Perfectly Awesome

On the insatiable hunger for belonging.

American food supplies are increasingly channeled through a handful of big companies: Amazon, Walmart, FreshDirect, Blue Apron. What do we lose when local supermarkets go under? A lot -- and Kevin Kelley wants to stop that.

I also helped undress him so he could lie down

The fragrant fruit hid a dark secret.

Olivia Potts | Longreads | November 2022 | 16 minutes (4,649 words) It’s six in the morning, and Robert Booth has already been on the road for three hours. Sitting alongside him in the cab of his lorry (the British term for a truck) is Louis, Robert’s small dog, a Jack Russell-chihuahua mix, and a washing-up bowl […]

Before the industrial revolution, there had been a significant increase in machinery use in Europe. Why not in China?

Eight radio stations in Southern Louisiana still broadcast partially in French as they try to keep alive a dying language in the area. French has been spoken there since the mid-1700s.

Fruit fans, assemble.

Tartine, a beloved San Francisco bakery, wanted to grow. Partnering with a developer was one way to rise.

The new owner of Argentina’s de facto national treat stopped paying his majority-female workforce — so they seized control of the entire operation.

Julia Child's collaborator Simone Beck has lingered as an object of pity in public memory. But maybe Beck didn’t want stardom at all.

Biscuit-whisperer Erika Council honors the women who taught her to bake a perfect biscuit.

The fig is an ecological marvel. Although you may never want to eat one again.

Beekeeping helped Gary Adkison pull his life together. Now he's among the tenacious harvesters of tupelo honey.

For a long time, I thought MSG was a food additive more like "Red 40", that it had some obscure food-science use and junk food companies were either too lazy or callous to replace it. It turns out it's more like salt. Good luck taking that out of your Cheetos.

The painstaking process of picking piñon makes for a booming roadside economy for the Navajo Nation and other Indigenous Americans

It flurried all day Sunday in Vermont. Ekiben co-founder Steve Chu watched the flakes with dread. Snow in the fryer would be trouble. This is the story of how the owners of Baltimore’s most p…

Growers of New Mexico’s iconic crop wrestle with drought, water rights and labor shortages.

While big-name chefs take up Appalachian cooking, a farm couple are using old seeds and recipes to tell a more complex story and lift up their region.

The world’s most obsessive breakfast-food fans demonstrate just how far humans will go for the sweet taste of nostalgia.

The true star of the Akutagawa Prize-winning novel Convenience Store Woman is the convenience store itself. But what is it that makes these shops so magical?

A study digs up the origin of the single species that gives us turnips, bok choy, broccoli rabe, and more.

When a Russian scientist identified the Malus sieversii as the progenitor of the domestic apple, harvests in Kazakhstan’s forests were bountiful; now this wild fruit is threatened.

Tom Brown's retirement hobby is a godsend for chefs, conservationists, and cider.

From unappetizing “fishbricks” to cultural darlings, the 1950s convenience food has enjoyed a winning streak—no less so than during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Skipjack are the world’s most abundant tuna. They’re resilient, but can they outswim our demand for this pantry staple?

Where culinary bliss meets environmental peril, and how to solve America’s poke problem.

What the hole is going on?

Sonoma County’s SingleThread has been hailed as the apotheosis of high-end, farm-to-table dining. The perpetual threat of wildfires and once-in-a-generation flooding also make it a case study in the challenges that climate change will soon pose to restaurants everywhere.

Burkhard Bilger’s 2005 piece on the short-order cooks at the Flamingo hotel, who crack well over a million eggs a year, in a city built by breakfast specials.

In this remote Swiss town, residents spent a lifetime aging a wheel for their own funeral.

For a newcomer to the city, a boulangerie apprenticeship reveals a way of life.

But maybe not for your stomach.

The best place to eat in Germany is in a little village in a forest.

The mob saw an opportunity. Local 338 had other ideas.

A coal fortune is fueling the revival of a cuisine it nearly destroyed.

An Oxford grad learns to navigate boiling sugar, sleep deprivation, and exacting pastry chefs with whom she can barely communicate.

Working summers at an authentically quaint roadside produce stand, a teenage salesperson is schooled in the not-so-subtle art of how to con a foodie from the big city.

On Saturdays Tootsie Tomanetz cooks barbecue the old-fashioned way for legions of loyal fans. That doesn’t mean she’ll ever give up her day job.

Retail giants turn to bitcoin technology to combat food-fraud that costs the global food industry up to $40 billion every year.

Kahve was a favourite drink of the Ottoman Empire’s ruling class. Little did they know it would one day hasten the empire’s demise

John Mueller was the heir to one of the great Texas barbecue dynasties. Aaron Franklin was an unknown kid from College Station who worked his counter. John had it all and then threw it all away. Aaron came out of nowhere to create the state’s most coveted brisket. Then John rose from the ashes.

The grim traveler sampled the offerings with a heavy heart.

Step into the private kitchens of Basque country’s sociedades gastronómicas, where everything revolves around food

Delicate and impossible to replicate, su filindeu (or the “threads of God”) is a pasta made of hundreds of tiny strands by a single woman in a hillside town in Sardinia. She’ll make it for you too—if you’re willing to walk 20 miles overnight

As a cuke deckhand, your job first and foremost consists of making sure your diver survives

From celebrity seating warfare to dogs sipping Champagne, there’s never a dull moment at America’s most famous sushi joint.

In Ireland, few things are black and white, especially the law—and the tales of men who break it to dive for treasure under cover of darkness

One man wanted to change the raisin industry for the better. He got more than he bargained for.

The unsung heroes of the food world battle against time and chaos, cooking haute cuisine over lit cans of Sterno in the gloomy back hallways of New York's civic landmarks.

Kahve was a favourite drink of the Ottoman Empire’s ruling class. Little did they know it would one day hasten the empire’s demise

But can it be grown anywhere else?

From 2019: How Niki Nakayama’s kaiseki restaurant became a highly coveted reservation in L.A.

A controversial chef has created a sort of sushi speakeasy in a hotel room. It’s not easy to get a reservation. For one thing, there are only four seats at the bar.

Some consider him a master. That takes work.

When it comes to grain, the future looks like the past. Go back a half-century in Boulder County, and there’s Old Man Webber coming into town with his portable combine. Word gets passed around and Webber goes to every farm, home and plot growing wheat and chops it. Then Beth near Valmont gets her seed […]

When you exist outside of regular society, when the nine-to-five gig is as foreign to you as going somewhere hot for a vacation, it makes it easier to indulge in the wilder, untamed side of things.

A millennial entrepreneur hires from inmates and homeless people who struggle to find work even in a strong economy.

After crops failed, botanist Kathleen Drew-Baker realized that nori wasn’t what it seemed.