An authority on Mexican food, Kennedy’s cookbooks helped introduce English-speakers to Mexican cuisine
The New York Times reports that Diana Kennedy, chef and author of numerous cookbooks, including the influential tome The Cuisines of Mexico, has died at the age of 99. Like Julia Child for French food and Julie Sahni for Indian food, the English chef’s work was a gateway for many Americans into the cuisine of Mexico when it was published in 1972.
“How Kennedy, a white British woman with no professional culinary training, rose to prominence as an authority in regional Mexican cuisine for the English-speaking world, is a compelling and complicated one,” Amanda Kludt wrote in 2020, when Nothing Fancy, a documentary about Kennedy, debuted. Kennedy, a white English woman, moved to Mexico in 1957 with her husband, a foreign correspondent for the New York Times. She would continue to make the country her home.
In an interview with Saveur in 2012, Kennedy describes her first experiences with Mexican food, specifically at the markets in Mexico City. “It was just the color of everything, and the smells, and all the wild things that I hadn’t seen. I simply had to go home and cook them,” she said. She began learning more about Mexican cuisine, and cooking feasts for visiting guests. She moved back to New York in the 1960s for her husband’s cancer treatment, where New York Times restaurant critic Craig Claiborne encouraged her to teach cooking out of her apartment. That led to her publishing her first cookbook, which begat eight more, three James Beard Awards, and numerous other accolades.
For many who picked up her books, they were an early introduction to the variety and history of cuisine in Mexico, at a time when America was mostly hard-shell tacos and shakers of chile powder. She described in detail the differences in cuisine for each region and state, and ensured readers knew the differences between each spice and chile they were asked to use. Her work required research and tenacity she says “no one” else had. “They’ve not done the travel and the research that I’ve done,” she told Saveur of other Mexican cookbook authors. “None of them, not one. I have traveled this country, wandering — it’s why I’m not rich! — and taking time, and nobody else has done that.”
There was always a silent “white” that came after assertions that no one else possessed her knowledge. “You cannot have influence without authority,” wrote Naveet Alang for Eater. “It’s why well-known (usually white) chefs and cookbook authors have historically been so effective in popularizing global ingredients among the North American mainstream.” Kennedy was an expert, but her expertise was noticed at least in part because of her race. Would white Americans have bought a cookbook in such numbers if it hadn’t been written by someone who looked like them?
That said, Kennedy is an example of someone who did the work of cultural exchange. She spent the rest of her life in Mexico, cooking and eating and learning. “She has dedicated her life to understanding the food by seeking out and interviewing its creators, crediting her sources, and bringing a better understanding of it to a wider audience,” wrote Kludt. She never tried to take credit; she just wanted to point people in the right direction.
From a sage galette with labneh at a modern Israeli restaurant, to lovage sorbet with meringue and cucumber ribbons at a railroad-themed restaurant, here’s where to eat in the French capital
Paris has reclaimed its status as one of the world’s favorite cities to eat. The French capital is bustling with a brilliant constellation of restaurants these days, including a bevy of openings that show off how deliciously cosmopolitan it’s become: Menkicchi is maybe the best ramen shop in town, young Franco-Malian chef Mory Sacko cooks stunningly original Franco-African-Japanese dishes at MoSuke, and Korean-born chef Sukwon Yong shows off the growing influence of Asia on contemporary French cooking at the reboot of Le Bistrot Flaubert. Plus there’s an inventive and diverse array of casual dining options, like the affordable Café du Coin, excellent Montmartre bistro Le Maquis, and Parcelles, an outstanding bistrot a vins in the Marais. There’s also been a renaissance of Paris’s long-established gastronomic landscape, with traditional bistros, brasseries, and stylish restaurants serving classic French cooking made famous by chef Auguste Escoffier.
