When I was a kid, I thought cranberries were sweet — after all, cranberry juice sure was! But then I finally tasted an honest-to-goodness whole cranberry and realized that good ol’ Ocean Spray had added a fair amount of sweeteners to make the juice palatable for the American tongue. Now that I’ve veered off the [...]
Ice cream has to be one of the true joys of summer. (If you’re like me and love pumpkin ice cream, it’s also one of fall’s pleasures.) As much as I enjoyed the occasional scoop or two, however, I was getting dissatisfied with commercial ice cream–waaaay too much sugar and way too many unnecessary additives. [...]
Ceres was the Roman goddess of agriculture. Her name eventually became associated with the single food that provides more energy for human beings than any other crop: grain. Unfortunately, today’s commercially-made cereals are often a far cry from their old-world roots. Just take a look at the labels–most cereal is made [...]
It’s not beer or wine, although it is fermented. It isn’t hard cider or perry (like cider, but made with pears), although it can contain fruit. Traditional mead is made from honey, water, and yeast, and it’s been around since recorded history began. It went through a bit of a slump in [...]
When I was living in Costa Rica, I visited a sugarcane and coffee plantation. Standing in the 100-degree sun surrounded by bamboo-like sugarcane and bright red coffeeberries was an amazing experience…and so was tasting a piece of raw sugarcane that one of the workers snapped off and handed to me. Now I know what sugar [...]
