Rachel Laudan

As a historian, I’ve always got an eye cocked for contemporary examples of changing ways of cooking and eating.  Often these are creeping and gradual.  But every so often something happens that changes food habits overnight or at least within a few years or decades (which counts as overnight for the historian). There’s a fascinating [...]

Some time ago, a commentator (Tim) raised the following question about my thesis that Mexican mole is basically an Islamic dish transported to Mexico (just hit mole in the tags section). Here’s what he said. Your argument is well and good until you look at the bigger picture. You don’t need a liberal attitude toward [...]

OK, I’ll continue by addressing the concerns raised by Rajagopal and Steve (thanks both of you).   If this repeats things I’ve said lots of times before, I apologize. Well, by the 1990s, it was becoming clear that the ejido system was not working as planned. Now, after reforms, it is possible (if an incredible hassle) [...]