Updated, July 2022:
“Carpe diem” is the mantra in Paris right now. After months of lockdowns that forced everyone to cook for themselves, diners can keenly appreciate talented chefs like Jonathan Schweitzer at the Café des Deux Gares, a wonderfully quirky bistro in a hotel near the Gare du Nord and Gare de l’Est, which replaces Le Servan on this list. Schweitzer’s cooking catches the zeitgeist of the city — beautifully sourced, healthy, and intelligently imagined dishes — and the restaurant is strategically located and easy on the wallet. Israeli chef Granit Assaf’s restaurant Shabour is also ushered off the stage to make way for Tekes, his latest table, which just may be the restaurant that takes vegetarian food mainstream in Paris; its succulent modern Israeli menu skips meat and fish.
Alexander Lobrano is a Paris restaurant expert and author of Hungry for Paris, Hungry for France, and his gastronomic coming-of-age story My Place at the Table. Heblogs about restaurantsand writes often for the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, Saveur, and other publications.
King Arthur Flour turns to lifetime farmer Andrew Gee
Partially in response to idle time spent in quarantine, American households have become re-obsessed with baking. In 2020 especially, this baking boom put strain on the flour supply chain, but one brand thrived: King Arthur Flour.
On this episode of Dan Does, host Daniel Geneen visits a farm that King Arthur Flour sources wheat from to see how it’s harvested, milled, tested for quality, and packaged.
At Ag Land and Cattle in Hereford, Texas, Geneen follows lifelong farmer Andrew Gee as he harvests the last of this year’s wheat crops.
Gee explains that it’s been a terrible wheat year, saying, “Our plant is not as high, the head is not as big, it doesn’t have as many glumes across. It’s been so terribly dry here.”
Despite the poor yield, Gee still has a job to do. He harvests the wheat using a combine, which separates the head of the wheat from the rest of the crop. The goal is to cut low enough to collect as much grain as possible but not so low that it damages the land.
“You want to leave residue, because residue holds moisture,” says Gee.
In the combine, the wheat heads are conveyed to the under the carriage where it’s broken down. From there, a series of grates and fans separate the grains from the beards and stems of the wheat. The grains stay inside the combine until Gee moves it into a hopper to transport it to the mill where its ground into flour.
Gee feels honored that his wheat is used by the lauded brand and so therefore so many bakers.
Watch the full video to also see how King Arthur quality tests their flour and packages it to go out to the public.
Some restaurateurs hope that supplying their cooks with the tools they need creates a more equitable kitchen
When Telly Justice posted the knives at her new restaurant on Instagram, she didn’t expect such a big response. Her story showed a drawer of red-handled knives from Made In, in individual covers, and she explained “one of the things that has become normalized in our industry that I absolutely DESPISE is the expectation that line cooks ought to own/purchase their own kitchen tools in order to be a functional worker in high-level kitchens.” She outlined that at her restaurant Have a Good Summer, which aims to be queer and equitable and has things like pay-what-you-want nights and a policy where servers are allowed to sit down, they are providing knives and other tools to staff. “I’ve worked in places where you’re expected to invest a good couple hundred bucks just to start working,” she posted. “Disgusting imho.”
Suddenly, she found herself messaging with dozens of people about the policy, and trying to remind others that HAGS wasn’t the first place to dream up the practice of ensuring that workers have the tools they need to do their jobs. “But it showcases how this seemingly innocuous, no-brainer, labor field practice has become so avant-garde in cooking that we’ve forgotten these are regular workers that pay rent, who have living expenses, and can’t just shell out $1,000 every time they start a new job,” she says.
There is much romance around the idea of a chef and their knife. It is the essential tool, the one every chef seemingly gets a tattoo of. Knives are the things they are asked to pack up when they lose Top Chef. Of course, any industry is going to produce gearheads, and it makes sense that chefs would start to get into the tools they were using every day. “It’s a very personal expression of not only your dedication to what you are doing, but also to your own personal preferences,” says David Collier, a pastry chef who has begun forging his own knives. Having your own knife means having something suited to your height and hand shape, and something over which you have control of quality. It’s an issue of comfort and precision. For some, using a knife provided by the restaurant would be like playing in an orchestra and using the house violin.
