I love food, culture, people, and history, and I love the fact that these things are so hugely intertwined. I find it almost impossible to pick a favorite cuisine, as I can't really contemplate life without French food, Mexican, Chinese, Italian, Indian, or, given the mood, any of a dozen other culinary options. I appreciate great food and have had the good fortune to enjoy a considerable amount of it on six continents. However, if it connects me with a culture, history, or people, I'm perfectly happy sipping fermented mare's milk with nomad herdsmen in Mongolia or slurping soup made of squash vines in a Zapotec village in Mexico.
As for dislikes -- most animals insides, with the exception of foie gras and haggis (yum); lima beans; really fishy fish; and beer.
I worked with Maria Kijac on the cookbook The South American Table, and while my food writing has appeared in a number of magazines, print and electronic, one can most commonly see it online at Hungry Magazine (most of my work is under Food History and Travel, though I have also done a number of restaurant reviews, slide shows, and book reviews on Hungry).
I'm a member of the Culinary Historians of Chicago, the Midwest Foodways Alliance, the American Institute of Wine and Food, the International Association of Culinary Professionals, Slow Food, and the Midwest Writers Association.
I am also the author of Waltzing Australia.
Having been invited recently to a party celebrating the end of Prohibition, I was reminded once again (by comments in the invitation) of how little anyone actually knows about Prohibition and why it happened. And as a historian, I feel moved to elucidate folks on the reality of why we had Prohibition.
Prohibition was, in fact, a feminist issue. If you notice, Prohibition was passed one year after women got the vote. That’s because there were no women’s shelters, and women didn’t...
If Americans think about the food of Australia at all, it probably doesn’t go much beyond Paul Hogan’s famous, “We’ll throw another shrimp on the barbie.” Well, they certainly have plenty of shrimp (or prawns as they are more likely to say down there) and even more barbies, but the country and its cuisine go far beyond that. Of course, there are the fabulous people, the fascinating scenery, the weird and wonderful wildlife, the glorious beaches and sophisticated cit...
In addition to talking about cooking schools, PhilZ and I spent some quality time with Patty Erd, owner (along with her husband, Tom) of The Spice House, which Julia Child once described as a national treasure. If you've ever seen the fruitcake episode of Alton Brown's "Good Eats," you've seen Patty, as Alton goes to her for advice on spice in that show. I mentioned to PhilZ that I'd written an article for North Shore Magazine about The Spice House, and he said he'd be interested in having ...
During my first trip to Mexico, as I was interested in both sampling a variety of cuisines and glutting myself on history and culture, I traveled around a fair bit, from Mexico City to Oaxaca and then across the Yucatan, ending my wanderings in Mérida. Great fun. While I was in Oaxaca, as I browsed through markets (I have a real fondness for great markets, and Oaxaca has some amazing ones), whenever I encountered a vendor who spoke English, they asked me I was there for the cooking school...
One thing of which we are all relatively certain here in the U.S. is that European settlers learned about corn from American Indians. Right? Well, not really. What they learned about from the indigenous peoples of the New World was maize, not corn. Sound like double talk? Well, as it turns out, the word corn may not mean what you think it does, at least not if you’re an American. The term corn actually means the most important cereal crop of a region. Hence, wheat was traditionally the corn of...
I wonder sometimes why England has such a bad reputation for food. I’ve been going to England for decades, and I’ve only had one or two mediocre meals, and most of the time I’ve eaten splendidly. Sure, nowadays everyone points to the handful of famous venues that are popping up on “best restaurant lists.” Or people will say, “It’s because of the great ethnic eateries.” Yeah, England has those—big time. When I lived in England as a student, I ...
There are few other phrases that so quickly conjure images of pirates riotously celebrating another Caribbean conquest as that hearty “yo ho ho.” But why rum? Quite simple, really—because, beginning in the 1600s, the Caribbean (or West Indies, as the region was then known) was all about sugar, and what better thing to create from sugar by-products than rum? But rum was more than just a nice way to blind oneself at the end of a successful day of pillaging. For a few hundred year...
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