Rachel Laudan

Until recently Jewish Mexican cooking was unknown outside the 50,000 Mexican Jews, most of whom arrived in the early twentieth century. [EDIT.  Here I am ignoring the Jews who came in the sixteenth century.  That is a whole other and distinct story.] In Mexico, the search for the Mexican tradition, for indigenous and colonial Spanish [...]

Here’s a really long overdue post, promised to Chef Lastino Apochito a year ago when I was visiting Panama City for the quite fascinating first Panamá Gastronómica. He approached me after a session on the Afro-Antillean cuisine to be found in Panamá. He was, he said, worried that his people, the Embera, were losing their [...]

By arbitrarily removing salt and sugar from their rightful place as chemical compounds, the USDA eliminates hundreds of products that are traditionally cured with one or both of these chemicals. So, in the obfuscating terminology of the USDA, an Iberico  ham that is so well-preserved with salt that it can hang for two years is not cured while one that has [...]