Knives are also expensive, especially on a line cook’s wages. The expectation in fine dining has been that cooks provide their own knives, which for many turns into a high barrier to entry. But as many in the restaurant industry attempt to build a more equitable culture, will there be room for bringing your own $500 tool?
The practice of providing house knives is more common outside of the fine dining world. “I know lots of cooks in larger hotels, larger operations, and there’s just shop knives that belong to the kitchen,” says Collier. “And they’re obviously horrible most of the time because there’s no sense of ownership.” Showing up to work and having to execute a mirepoix with a chipped, dull knife is obviously frustrating, so those who wanted to and could afford it began to bring in their own tools. According to Matthew Rudofker, head of operations and culinary at Local Kitchens, “[in] most of the kitchens I worked in when I was a cook and chef, the team members preferred to use their own tools,” even when the restaurant provided knives.
“It seems like the very custom, personalized chef’s knives have increased in popularity and usage just during the last 10 or 15 years,” says Collier, who nods to the fact that “more and more people are wanting to cook at a really dedicated, high level.” But knives have also quickly turned into a way for chefs to judge one another. While working at 1789 in Georgetown, Collier says, “you could tell a difference from the line cooks to the sous chefs; the sous chefs would all come in and they all had their own little roll [of knives].” Having your own knives denoted seriousness and dedication.
This, Justice says, sets up a class divide that she hopes to chip away at. “There are vast cultural differences, kitchen to kitchen, but I think there’s a self-selecting and gatekeeping quality to this,” she says. Having your own knives has become expected in fine dining spaces, which means if you can’t afford them, you aren’t considered dedicated enough for fine dining jobs, and the cycle goes around and around. Providing knives is a way to open up the industry, especially for workers of marginalized backgrounds. “It really stems from a need to encourage and entice queer food workers to come work with us,” she says. “It’s like anything else: You can’t invite people from a certain intersection without first being prepared to make the environment supportive of them.”
Rudofker, who provides knives to workers at Local Kitchens, says that even if cooks prefer to bring their own knives, restaurants should be supplying them. “That burden should not be on the team member to be transporting knives between work and home,” he says. It can be a safety issue; he mentions a time when he was stopped by the police on his way home, and almost charged with carrying a concealed weapon. But also, even if you are a knife obsessive who wants to spend all your disposable income on custom-made tools, that should be your choice, not a requirement.
Fine dining culture isn’t going to change overnight, and Collier insists that getting a good knife needn’t be inaccessible. There are plenty of people who make “really awesome blades that are maybe a little less well-known, that definitely are affordable,” he says. Currently, he’s working on a few custom orders where he hasn’t asked for a deposit, and where customers are paying in installments. “We’ll just do 30 bucks a month until it’s done. That’s cool, ’cause we’ve all been there.” But according to Rudofker, whether it’s a knife provided by the restaurant or one you provide yourself, cost isn’t as important as maintenance. “You can purchase a $10 knife and it will allow you to execute your job provided it is properly maintained,” he says.
Justice says at first, those who came to HAGS from a fine dining background and had their own knives insisted they’d continue to use them. But now, “I’ve yet to see one person bring in their tools from home, which is such a sign of this system working.” Even if cooks do use their own knives, Justice hopes that by providing good tools, restaurants can help them be more discerning about when to bring them out. “If you’re making vegetable stock and you need to just cut an onion in half, you shouldn’t have to slide your $700 Gyuto out of your leather knife roll that has your name embossed in it,” she says. “I see the staff reflecting on what requires and does not require their home tools, in real time. It’s really cool to see, because it showcases very visually how this gatekeeper mentality has really been ingrained into us as cooks.” Obsession is great. But it shouldn’t come at the expense of equity.
Ronald Reagan, Barack Obama, and ketchup’s brief flirtation with vegetablehood
A few weeks ago, America’s favorite condiment was splattered all over the headlines: Cassidy Hutchinson, a former White House employee, revealed in Congressional testimony that she had seen outgoing president Donald Trump throw a plateful of lunch on January 6, 2021, leaving gobs of ketchup dripping down the wall. Trump’s outburst instantly drew the attention of comedians and late-night hosts; Chelsea Handler joked that the scene probably looked like the end of a presidential playdate. But this wasn’t ketchup’s first Presidential scandal. Years before the condiment was making its undignified way towards federal carpeting, it was causing consternation in the halls of power. At issue was a seemingly ridiculous question: Is ketchup a vegetable?
