County Fairground Soup I love when serendipity, season, and whim dictate the contents of a recipe. A cooking demo for a farm-to-table event and whatever happened to be available at […]
Tag: food history
Duck Soup Noodles: Ken Albala shares his recipe
Penang, Malaysia: Duck Soup Noodles This state’s major city, Georgetown, was founded by the British in 1786 as a trading center. Consequently, it attracted influences from not only throughout the […]
Pulled noodles: a how-to with Ken Albala
The noodle, properly pulled, can take a soup from “good” to “that meal your friends talk about ten years later.” Called “the ultimate noodle” by Ken Albala, and he would […]
Shirataki, the strangest noodle: Ken Albala shares his recipe
This is the strangest noodle I have ever made, and doing it from scratch is more like an alchemical experiment than an exercise in cooking. Among everything in this book, […]
Homemade rice noodles: a how-to with Ken Albala
The perfect rice noodle… it is El Dorado and the City of Z, and those questing for it wonder, “Will my journey ever end?” Let Ken Albala be your great and […]
Making noodle soup: a how-to with Ken Albala
If you live in the hemisphere currently undergoing winter, you know that few foods offer the sanctuary of satisfaction to be found in a bowl of great noodle soup. Ken […]
200 Years of Illinois: The half-eaten bison sandwich of Richard M. Nixon
September 22 is an auspicious date in Illinois history. As this post recounts, boxing history took place on the date. Willie Nelson took time out from his 1985 to team […]
Let’s observe National Soft-Serve Ice Cream Day one day early
There’s nothing more American than soft-serve ice cream. It provides the dairy and sweetness we crave in an attractive shape atop a sugary cone that encourages mobility. And we dispense […]
Happy National Hot Dog Day!
It’s one of the happiest days of the faux-holiday calendar, a day when you can splurge on a couple of delicious frankfurters loaded up with all your favorite toppings. The […]
200 Years of Illinois: The most dangerous root
Horseradish sparks opinions as strong as its taste. Most people, truth to tell, want nothing to do with the root in its fiery, ground-up form. Their relationship to horseradish rests mainly on […]
Throwbacklist Thursday
Drink bothered the Founding Fathers. Not on a personal level, of course. John Adams drank a tankard of hard cider with his breakfast and George Washington went on many a bender. […]
Q&A with Midwest Maize author Cynthia Clampitt
Food historian and travel writer Cynthia Clampitt recently answered some questions about her book Midwest Maize: How Corn Shaped the U.S. Heartland. Q: What was the importance of corn to […]