Tag Archives: Food

Diet Studies: Age-Related Macular Degeneration Linked To Processed, Refined And Fried Foods

From a Genetic Engineering & Biotechnology News release:

Age-Related Macular Degeneration“Our work provides additional evidence that that diet matters,” Millen added. “From a public health standpoint, we can tell people that if you have early AMD, it is likely in your best interest to limit your intake of processed meat, fried food, refined grains, and high-fat dairy to preserve your vision over time.”

Participants who ate a diet high in red and processed meat, fried food, refined grains, and high-fat dairy were three times more likely to develop an eye condition that damages the retina and affects a person’s central vision, according to the results of a study, “Diet patterns and the incidence of age-related macular degeneration in the Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities (ARIC) study,” from the University at Buffalo (UB) that appears in the British Journal of Ophthalmology.

The condition is called late-stage age-related macular degeneration (AMD), which is irreversible and affects a person’s central vision, taking away their ability to drive, among other common daily activities.

To read more: https://www.genengnews.com/news/age-related-macular-degeneration-linked-to-diet-high-in-refined-processed-and-fried-foods/?utm_medium=newsletter&utm_source=GEN+Daily+News+Highlights&utm_content=01&utm_campaign=GEN+Daily+News+Highlights_20191212&oly_enc_id=5678C5137845J4Z

Cooking: The New Yorker Top Cookbooks Of 2019

From a New Yorker online article:

2019-Rosner-Best-CookbookWhittling down my favorites to a mere Top Ten was an insurmountable challenge—and there were still so many I didn’t get to, all of them floating in that literary quantum state of potential perfection. (No doubt my favorite book of all is among them, and I’m cursed never to know it.) If this is indeed a time of crisis, I suppose it’s a comfort that at least our kitchens—and, for those of us in skirts, our knees—will be warm. My list is organized alphabetically by author.

 

Ruffage: A Practical Guide to Vegetables,” by Abra Berens

All vegetable cookbooks, as a rule, are wonderful, but too often they blur together into a sort of generic, Wendell Berry-and-dirt-under-the-nails quietude of awe: behold the first pale green of spring, lo the beauty of the humble parsnip, and so on. It’s the voice in “Ruffage” that makes it so marvellous—a sort of sharp, lusty fierceness that one doesn’t normally see applied to beets or celery. Berens writes intimately without being precious, a mode that reflects her recipes: approachable but stunningly lush, gently coaxing out walloping flavors from humble materials.


South: Essential Recipes and New Explorations,” by Sean Brock

This far-reaching compendium decodes the culinary pillars of the entire American South, from the moss-swagged South Carolina Lowcountry to the rolling hills of the Appalachian Piedmont. Shrimp and grits, fried bologna, five types of corn bread—it’s all here. Brock, a celebrated chef, is one of the great practical historians of Southern cuisine, and here he focusses on the whys as much as the whats: we get to know not only his favorite heirloom beans and grains but the soil that feeds them and the people who grow them; we learn not just why it’s worth tracking down certain cultivars of tomato or regional varieties of country ham but the reasons (often tragic) that they’re now so hard to find.


Amá: A Modern Tex-Mex Kitchen,” by Josef Centeno and Betty Hallock

Tex-Mex, as a cuisine, often gets slighted when it comes to serious culinary consideration, but, at Los Angeles’s celebrated restaurants Bar Amá and Amácita, the chef and restaurateur Centeno gives this essential American cuisine the spotlight it deserves. This book is less an accounting of the restaurant’s menu than a tale of Centeno’s coming of age within Tejano culture and learning to find pride in his family history. Stories and recipes from generations past (fiery steak fajitas; a gooey, chorizo-flecked queso asadero) share space with playful remixes of Texan and Tex-Mex classics, like lobster taquitos and carne guisada Frito pie—not to mention nearly an entire chapter dedicated to “Super Nacho Hour.”


Zaitoun: Recipes from the Palestinian Kitchen,” by Yasmin Khan

Khan, a former human-rights campaigner, shifted her job description in 2016 with “The Saffron Tales,” a marvellous compendium of Persian cuisine. In her second volume, she turns her empathetic eye to the kitchens of Palestinians living in Israel and the occupied territories and also abroad. The result is a feast of spiced soups and stews, zingy greens and pulses, and rich sweets scented with rose water and honey. Khan pays particular attention to subtle regional differences, including the chili-and-garlic-filled cuisine of the Gaza Strip, which is rapidly disappearing behind a devastating blockade.