The year was 1981. Diana Ross and Lionel Richie had the year’s top hit, filling the airwaves alongside Stevie Nicks, Electric Orchestra, and The Police. The public swooned at the royal marriage of Prince Charles and Lady Diana Spencer. On Capitol Hill, though, a storm was brewing: Ronald Reagan’s budget cuts slashed funding for school lunch programs by more than 30 percent, and the USDA’s Food and Nutrition Service was scrambling to meet federal nutritional requirements for the meals they served on a smaller budget. Vegetables were expensive, but the rules mandated that kids had to be served two portions of them at lunchtime. Maybe the department could save money by counting certain condiments as vegetables, including pickle relish and — significantly — tomato concentrate?
The USDA’s proposed changes never mentioned ketchup explicitly, but after they were released to the public, critics did the math and figured out that these new rules could effectively lead to ketchup being counted as a vegetable.
Congressional Democrats and the media alike seized on the story as a perfect example of the Reagan administration’s hypocrisy. What kind of President would ask Congress for an $33.8 billion increase in military spending and enact a 25 percent tax cut for the wealthy, while suggesting that low-income kids could get their nutritional needs met by a dollop of ketchup? In the New York Times, Washington correspondents reported on the “unsavory publicity” the proposed “ketchup rule” had attracted, with Democrats hailing it as “the Emperor’s New Condiments” and embarking on “a Dickensian field day of outrage and mockery.” According to historian Amy Bentley, Democratic Senators staged a lunch for the press that showcased what school lunches would look like under the new administration: “a tiny little hamburger patty, a slice of white bread, five or six French fries and some ketchup.”
Perhaps most famously, Pennsylvanian Republican John Heinz — yes, of those Heinzes — took to the Senate floor in opposition, calling the idea “ludicrous.” “Ketchup is a condiment,” the Timesreported him saying. “This is one of the most ridiculous regulations I ever heard of, and I suppose I need not add that I do know something about ketchup and relish.” The very next day, the Reagan administration withdrew its changes.
Instead, the USDA adopted a different cost-saving measure, called Offer versus Serve. Schools had to always offer the required amount of vegetables, but they were not required to serve them to students; students could simply refuse up to a certain number of the selections. To perhaps nobody’s surprise, students who were offered mushy peas or boiled carrots often said no — and, hey presto!, schools could purchase and prepare vegetables in far smaller quantities.
But that wasn’t the end of debate over concentrated tomatoes in the cafeteria. In the 1990s, the USDA quietly granted frozen-food manufacturers an exemption to USDA rules: instead of requiring a half-cup of tomatoes to meet their serving suggestions, just two tablespoons of concentrated tomato paste would suffice, since that could then be reconstituted into a half-cup of tomato sauce.
In 2011, the USDA, under directives from the Obama administration, attempted to pass a law making school lunches healthier, in part by revoking the tomato exception; it would have required that schools “credit tomato paste and puree based on actual volume as served.” But Congressional lawmakers maintained the two-tablespoon-veggie rule by amending bills in the House and Senate, which led critics to declare that Congress had categorized pizza — the most common vehicle for those two reconstituted tablespoons — as a vegetable. Just as in the Reagan-era ketchup fiasco, Congress never actually mentioned pizza in the bill that maintained the rule. But unlike in the Reagan years, the blowback wasn’t enough to sink the bills, and Obama was forced to sign it into law to maintain the rest of his healthy-lunch program.
Today, tomato concentrate has been joined by another tomato product: salsa, which the USDA declared worthy of vegetable status in school lunches as of 1998. While the move did receive some of the blowback experienced by ketchup and pizza, most nutritionists supported the change, as long as the qualifying condiments contained only vegetables. “We think this is very positive,” Tracy Fox, an official in the American Dietetic Association, told the Washington Post at the time, noting it provided kids another vegetable option while also recognizing the ethnic diversity of many schools.
