The Avocado Wars
Michoacán, a mountainous state in western Mexico, has the ideal climate for growing avocados. Hot, with rich volcanic soil, the 60,000-square-kilometre region is the world’s top producer of the creamy...
View ArticleSausages: An International Food Staple
After a summer of grilled hot dogs and smokies, it might seem like sausages would be taking a breather until next year. But for aficionados, the season is just beginning. This year in Munich,...
View ArticleVienna’s Sachertorte Cake
In Montreal, the city where I live, one food debate seems to rise above all others: who makes a better bagel? The two shops in question, St-Viateur Bagel and Fairmount Bagel, both produce a superb...
View ArticleOranges
I used to laugh when my mother told me that she and her siblings would be excited to find oranges in their Christmas stockings. To them, oranges were something exotic and precious—something sweet and...
View ArticleSavouring Sea Urchin
The stillness of a misty February morning is broken by a splash as diver Tony Mulhall plunges into the frigid waters off British Columbia’s North Coast. Fighting bone-chilling temperatures, strong...
View ArticleRhubarb
Somewhere along my route to becoming a gardener, I’d heard that planted rhubarb crowns wilted and died if you moved them. It’s a horticultural myth, it turned out, a fact I only discovered recently,...
View ArticleTomato 2.0
The tomato lends itself easily to poetization—at least, the Nobel-winning Chilean poet Pablo Neruda certainly found that to be the case when he wrote his Oda al tomate. His verse of appreciation...
View ArticleCassoulet
“We would prefer not to serve cassoulet,” said legendary winemaker Alain Brumont over lunch at his club-like restaurant, La Table de Bouscassé in Madiran, France. “First of all this isn’t the right...
View ArticleGentile Artisanal Pasta
In the small town of Gragnano, Italy, members of the Zampino family are custodians of a nation’s pasta tradition. Gragnano’s place in pasta history is rooted in its location, not far from the Amalfi...
View ArticlePersimmons and the Drying Art of Hoshigaki
Fresh persimmons are unreasonably orange and taste lightly caramelized and spiced, as if somewhere in their ancestry they were crossed with a sticky toffee pudding. They belong to the genus Diospyros,...
View ArticlePatriotic Potatoes
The great food writer M.F.K. Fisher had a particular fondness for potato chips. It’s not that she only ate the best—on the contrary, when describing the batch that catalyzed her passion, she summoned...
View ArticleFermenting with Noma’s David Zilber
Nearly two years ago, Copenhagen’s remarkable Noma restaurant went on hiatus while its new Bjarke Ingels–designed space, open as of February, was under construction. It’s hard to tell who was happiest...
View ArticleLa Sfogliatella
The holy trinity of cuisine in Naples consists of pizza margherita, espresso, and sfogliatella. An oft-recounted story about the first is that in 1889, to honour the Queen of Italy, Margherita of...
View ArticleIs this Canada’s Best Honey?
Scan the shelves of any gourmet shop and you’ll find a plethora of honeys. Ranging in colour from pale yellow to a deep amber hue, they often hail from exotic locations like Corsica or Provence. Some...
View ArticleSteak Meister Marc Bourg
Marc Bourg dry ages steak in his boucherie Le Marchand du Bourg in Montreal. Marc Bourg is pacing around my kitchen like an expectant father. “Is the cast iron skillet ready? Is the oven preheated?” he...
View ArticleSinful Nanaimo Bars
“Good things come in threes” goes the old adage. So what do you get when you add a crunchy, chewy base to an unctuous middle and top it all off with a crisp chocolate coating? Do the math and you find...
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