Where Cooking Begins: Uncomplicated Recipes to Make You a Great Cook,” by Carla Lalli Music

Whether in a farmers’ market, a mobile Web interface, or a fluorescent-lit suburban grocery store, Music’s philosophy of food is that it all starts with the act of acquiring it mindfully: buy ingredients often and in small quantities. Her book, full of beautiful photographs and written with a breezy, conversational voice, uses an arsenal of herbaceous, acidic, high-impact recipes to introduce key techniques and ingredient formulas that can turn any shopping trip into a gorgeous meal. Each recipe includes copious twists, spins, and alternatives: an ideal tool kit to transform a timid cook into an adventurous and confident improviser.


The Gaijin Cookbook: Japanese Recipes from a Chef, Father, Eater, and Lifelong Outsider,” by Ivan Orkin and Chris Ying

Orkin, a New York Jew who married a Japanese woman, has Japanese children, and spent years living in Japan, immersed in Japanese culture, has built a formidable career making some of the best ramen in the world. This is one of those rare cookbooks that’s both tremendously insightful and genuinely funny, exploring the various ways that identity, tradition, language, and love work together (or, sometimes, directly against one another) in the home kitchen of a blended family. From a starting point of simple, foundational recipes—rice, eggs, noodles, dashi—he guides the reader into slightly more involved Japanese, Japanese-American, and Japanese-American-Jewish dishes, including recipes ideal for drunken weekends, picky kids, or both.


Tartine: A Classic Revisited,” by Elisabeth Prueitt and Chad Robertson

When the original Tartine cookbook was published, in 2006, it was a near-instant classic: at last, the extraordinary breads, cakes, tarts, and pastries produced at the San Francisco bakery could be made anywhere, so long as a home cook had the equipment (and exacting, patient temperament) to make it happen. Thirteen years later, Tartine has grown from a single storefront to a California empire with multiple locations (plus a few in Seoul), and its industrial ovens are still the gold standard. This book lightly updates fifty-five of the earlier recipes and introduces sixty-eight more, their flavors updated for more modern palates and diets—it includes two dozen gluten-free options—all truly exceptional.


Nothing Fancy: Unfussy Food for Having People Over,” by Alison Roman

There’s something so refreshing about a cookbook that straight-up rejects the idea that cooking always needs to be a special and precious act. Roman’s food is bright and worldly, without a hint of tweezer-y fuss. Her alluringly irreverent thesis, first laid out in her blockbuster début book, “Dining In,” and elaborated upon in this volume (which, despite its dinner-party focus, is full of straightforward recipes with clever twists that work beautifully for everyday meals), stays just this side of the line between empowering and impatient: just make the damn food. Trust the recipe. Have some fun.


Joy of Cooking: 2019 Edition Fully Revised and Updated,” by Irma S. Rombauer, Marion Rombauer Becker, Ethan Becker, John Becker, and Megan Scott

For the past ninety years or so, readers have been blessed with a new edition of “Joy of Cooking” roughly every decade. This version—the result of years of work by John Becker and Megan Scott, the newest generation to be added to the cookbook’s byline—brings the grande dame of the kitchen bookshelf definitively into the now. Becker and Scott retested and updated some four thousand classic “Joy” recipes and added six hundred or so new ones that reflect more current tastes and interests. There’s a whole section on fermenting now, not to mention vegan options, a sous-vide guide, and a dramatically broadened appreciation for international cuisines and ingredients. (For gift-giving, the printed version of “Joy” is a beautiful, massive object. But, for your own use, my advice is to invest in the digital edition: with so many recipes, and so much densely packed information, this is exactly the sort of scenario when an e-book—and its internal search function—is a cook’s best friend.)


Jubilee: Recipes from Two Centuries of African American Cooking,” by Toni Tipton-Martin

Ostensibly a companion to Tipton-Martin’s award-winning “The Jemima Code” (which I listed as one of my favorite food books of the past twenty years), “Jubilee” stands on its own as a wide-ranging, celebratory collection of recipes that trace the black culinary history of America. Rum-spiked fruit fritters, cinnamon-scented sweet-potato biscuits with salty country ham, a broccoli-and-cauliflower salad with a tangy curried dressing—each of the recipes in this extraordinary book has a provenance, whether it’s a classic restaurant, a modern celebrity chef, or the recorded techniques of an enslaved cook. Despite their deep roots, the recipes—even the oldest ones—feel fresh and modern, a testament to the essentiality of African-American gastronomy to all of American cuisine.