Ketchup’s brief flirtation with vegetablehood is just the latest twist in its curious story. Check out the latest episode of Gastropod to find out how ketchup got thick. As co-hosts Nicola Twilley and Cynthia Graber discover, this seemingly uncomplicated all-American condiment actually started out as fermented fish sauce; its convoluted path to becoming a beloved sweet and tangy accompaniment for burgers and fries involves the fall of the Roman empire, an 18th century fashion for fish sauce knock-offs, and an opportunistic rebrand as a healthy, preservative-free choice. Listen in to find out how a salty, pungent amber-colored seasoning that gives Southeast Asian cuisine its characteristic flavor turned into a thick, red sauce capable of sticking to the White House wall — and why we don’t give ketchup the credit it deserves.
Menus represent the changing values of the restaurant industry. And right now, more context is king.
It’s a familiar scene: After sitting down at a table, the waiter brings you a sheet of fancy paper with the day’s menu printed in pretty fonts. There are around a dozen dishes, which can be ordered as a tasting menu or a la carte. “We suggest four to five,” he says, smiling. There are no distinctions between starters and main courses, and you may assume the last item is a dessert because you read “strawberry, asparagus, and nuts.” But you don’t really know because those three words are the only description.
Noticing your hesitation, the waiter approaches and explains in detail each dish’s preparation before giving you a look that suggests that now is the time to make a decision. You point to four options that you believe are the right ones, and then wait and pray that the dishes that arrive will be even vaguely in the realm of what you expected. The minimalist menu trend replaced the descriptions and information that may have previously accompanied the names of dishes — details like preparation — with austere, spartan lines that are simply lists of ingredients.
But just as that information once did, the minimalist menu is disappearing. Thanks to the realities of post-pandemic restaurant operations — smaller staff among them — more restaurants are reverting back to full descriptors, with long, double-barreled lists of details about provenance, sauces, cooking methods, and sides. “Now that print menus are slowly coming back, restaurants are more willing to provide longer descriptions, which also helps them lure diners,” says Guillermo Ramirez, creative director of the Miami-based marketing agency Gluttonomy Inc. To diners right now, knowledge is power.
Menus represent the changing values of the restaurant industry. For a long stretch predating the minimalist trend, they were marked by the need to convey all that the chefs accomplished in their kitchens. In the 1980s, LA-based Chinese restaurant Mr. Chow’s described its Beijing Chicken in four lines. “The breast of the chicken is cubed, seasoned, and swiftly sautéed in a mixture of oil and white egg. The sauce is added at the last moment,” reads part of the description printed in Menu Design in America by John Mariani and Steven Heller, a compilation of American restaurant menus since 1847. But eventually, including details of cooking methods, cuts, and techniques fell out of fashion in favor of other kinds of dish details. Former New York Times food critic Frank Bruni noted in 2007 that in the late 2000s, menu descriptions changed for a more “ethical purpose. The chef wants you to know where he’s getting the chicken, how the veal was raised. The chef realizes that you may make decisions about what to eat based on that information.”
Including information about ingredient sourcing, of course, has long been popular. Chef Sean Brock writes his menus only after figuring out what products he will have on hand to work with. “Although I have always enjoyed keeping the descriptions simple, I feel it’s important to give props to the producers, so we save that space for them,” he says.
About 10 years ago, influenced primarily by a Nordic minimalism movement, many restaurants opted for concise menus that listed just three or four ingredients instead of a more intricate description. “[Danish restaurant] Ensemble was the first to really start changing the traditional format,” says chef René Redzepi, who has kept menus “sharp and precise” at his Copenhagen restaurant Noma over the course of its nearly 20 years in operation. While the descriptive menus of the late 20th century aimed to give guests all the information they would need to feel in charge of their personal dining experience, the businesses that chose to eschew descriptions put more control in the chef’s hands.
