Rachel Laudan

Linguists use the term loan words for terms borrowed from another language.  Would this help clarify the discussion of what are popularly called “fusion cuisines?”   The more I think about this term, the more it seems to me to obscure more than it clarifies.  Cuisines are complex structures with culinary/social/political/aesthetic/economic/religious/health/even environmental goals, rules for achieving [...]

Just returned with a new jar of tahini from Café Jekemir, a delightful chain of Lebanese-Mexican coffee shops that have been in business since the 1930s here in Mexico City. Since most of the canned and bottled foodstuffs they carry come from the Middle East, I turned this over to check out exactly where.  Hmm.  [...]

Samuel Palmer, Gleaning for Wheat under a Harvest Moon, 1833 from Feasts and Festivals Sometimes things just come together.  Last week I spent a good bit of time at a seminar on Nutritional Anthropology and more writing about how in nineteenth-century Europe, famines ceased to be a regular part of life, as well as going [...]