To read more: https://www.newyorker.com/culture/2019-in-review/the-best-cookbooks-of-2019

Food Trends: “Kitchen United” Delivery-Only Restaurants Wins “2019 Innovator Of The Year”

From a Restaurant Dive online article:

Restaurant Dive Awards 2019“What virtual kitchens, or the Kitchen United concept does, is create a new economic model, where no longer do [restaurants] have to invest in expensive real estate and fancy front-of-house overhead and dining rooms, [they] can share kitchen space, optimize capital that is there and hopefully create a more profitable model for delivery,” NPD Group Vice President David Portalatin told Restaurant Dive. 

When Kitchen United received $40 million in funding from RXR Realty during the summer, it became clear the two-year-old shared kitchen startup is paving a path for rapid expansion. The company will partner with the real estate company to open kitchens in New York City and the tri-state area.

This partnership fits within Kitchen United’s overall goal of opening 400 kitchen centers and 5,000 kitchens within the next few years. But it certainly isn’t alone in opening virtual kitchens, or restaurants without a traditional retail storefront. Grubhub, DoorDash and Uber Eats have all been trying their hand in delivery-only restaurants over the last two years.

To read more; https://www.restaurantdive.com/news/innovator-kitchen-united-restaurant-dive-awards/566463/

Top Restaurants: Sydney’s “Firedoor” Leads Fiery “Australian BBQ” Trend

From a New York Times online review:

Lennox Hastie Chef of Firedoor Photo by Con Poulos New York Times“Australian barbecue” is not, however, what Lennox Hastie, the chef at Firedoor, would use to describe his own cooking. Nor is it a term that’s been used much by anyone to describe any type of cooking. Here, the word “barbecue” is generally synonymous with the American term “cookout,” and, much like the cookout, it remains an integral part of Australia’s national identity.

Firedoor, which opened in 2015, is a prime example. Wagyu with Onion at Firedoor Photo by Con Poulos New York TimesThe kitchen is powered entirely by wood — there are no electric or gas ovens, burners or microwaves. Mr. Hastie came to this style after working five years at Asador Etxebarri in the Basque Country, where the chef Victor Arguinzoniz cooks local ingredients over fire using multiple types of wood. Mr. Hastie takes a similar approach, but with pointedly Australian ingredients.

One of the restaurant’s most thrilling dishes is a whole marron — a large freshwater crayfish native to Western Australia. The marron is grilled, split open and smothered in sea blite, a coastal plant related to samphire, and sunrise lime, a hybrid citrus created by crossing the native Australian finger lime with a calamondin (itself a cross between a mandarin and a kumquat). There are plenty of smoky, charred meats on the menu as well: pork chops, duck hearts and Wagyu all get their turn on one of the many grills.

To read more: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/05/dining/australian-barbecue.html

New Art History Books: “Feast & Fast – The Art Of Food In Europe 1500-1800”

Feast and Fast The Art of Food in Europe 1500-1800Food defines us as individuals, communities, and nations – we are what we eat and, equally, what we don’t eat. When, where, why, how and with whom we eat are crucial to our identity. Feast and Fast presents novel approaches to understanding the history and culture of food and eating in early modern Europe.

This richly illustrated book will showcase hidden and newly-conserved treasures from the Fitzwilliam Museum and other collections in and around Cambridge. It will tease out many contemporary and controversial issues – such as the origins of food and food security, overconsumption in times of austerity, and our relationship with animals and nature – through short research-led entries by some of the world’s leading cultural and food historians.

Feast and Fast explores food-related objects, images, and texts from the past in innovative ways and encourages us to rethink our evolving relationship with food.

To read more and purchase:

2020 Beverage Trends: Expect New Omega-3, More Probiotic & Lacrose-Free, & Less Juice-Based Drinks

From an Imbibeinc.com online release:

2020 Beverage Trend Predictions Imbibe Drink TankOmega-3s have a variety of health benefits that consumers want. Consuming omega-3s is suggested to help fight against depression, anxiety, mental decline and heart disease as well as promote brain health during early child development. Expect several omega-3 enhanced beverages in 2020.

