Rachel Laudan

Sorry, folks.  I hit the publish on this before I meant to.  In any case an interesting story in Slate.  I’d actually put the beginnings of the Japanese move to wheat at the beginning of the twentieth century.  That established the idea that wheat was good and strengthening, laying the foundations for the  big increase [...]

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.  [...]