essayFood and drink
Adjust your disgust
The future of food is nutritious and sustainable – if we can overcome our instinctual revulsion to insects and lab-grown meat
Alexandra Plakias
videoFood and drink
The passage of time is a peculiar thing in a 24-hour diner
14 minutes
essayFood and drink
The flavour of mechanisation
Olive oil was revered and cherished by the ancients. But its distinctive peppery taste is really a modern invention
Massimo Mazzotti
videoFamily life
The stream-of-consciousness thoughts and memories that emerge while cooking a meal
5 minutes
essayFood and drink
The fermented crescent
Ancient Mesopotamians had a profound love of beer: a beverage they found celebratory, intoxicating and strangely erotic
Tate Paulette
essayFood and drink
The joy of foraging
Offering an escape from industrial foods, foraging nourishes the soul and body, but it needs democratic access to the land
Nikita Sud
videoFood and drink
Local tensions simmer amid a potato salad contest at the Czech-Polish border
14 minutes
videoBiology
How the world’s richest reds are derived from an innocuous Mexican insect
5 minutes
videoLove and friendship
Love looks a bit different for a chain-smoking couple in a small apartment
11 minutes
videoFood and drink
Is a ‘gastronomic society’ dinner the height of decadence, or an act of artistry?
11 minutes
essayFood and drink
Crème de la crème
How French cuisine became beloved among status-hungry diners in the United States, from Thomas Jefferson to Kanye West
Kelly Alexander & Claire Bunschoten
essayOceans and water
Here’s to blue foods
With care for the social and ecological consequences, foods from the ocean should provide sustainable protein to billions
Madhura Rao
videoThe ancient world
What wine vessels reveal about politics and luxury in ancient Athens and Persia
16 minutes
videoFood and drink
From set-up to close, a day at the farmers market is a whirlwind sensory feast
10 minutes
essayHistory
Freedom from liquor
Ken Burns’s account of prohibition tells a popular story of booze in America. The historical record is far more sobering
Mark Lawrence Schrad
videoEcology and environmental sciences
Producing food while restoring the planet – a glimpse of farming in the future
7 minutes
essayHuman rights and justice
Breakfast with the Panthers
It wasn’t all young men and guns: the Black Panther Party’s programs fed more hungry kids than the state of California
Suzanne Cope
essayPoverty and development
A fairly fed world
Last year, 200 million children did not get enough to eat, yet it would be cheap and easy for the world to feed them all
Sharman Apt Russell
essayEthics
We must not own animals
We will never truly advance our ethical relationship with other animals until we stop treating them as chattels for use
Gary L Francione
videoBiography and memoir
Meet Haddon Salt – the would-have-been Colonel Sanders of fish and chips
9 minutes
essayEthics
Why you should eat meat
Not eating animals is wrong. If you care about animals, then the right thing to do is breed them, kill them and eat them
Nick Zangwill
essayFood and drink
The chocolate route
The humble cocoa bean’s journey from its Amerindian origins to worldwide dominance is a lesson in the power of trade
Irene Fattacciu
essayFood and drink
The food wars
Vitamins or whole foods; high-fat or low-fat; sugar or sweetener. Will we ever get a clear idea about what we should eat?
Amos Zeeberg
essayBioethics
Don’t farm bugs
Insect farming bakes, boils and shreds animals by the trillion. It’s immoral, risky and won’t resolve the climate crisis
Jeff Sebo & Jason Schukraft