Rachel Laudan

Bread Riots. Again. This Time the Middle East.

By Rachel Laudan March 26, 2011 Food Politics, Globalization Then and Now 1 Comment

Of the top 20 wheat importers for 2010, almost half are Middle Eastern countries. The list reads like a playbook of toppled and teetering regimes: Egypt (1), Algeria (4), Iraq…

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Mexican supermarkets versus US supermarkets

By Rachel Laudan March 23, 2011 Adventures, Mainly Culinary, Globalization Then and Now, Mexican Food, Modern Food 15 Comments

A couple of months in the US has given me lots of time to ponder these differences which reveal so much about the way the two countries actually eat, as…

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Who ground the chocolate? Not a trivial question

By Rachel Laudan February 13, 2011 Drink, Food History, Globalization Then and Now, Grinding, Mexican Food 12 Comments

Of all the difficult things to turn into food (and most plants and animals are difficult to turn into food), cacao beans and their processing rank way up there. Let’s…

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