Science Has Spoiled My Supper

I don’t think I have ever felt more simultaneous awe and heartbreak than when I realized what food is actually supposed to taste and look like. So much supermarket produce and meat is a pale and lifeless mimicry of nature’s gifts. You eat a truly high quality, "heirloom" piece of fruit or meat and you suddenly taste these umami notes or sweetness... See more

Maya substack.com

That food should be fresh and natural has become an article of faith. It comes as something of a shock to realize that this is a latter-day creed. For our ancestors, natural was something quite nasty. Natural often tasted bad. Fresh meat was rank and tough; fresh milk warm and unmistakably a bodily excretion; fresh fruits (dates and grapes being... See more

Rachel Laudan • A Plea for Culinary Modernism

If we romanticize the past, we may miss the fact that it is the modern, global, industrial economy (not the local resources of the wintry country around New York, Boston, or Chicago) that allows us to savor traditional, peasant, fresh, and natural foods.