Longform
Lost in the Stock
Figuring out what’s actually in a box of chicken stock shouldn’t be that hard. Right?
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How to Cook a Direwolf
By recreating dishes from popular media like "Game of Thrones," "The Lord of the Rings," and "Twin Peaks," the chef Iliana Regan didn’t just turn fine dining on its head at her restaurant Elizabeth — she cooked fanfiction
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Stone Barns Claims It’s Fixing Agriculture. Former Employees Say the Farm Was Plagued by Dysfunction.
Eighteen former workers at the Stone Barns Center for Food & Agriculture allege dysfunction in the livestock program at America’s most famous regenerative farm
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Blue Hill at Stone Barns Tells a Beautiful Story. Former Employees Say It’s Too Good to Be True.
Blue Hill at Stone Barns’ alluring story — that a fine dining restaurant could be a model for changing the world — seduced diners, would-be employees, and thought leaders alike. But former employees say that narrative often obscured a more complicated reality.
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Feed the Rich, Save the Planet?
For 15 years, the Stone Barns Center for Food & Agriculture tried to fix the food system by educating children and producing new farmers. Now, its mission is linked more than ever to fine dining destination Blue Hill at Stone Barns and a famous chef’s vision for trickle-down change.
A Bona Nosh
Why Polari, Britain’s lost gay language, employs so many food words for subversive concepts
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This Story Stinks
Food is sublime in part because of its transience. Funny, then, that we so rarely talk about where it goes
Why Are the World’s Greatest Mangoes Almost Impossible to Buy in the U.S.?
Customs restrictions, high transport costs, and a short shelf life have made the world’s greatest mangoes — grown in Pakistan — difficult to come by in the U.S.
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The Immense Human Cost of Keeping Thailand’s Palm Oil Flowing
Caught between an unquenchable thirst for palm oil and a multi-generational war on Thailand’s poor are the farmers of the Southern Peasants’ Federation of Thailand, who simply want a piece of land to call their own.
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Does It Get Better For the Indie Fine Dining Restaurant?
Chefs Russell Jackson and Ian Boden struggled to reconcile their visions of fine dining with their communities’ desires. Now, as they forge a sustainable path beyond the pandemic, one of them is ready to double down, and the other is ready to walk away.
No-Recipe Recipes Aren’t a Fad; They’re as Old as Cooking Instruction Itself
The earliest cookbooks were light on instruction and heavy on assumed knowledge — a style our recent, prescriptive recipe-obsessed food culture is now looping back to
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Vegan Cheese Is Ready to Compete With Dairy. Is the World Ready to Eat It?
Long considered a punchline, vegan cheese has quietly but steadily infiltrated mainstream supermarket shelves
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The Fermented Foods Industry Is Built on Global Ingredients. So Why Are Its Most Visible Faces White?
While the fermented foods industry evangelizes products rooted in global, often East Asian, traditions, its most visible faces are predominantly white
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On the Turkey-Syria Border, a Chef Is Helping Vulnerable Women Build a Future Through Food
On the Turkey-Syria border, the chef and restaurant owner — and increasingly, humanitarian — Ebru Baybara Demir is using gastronomy to give skills and hope to vulnerable Turkish and Syrian women
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How I Found Empowerment in the History of Black Veganism
The imagery of veganism propagated by the wellness industry erases the long — and often radical — history of plant-based diets in the Black diaspora
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The Tasting Menu at the End of the World
SingleThread has been hailed as the pinnacle of farm-to-table dining. But what happens when the farm is under assault by climate change?
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David Chang’s Memoir Fails to Account for the Trauma He Caused Me
Chang’s memoir "Eat a Peach" grapples with the white-hot fury that defined most of his career at Momofuku. But for an employee on the receiving end of that rage, the book fails to truly reckon with the pain he left behind.
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The New Soul Food of Paris
Black chefs are exploring "Afropean" identity and building on American soul food’s long history in the European dining capital
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Why the No-Tipping Movement Failed (and Why It Still Has a Chance)
Five years ago, both diners and restaurant workers pushed back against efforts to go tip-free — efforts that could play out differently in a post-pandemic world
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The Boundary Pusher
Peter Meehan’s transgressive vision helped redefine food media with the groundbreaking Lucky Peach, and later transformed the LA Times’s food coverage. But that vision came with a toxic management style characterized by intimidation, a barrage of sexualized commentary, and explosive anger, according to two dozen current and former staffers.
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Who Will Save the Food Timeline?
The internet’s most comprehensive archive of food history — a passion project of one dedicated librarian — predates Wikipedia. Now it needs a new custodian.
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Alison Roman, Bon Appétit, and the Global Pantry Problem
In this, the age of the global pantry, ingredients like turmeric, tahini, and gochujang have finally shaken off their hitherto "exotic" status. But it’s white cooking personalities like Alison Roman and many of the Bon Appétit Test Kitchen stars who have had viral success using them.
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Food and Loathing on the Campaign Trail
The road to the White House is paved with corn dogs, deep-fried Oreos, and lots of Jimmy John’s
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Drink Up, Calm Down
The love child of the anxiety economy and the wellness industry, a new category of beverages promises a calming antidote to the unease of modern life
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How Bubble Tea Became a Complicated Symbol of Asian-American Identity
For many first- and second-generation Asian Americans, bubble tea is far more than just a drink
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I Staged in a Michelin-Starred Restaurant in France and It Broke Me After One Week
The French brigade system and the ritual of staging has defined what it means to train as a fine dining chef for more than a century — and it broke me after a week
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New England Beach Pizza Is Not Very Good. Everyone Should Try It
A celebration of the thin-crusted, sweet-sauced, provolone-topped seaside snack
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The Curious History of Ivar’s, Washington’s Beloved Chowder Chain
Bread bowls, folk songs, and acres of clams — one writer’s deep dive into the seafood chain that anchored her childhood
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Buffalo Wild Wings Was My One-Man Gay Bar
In the home base of beer-swilling straight men, nobody could tell I was only playing at being a bro
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California’s Lost (and Found) Punjabi-Mexican Cuisine
Rasul’s El Ranchero created a roti quesadilla for a very specific community — a half-century before Indian fusion food became trendy