Rachel Laudan

Time. c.1198-1166 BCE in Egypt. Year 29, second month of winter, day 10. On this day the crew passed the five guard-posts [Medjay guarding the necropolis]. of the tomb saying: “We are hungry, for 18 days have already elapsed in this month[past payday - i.e., giving of food and supplies];” and they sat down at the rear [...]

Of the top 20 wheat importers for 2010, almost half are Middle Eastern countries. The list reads like a playbook of toppled and teetering regimes: Egypt (1), Algeria (4), Iraq (7), Morocco (8), Yemen (13), Saudi Arabia (15), Libya (16), Tunisia (17). For decades, many of these regimes relied on food subsidies to ensure stability [...]

A couple of months in the US has given me lots of time to ponder these differences which reveal so much about the way the two countries actually eat, as opposed to what we learn from cookbooks or tourist literature. Here I am comparing two supermarkets in south Austin (HEB and Randalls) and two in [...]