It’s funny how tastes change — when I was a kid, I used to hate wild rice (I thought of it as “funny rice,” and I don’t mean funny in a good way), but now it’s one of my favorites. Granted, what we see called “wild” rice is actually a cultivated variety grown in California; [...]
I used to think the term “curry” meant a specific blend of spices used in a particular way. That turned out to be semi-true. “Curry,” an Indian chef told me a few years back, “simply means ‘sauce.’ A curry can be what you make it.” The way we think of “curry,” then, is kind of [...]
Here’s something you might not know: Ethiopia’s biggest export is agricultural products. Agriculture has always played a key role in Ethiopia, especially before misguided policies resulted in stripped-out soils, lowered water tables, and poorer crop yields. (Policies like the ones that forced farmers to switch from native, non-thirsty plants — i.e., drought-resistant crops — to [...]
Continue reading about Greens That Would Make Popeye Jealous
When it comes to versatile flavor and nutritional bang for your buck, you can’t beat dried beans. On the downside, though, dried beans take a while to reconstitute — depending on how you do it, there’s either a lot of soaking and simmering involved, or a lot less soaking and simmering time and a lot [...]
What people traditionally eat depends on what their weather is like — citrus doesn’t like cold weather, but berries don’t like it hot. (Good luck finding strawberries in a tropical rain forest! Temperate rain forests are another story…) Root vegetables and cabbages also like their days and nights to be on the crisp and cool [...]
Some side dishes are place holders — they just occupy a parcel of real estate on the side of the plate without actually contributing anything to the property. (White buns, anemic iceberg lettuce, bland mashed potatoes…) But then some side dishes are so dang good you wish they were the main dish. This is one [...]
I’ve always thought lentils were interesting — they’re not quite a pea and they’re not quite a bean, but they are a member of the legume family and as such they make great salads and soups. Nowadays, the standard brown soup lentils of my childhood have given way to speckled round French lentils, flat green [...]
The word “flour” seems like it has a solid definition: it’s white, it’s powdery, and it’s made of wheat. Fortunately, though, while those descriptions apply to all-purpose white flour, all-purpose white flour is only ONE kind of flour. (And it’s a stripped-out, tasteless one at that.) There are plenty of other flours that can be [...]
Continue reading about Nuts + Grains + Carrots = A Tasty Quickbread
In the States, we eat it with jam or in cookies. If we’re getting really creative, we might throw in an apple or a stalk of celery with raisins. (Remember your childhood “ant-on-a-log” snacks?) In other regions of the world, though — notably Africa and southeast Asia — peanut butter is incorporated into everything from [...]
Continue reading about Sweet, Savory, and Everything in Between