To sell an item, this style of menu relies on the diner’s blind trust in the restaurant’s chef and the persuasive power of the front-of-house staff to tell the story of a dish, making it an especially popular choice in fine dining. Redzepi says he aims to provide enough information for diners to understand what the main ingredients are, while leaving some room to surprise. But “with Instagram, it almost doesn’t matter because people have seen everything on social media,” he says. “[Social media] changed the whole thing around, but I still like to keep it short.”
Brock agrees. At his high-end restaurant, Audrey, some descriptions are ambiguous: “A Study of Citrus” describes a dessert made with wekiwa, grapefruit, and mandarin (those ingredients are included on the menu, although unfamiliar diners will have to ask or Google to learn that wekiwa is a variety of tangelo). “At Audrey, we like to be even vaguer to trigger some curiosity,” says Brock. “Hopefully, I feel like this helps keep the diner engaged.”
But when the pandemic hit, the general approach to menu-writing completely changed. At many restaurants, QR codes relegated the pieces of paper on the table to oblivion. At the same time, people were ordering food from their houses as restaurants (even fine dining ones) pivoted to takeout. These diners were often consuming dishes far from the restaurants and their staff, who could no longer explain all the components of a dish simply called “sunchoke.” In short, a new need for information emerged.
At the recently opened Castamar in New York City’s West Village, the menu lists nearly every ingredient in each dish. The rosemary butter roasted chicken, for example, is described with “parmesan polenta, sauteed wild mushrooms, grilled eggplant, parmesan crisp, summer truffle jus.” Brian Pancir, Castamar’s executive chef, remembers working for years at Jean-Georges during the early 2000s. Then, he says, the menus were more detailed than the menus of the 2010s. “People knew exactly what they were going to eat.”
With Castamar’s fuller descriptions, Pancir believes that more menu details can give guests a fuller understanding of the food with less communication from servers. “People want to have all the information they can about what they are eating. There are more food allergies and dietary restrictions out there,” he says. He also believes restaurants are facing a generational shift in the way we inform consumers. Members of Gen Z, Pancir says, tend to be keen on more information and details about everything they eat. “They are usually more food-savvy and have clear ideas of what they want.”
Adding more information to menus is also an opportunity to give credit to the entire staff responsible for creating a meal, and a number of restaurants are adopting the trend. Amanda Cohen, who recently began including the names of chefs who contributed to individual dishes on her menus at Dirt Candy, told Eater: “It’s fun to know the names of the people who make your food. It’s kind of like watching the end credits of a movie, or when you go see a Broadway show and you see everybody who’s worked on the production.” Dirt Candy’s dish descriptions themselves are also packed with information about ingredients and preparations, sometimes running as long as a paragraph.
Hazy and minimal descriptions can also lead to misunderstandings. Art director Ramirez explains that, to simplify explanations on menus, some chefs play with dish names, assigning misleading characteristics. “Many restaurants call any vegetable dip a hummus, or any food in a skewer becomes an anticucho, not giving any value to the consumer, and providing inaccurate information,” he says.
Often, more text leads to greater accuracy. In order to display the most precise information, some chefs have chosen to maintain the names of dishes and ingredients in their native language and then explain them rather than directly translating a term or ingredient. “We recently branded a Milanese-inspired restaurant [Saraghina Caffè, in NYC] where we used Italian names for items — names that were also unknown to me, a native Italian — but followed with the ingredients written in English,” says Matteo Bologna, the creative director and founder of Mucca, a branding studio in New York.
Since he opened Lisboeta, a Portuguese-focused restaurant in London’s Charlotte Street, chef Nuno Mendes has decided to use the names in his native language to describe the dishes in the menu. “I thought it would also be important to have a little description of the process, since many recipes are not familiar to many people.” It’s not, he says, about going in-depth into history or tradition, but having some information so the guest can know what’s coming to the table. “We chose to tell the main ingredients of the dish and one or two cuisine terms. We explain if it’s served raw or roasted or grilled when it makes sense for the client to discern,” he says.
Mendes believes that people going to restaurants today want to know about the origin of what they are eating. “People built a deeper relationship with food during the pandemic. They no longer want to be so passive when facing a menu,” he says.
