Rachel Laudan

Why 1492 is a non-event in culinary history

By Rachel Laudan December 16, 2009 Food History, Globalization Then and Now, Mexican Food 11 Comments

Ok, what do I mean by culinary history?  Culinary (from the Latin culina, kitchen) history traces the history of the (guess) the kitchen or more generally, the techniques used to…

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Why didn’t Mexico abandon the metate?

By Rachel Laudan November 23, 2009 Adventures, Mainly Culinary, Bread, Grinding, Mexican Food 6 Comments

Third or fourth pass grinding barley on a metate Lots more questions than I can take up.  But one that several commentators have raised is “Why did the simple grindstone…

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Hard Choices: Tortillas de Maiz or Tortillas de Maseca

By Rachel Laudan July 24, 2009 Adventures, Mainly Culinary, Mexican Food 14 Comments

The NY Times today had an article on (finally) a place in New York that is making tortillas from maize not from Maseca. If that sounds like double dutch to…

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