Philosophy
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Reverse Trick-or-Treating
I know a lot of adults—not me, of course—who buy their favorite Halloween chocolates secretly hoping that trick-or-treater turnout will be light and they can polish off the rest themselves. This is especially true of people who don't have their own children to pilfer from.If a relatively new practi...
October 22, 2010 |
By Lisa Bramen
A Showcase School Garden in D.C.
When I was new to D.C., many people gave me the same advice, "Avoid Anacostia."Separated from the District's heart by the Anacostia River, the southeast swath of the city loosely known as Anacostia has long been associated with high rates of violent crime and poverty.But after finally venturing acr...
October 14, 2010 |
By Amanda Bensen
Is Your Local, Organic Food Neither Local Nor Organic?
I hate to be a cynic, but I suppose it was inevitable: With consumers today increasingly willing to pay a premium for local and/or organic food, it was only a matter of time before the scam artists of the world exploited shoppers' good intentions.Just in the last couple of weeks, two separate inves...
October 06, 2010 |
By Lisa Bramen
A Quest for Conch
Uh oh! Did I just eat an endangered species?Fortunately, the queen conch (Strombus gigas) isn’t quite endangered (yet). But the species has been over-harvested in the Florida Keys, leading to a drastic decline (pdf) in its reproductive capabilities. The state of Florida has placed a moratorium on c...
August 17, 2010 |
By admin
Whales on the Table
The International Whaling Commission talks being held in Morocco this week have fallen apart. The 88 member nations have been discussing the possibility of softening a 24-year-old moratorium on whaling, one of the first and most important international protection treaties. Despite the ban, people i...
June 24, 2010 |
By admin
Would You Eat a Lion Burger?
Lions are often called magnificent, majestic, the "king of beasts." They're not often called "meat."But lion meat has been on the menu of several U.S. restaurants in recent years. In South Philadelphia, one restaurant tried serving lion for about six weeks in 2008. As this article explains (with th...
June 23, 2010 |
By Amanda Bensen
The Price of Corn
Aaron Wolff, the director and producer of two documentaries about the consequences of corn being America's most subsidized crop, stopped by the Lake Placid Film Forum this past weekend for a Q&A and a screening of his films King Corn (2006) and its follow-up, Big River (2009).The original film ...
June 16, 2010 |
By Lisa Bramen
Give Sardines a Chance
As you may have heard, America's last sardine cannery closed down last week in Maine (though it may get a second life as a processing plant for other seafood).I was startled and a little confused by this news, because sardines seem to be so trendy these days, showing up on menus at both fine and ca...
April 20, 2010 |
By Amanda Bensen
When Manners Matter: Readers Respond to Inviting Writing
As I explained a few weeks ago, we're trying something new here at Food & Think, a semi-regular feature called Inviting Writing. Each month, we'll offer our readers a general theme to chew on—this month's was "manners"—and an example of a related story. Then, we hope you'll feel inspired to e-m...
April 19, 2010 |
By Amanda Bensen
What's Your Beef? Grass-Fed and Other Beef Terminology
Have you had a chance to read the April issue of Smithsonian yet? I recommend "Breeding the Perfect Bull," a wonderfully written feature by Jeanne Marie Laskas about a family of cattle ranchers in Texas. Judging from readers' response, she really captured the flavor of the modern cowboy's lifestyle...
April 08, 2010 |
By Amanda Bensen
Inviting Writing: Manners, Scrapple and Fake Vegetarians
This is the beginning of an experiment. Hypothesis: Everyone's got at least one good story to tell. And everyone eats, so I suspect many of you are harboring some wonderful food-related tales. Let's hear them!Here's how it works: Once a month, I'll give you a prompt—a word or general theme to use a...
April 06, 2010 |
By Amanda Bensen
Cesar Chavez: A Life Devoted to Helping Farm Workers
According to proponents of local, organic and/or humane foods, we all "vote with our forks" three (give or take) times a day. It's true that consumers have a certain amount of power to influence food producers to change their ways. This idea predates the locavore movement; some of its most effectiv...
March 31, 2010 |
By Lisa Bramen
The Assault on Salt
If a ban proposed by Brooklyn assemblyman Felix Ortiz passes, New York chefs will be banned from using salt in food preparation in all restaurants. The bill states: "No owner or operator of a restaurant in this state shall use salt in any form in the preparation of any food for consumption by custo...
March 15, 2010 |
By Abby Callard
Food Summit: Steps Toward a Safer Food System
Yesterday, I attended the first-ever Atlantic Food Summit, a series of panel discussions convened by the Atlantic magazine and hosted by the Newseum in D.C. Those of you who follow me on Twitter already heard some tidbits, but here's a more complete summary.There were three main themes, each with i...
March 05, 2010 |
By Amanda Bensen
When Is It Okay to Complain in Restaurants?
Once, at one of those basic meat-and-potatoes American chain restaurants, my father requested a bottle of steak sauce. When he opened it, a large cockroach (well, a bug at least, I can't be positive about the species) crawled out!"Whoops!" my dad exclaimed softly, scooping the bug into his hand and...
January 14, 2010 |
By Amanda Bensen
Food in the News: When "Green" Is Gray, and Pork from Petri Dishes
A sampling of interesting food stories in the headlines recently:1) In today's Washington Post, food writer Jane Black takes a hard look at what the restaurant buzzwords "sustainable," "local" and "family farm" really mean, using the new D.C. restaurant Founding Farmers as an example. Her analysis ...
December 07, 2009 |
By Amanda Bensen
Hunger and Food Security in the United States
The USDA's Economic Research Service released a sobering report yesterday about "food security" in the United States. That term is a more nuanced way to explain what is generally called hunger, recognizing the many levels of need that exist between literal starvation and abundance. It could mean sk...
November 17, 2009 |
By Amanda Bensen
Making Sense of Sustainable Seafood
"Sustainable seafood" is a buzzword these days, but as I've said before, it can be confusing for consumers. Even if you carry around a list of which species to avoid buying—like the handy pocket guides published by Monterey Bay Aquarium—it's difficult to keep track of all the details, caveats and a...
November 16, 2009 |
By Amanda Bensen
Food Safety, and the Ten Most Dangerous Foods in the U.S.
Everyone's talking about food safety—or rather, the lack of it—in the American food system these days.The New York Times published a deeply disturbing account this week of the trauma inflicted on one young woman by E. coli-tainted beef. At age 22, Stephanie Smith was left paralyzed by the simple ac...
October 08, 2009 |
By Amanda Bensen
The Flap Over Foie Gras
Some people consider foie gras, the fattened liver of a duck or goose, one of the finest gourmet pleasures available. Others consider it the product of intolerable animal cruelty because of the way it's made—by force-feeding the bird through a tube until its liver grows to several times its natural...
September 08, 2009 |
By Lisa Bramen
