On food and eating
back. Learning about food—learning to eat—is a series of edible adventures and surprises. For instance, just when you think you have mastered the potato, that such a basic ingredient could have nothing new to offer, you discover aligot, a velvety blend of mashed potatoes, garlic, and Cantal cheese. Or you are introduced to the unlikely but triumpha
... See morePeter Mayle • French Lessons: Adventures with Knife, Fork, and Corkscrew (Vintage Departures)
But what’s really magical about chicken soup isn’t the nutrient quota or the fact it shifts your snot along: it’s that it is a delicious, precious metaphor for caring, and for nourishing. What feels really good about feeding yourself chicken soup – whether it’s a bone broth simmered for 12 hours or a microwaved bowl of Campbell’s Cream of Chicken –
... See moreRuby Tandoh • Eat Up: Food, Appetite and Eating What You Want
Soup as a metaphor of self care
Patience is the ultimate competitive advantage
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On being slow and consistent
Food has the power to patch up the ragged edges of our souls – the frayed tempers and unravelled dreams – and make the world seem OK again, if only for a few moments.
Ruby Tandoh • Eat Up: Food, Appetite and Eating What You Want
The power of food or a cooking habit
But the food narratives we create when we shop, cook and eat don’t need to be exotic, expensive or rarefied. They shouldn’t be estranged from the humdrum, ugly, familiar mess of everyday life. They don’t even have to taste good. The important thing is giving yourself time to imagine your food, to touch, taste and smell the ingredients, and to reall
... See moreRuby Tandoh • Eat Up: Food, Appetite and Eating What You Want
I have come to believe that food is history of the deepest kind. Everything we eat tells a tale of ingenuity and creation, domination and injustice—and does so more vividly than any other artifact, any other medium.
Robin Sloan • Sourdough: A Novel
Common opinion has it that hunger is the physiological need to eat, whereas appetite is framed as just a desire to eat, driven by emotional or sensory pleasure rather than bodily need. We see this in the division between nutrition and gastronomy, or between food as fuel and food as pleasure.
Ruby Tandoh • Eat Up: Food, Appetite and Eating What You Want
In practice, most cooks keep their flavorings at room temperature. As long as they aren’t regularly exposed to strong light, whole spices keep well for a year, and ground spices for a few months.