Many consumers are reducing their intake of beverages once lauded for having nutrient benefits like orange juice and dairy milk, so there’s a lot of opportunity for brands to fortify products with vitamins and minerals. Expect to see beverages fortified with zinc, calcium, potassium, sodium, and vitamins B-12, C, and D.

Awareness about the advantages of a healthy microbiome for overall health has increased significantly over the last decade. Since prebiotics and probiotics both play an important role in maintaining a healthy gut, expect several launches of synbiotic beverages (i.e. have prebiotics and probiotics).

To read more: https://imbibeinc.com/food-and-beverage-industry-media/blog-postings-from-the-drink-tank/trendspotting-2020-trend-predictions

European Food Review: Italian Restaurant Movement In Paris Has “Exploded” In Last 3 Years

From a New York Times online article:

Bijou Paris restaurant NY Times“There’s really an Italian movement that has exploded over the last three years,” Mr. Imbroisi said.

Thanks to that explosion, Paris might now be the best city outside of Italy for Italian eating and drinking. With a few Metro tickets, you can journey from Venetian aperitivo culture (Hostaria Urbana), then south to Sicilian home cooking (Pane e Olio), disembarking occasionally at cozy wine bars (Tappo), massive indoor food halls (La Felicità) and new Italian restaurants from French celebrity chefs (for example, Piero TT, by Pierre Gagnaire). Racines Paris restaurant Joann Pai NY TimesIn April, the Right Bank welcomed an outlet of Eataly with a glittery gala, and the Left Bank should soon see a luxury hotel from the Italian JK brand. The marquee attraction will be a restaurant by Miky Grendene, the Italian creator of the exclusive Casa Tua members’ club in Miami.

From experimental aperitivo bars to pizza labs to Michelin-starred bistros, cool Italian establishments are filling the French capital, and Parisians are flocking to them.

To read more: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/04/travel/Italian-food-in-Paris.html

Trends In Food: Rising Number Of Consumers Eat Salty Snacks For Lunch, Dinner (Even Breakfast)

From an Innova Market Insights online release:

Innova Market InsightsAccording to a report from Innova Market Insights, snacking has already become an all-day habit in the States. While 46% of consumers eat salty snacks between-meals in the afternoon and 37% in the evening, more consumers are also replacing traditional meals with quicker bites. The numbers of consumers who are consuming salty snacks at lunchtime (23%), dinner (17%) and even breakfast (8%) are on the increase.

“Enjoyment is still a very strong driver behind snacks purchase,” says Lu Ann Williams, Head of Innovation at Innova Market Insights. “When asked why they buy salty snacks, 40% of Americans named taste and a further 22% said it was to treat or reward themselves, so innovators need to balance nutrition and taste to ensure that salty snacks remain competitive for all snacking occasions.”

To read more: https://www.innovamarketinsights.com/americans-want-snackable-nutrition/

Travel: “Courmayeur”, An Italian Ski Town That Foodies Love (WSJ)

From a Wall Street Journal online article:

Super G hotel, home to two restaurants overseen by Milan chef Andrea Berton. PHOTO FRANCESCO LASTRUCCI FOR THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
Super G hotel, home to two restaurants overseen by Milan chef Andrea Berton. PHOTO: FRANCESCO LASTRUCCI FOR THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

Courmayeur, both a town and a ski resort, boasts nearly as many ambitious, full-service restaurants as it does lifts on the slopes. Even on bright sunny days with powdery trails, the big question tends to be, “What’s for lunch?” The village, nestled in a snug valley on the south slope (the Italian side) of Mont Blanc, Europe’s highest peak, is a typically sleepy mountain town for much of the year with around 3,000 full-time residents. But when the ski season kicks into high gear, its restaurants, bars and cafes all come roaring to life. It’s a favorite winter escape for residents of Italy’s fashion capital, Milan, a straight two-hour shot up the highway. 

For the urbane crowds in from the city on winter weekends, Courmayeur is as much an epicurean as snow-sports destination, known for its mountain cheeses, wild game and cured meats, and for its increasingly serious restaurants. Top tables on and off the slopes can book up weeks in advance. The region’s minerally white and earthy red wines come from some of the highest altitude vineyards in Europe. The sparkling Cuvée des Guides is made 7,000 feet above sea level on the slopes of Mont Blanc, with a tasting room atop one of the state-of-the-art Skyway Monte Bianco cable car stations.

To read more: https://www.wsj.com/articles/an-italian-ski-town-where-the-food-rivals-the-views-11574791692