Rachel Laudan

Mariana Gómez, an anthropologist/sociologist wh teaches at the University of Zulia in Venezuela, sent me this letter in which she describes Venezuelan horchata. This version is made from sesame seeds. (She also described some other aguas, but I’ll keep those for another post).
It’s interesting to see that Venezuelan chicha is what Mexicans [...]

I’m going to edge into horchata by beginning with the Mexican rice version. Even in Mexico, horchata, originally a barley water, can be made with almonds, oatmeal, melon seeds, and coconut as well as with rice, or even without any of these at all. In Spain, it is glorious made with chufa “nuts” but [...]

Sometimes when you’re researching a topic, you run across a side issue that is almost irresistible. Here’s one of those. There I was trolling through the Encyclopedia Iranica for references to honey and milk way way back in history. The Encyclopedia Iranica, by the way, is a wonderful resource for scholarly articles [...]