Rachel Laudan

He was just a little boy.  He lived in the country.  So why were brown spots spreading on his skin, why were his joints swollen and aching, why were his gums bleeding? No one knew.  Nobody had a cure. His mother ignored the nutritional advice of the day, advice that suggested that all that a [...]

The theme of the  2009 Oxford Symposium on Food and Cookery was Food and Language.  I gave a paper on a topic I had been mulling over for some time, “What can the culinary historian learn from the linguist?”  It has now been published by the marvelous Prospect Books, which I urge you to support [...]

In the market in Silao, Mexico, the very geographic center of Mexico, ten miles south of the the city of Guanajuato in the State of Guanajuato, the semilleros (seed shops) sell black eyed peas (Vigna unguicalata) along with all the usual Mexican beans. They call them veronicas. You can see them in the sack at [...]