Portside

When I tell strangers that I’m a food writer, they tell me I’m lucky, and then ask, “How do you eat all that food?” I rarely tell them the whole truth.

Coffeehouses connected goods and capital streams with seekers, facilitating the very aspect of slavery that amplified capitalism. Enslaved peoples’ bodies were not only bought and sold, but made into part of the processes of of credit and finance.

Photographer David Bacon shares stunning images of farmworkers harvesting cabbage the old-fashioned way, and writes that the ubiquitous if undervalued vegetable is actually a shared cultural touchstone.

Monosodium glutamate is a compound molecule in which glutamate is the amino acid responsible for the mysterious deepening of flavor. Its once-vilified reputation has been ascribed to illogic, superstition and even racism.

The AHA’s new scientific advisory on fish consumption reports more evidence that seafood intake lower risks of coronary heart disease and sudden cardiac death—especially when the seafood replaces less healthy choices like beef or pork.

The eating of gold (chrysophagy? aurivorism?) dates back to long before the stunt-food era—it has been consumed by medieval alchemists, pharaonic Egyptians, and Victorian aesthetes.

Chia seeds have been cultivated as a food source as early as 3500 BC; they come from the plant Salvia hispanica L., and were at one time a major food crop in Mexico and Guatemala. They may contribute to disease prevention as part of a varied plant-rich diet and other healthy lifestyle behaviors.

The ILRI’s African Chicken Genetic Gains project was funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, as part of their mission to end world hunger.

Col. Ambrose McGuckian, the author's step-grandfather, developed the "water bath cooking" technique which is very similar to what we now know as sous vide.

The FDA allows oat food labels to tout the nutritional value and health benefits of oats such as a reduced risk of coronary heart disease, weight and hunger control.