Michael to the fact that it was not what it seemed. Michael is a truly remarkable man. Over the years he has put together many major specialist collections of antique objects. These include bronze bell mortars, writing equipment and mining tokens. Once he has built up a large and representative assemblage, he then usually writes the authoritative book on the subject and sells the collection to finance his next interest. His remarkable book Western Writing Implements: In the Age of the Quill Pen won the Daily Telegraph book of the year award and now changes hands for hundreds of pounds. In the last few years he has turned his attention to collecting culinary antiques, an interest for which he blames me. In a very short time he has put together a museum style collection of the very highest quality. For instance in just one year he has assembled a truly extraordinary collection of pastry jagging irons, including wonderful rare examples dating from the renaissance through to the nineteenth century. They will form the subject of his next book, which is already taking shape. Michael has just launched a marvellous new website. There is a link at the end of this post. However, let's return to his copper jardiniere. Michael thought that it had a very close resemblance to a nineteenth century pie mould. He should know, because he has some very nice examples himself and has spent many fruitful hours in my kitchen making pies with them. He was pretty sure he was right, but wanted confirmation from me. From the very moment I first saw it, I knew it had indeed once been a large copper pie mould, but had been subjected to a conversion probably at about the time of the First World War. Its once separate sections had been brazed together and a couple of brass handles attached. It was in fact one of the most unusual pie forms I have ever seen and certainly the most handsome. As you can see from the photograph, it is ornamented with the grimacing head of a horned satyr, perhaps intended to be old Pan himself. What a pie it must have made! A very interesting detail was an engraved ownership mark, an Italianate capital H surmounted by an earl's coronet. Marks of this kind are often seen on items of batterie de cuisine out of great house kitchens and this particular one was very familiar to me as I had worked many times in the historic kitchen in Harewood House near Leeds, where many items are engraved with an identical symbol. However, there were also earls of Huntingdon, Halifax and Harrington, so the jury is still out as to which noble kitchen it originally came from. But I suspect it is from Harewood. How it came to be turned into a plant pot is a mystery. Ivan making pies some years ago in the Harewood kitchen using some of the copper pie moulds that have survived there from the nineteenth century Michael took the jardiniere to a metalworking friend who skilfully converted it back to a pie mould.Yesterday, we both had a great baking session and used it to make a pie, the first time it had been used for that purpose for at least a hundred years. The problem now is how do I find a butcher who can provide me with satyr meat to make the filling? Our 'satyr' pie with its lid ready to be ornamented With the help of a jagging iron and a couple of pie boards to make pastry ornaments, we embellished the lid The reborn 'satyr pie' egged and glazed, a testimony to the once fine art of British pastry making Michael Finlay's Website
Fish and dairy can make for a delicious mix, despite popular belief.
The Sardinian diet has some variables that don’t fit in with common ideas about the Mediterranean Diet, or the Blue Zones, and their health benefits.
Spring and summer truly are my favourite seasons of the year as it usually involves three of my favourite things: gardening, reading, and recreating Roman foods. Today I'm making a pear soufflé with garum...
L’artiste visuelle originaire de Bordeaux Enora Lalet photographie la nourriture lorsqu’elle se trouve sur le visage et la chevelure de ses modèles. La pla
Going to culinary school in France meant that our main focus was, of course, French cuisine. And as I quickly learned, French cuisine is all about sauce. At the end of each day, we nervously brought our version of what had been demonstrated earlier to our chef for critique. It was usually a composed plate of protein and sides, but what did the chef always taste first? The sauce.