Ideally, the menu must be an invitation for the diner to trust the restaurant and the chef, and finding the best formula for this can present a conundrum as restaurants return in full force and need to create a new relationship with their guests. “I see a menu like any romantic interest: You don’t want to know every single detail from one first look, but you don’t want to have to engage in a six-part date to understand what you’re dealing with,” says designer Anna Polonsky, from Polonsky & Friends, a NYC strategy and design consultancy for restaurants and other businesses. “It must be a happy medium, where short should not mean clinically conceptual or pompous,” she adds.
Ultimately, menus these days are more about telling a restaurant’s story than listing dishes. As author Alison Pearlman points out in her book May We Suggest: Restaurant Menus and the Art of Persuasion, “a menu determines a lot of public relations.” Pearlman writes: “Not the least of a menu’s job once we cross the commercial threshold is to sell us items, including the restaurant as a whole.”
As Ramirez puts it: “In the end, the menu is just like a business card.” And, after months away from restaurants, diners are looking for more than the briefest of introductions.
Consumers claimed the company’s new plant-based protein sent them to the hospital; tara flour is apparently to blame
In late April, Daily Harvest — a celebrity-backed food brand that’s popular on social media for its ready-to-blend smoothies and other frozen foods — announced the launch of its plant-based protein line called Crumbles, which come in walnut and thyme and French lentil and leek varieties. In June, Daily Harvest recalled its French lentil and leek crumbles following a spate of alarming customer reports, and announced in its recall statement that it would launch an investigation into the lentil crumbles and advised anyone with a bag to dispose of them and not eat them. “Our mission has always been to take care of food so food can take care of you. That means quality, safety, and transparency are and always will be our top priorities,” the company wrote.
Across social media, Daily Harvest consumers shared stories of physical pain and hospitalizations after eating the lentil crumbles. Here’s what you should know about the situation, especially if you’ve got a package at home.
What’s going on?
In June, the Daily Harvest subreddit, an otherwise fairly inactive group for discussing smoothie recommendations and delivery gripes, began filling up with stories about people experiencing stomach pain, fevers, and gallbladder and liver problems after eating the lentil crumbles; the post, in which people are sharing symptoms, currently has over 1,500 comments.
The conversation extended onto other social media platforms. Via Instagram, one early tester, content creator Luke Wesley Pearson, claimed that after trying Daily Harvest’s lentils on two separate occasions, he had extreme gastrointestinal distress that led to hospitalization, a series of medical tests, and gallbladder removal surgery. Several commenters on Pearson’s posts also alleged they experienced gastrointestinal issues after eating the product.
Creative director Abigail Silverman shared her experience in a widely viewed TikTok, alleging she experienced “elevated liver levels” and liver issues that have continued a month after eating the crumbles. Silverman explained that despite a battery of tests, doctors have been unable to identify the specific cause of the issue. “I have had to adjust my entire life the past month to deal with this,” Silverman said in her video.
After the allegations began, Daily Harvest was still promoting the crumbles on Instagram, prompting some users to say that the company hadn’t acted quickly enough. It has since updated the captions on posts featuring the crumbles to direct followers to the Daily Harvest website, where they can read about the recall, but it has not posted anything else addressing the situation.
What is Daily Harvest?
Started in 2015, Daily Harvest offers plant-based, gluten-free, and dairy-free food products through a subscription model, boasting a commitment to “a better food system, one that prioritizes human and planetary health.” This mission has earned the brand popularity among social media influencers and celebrity investors including Serena Williams, Gwyneth Paltrow, Shaun White, and Bobby Flay. “I’m so impressed with Daily Harvest’s quality and approach to good living and healthful eating that I literally begged the founders to let me invest,” Flay told Fortune in 2017. By and large, Daily Harvest has been considered a food startup success story: It brought in over $250 million of revenue in five years and was valued at $1.1 billion this past November, putting founder Rachel Drori on Forbes’ 2022 list of America’s richest self-made women.
What’s causing the reported illnesses?
On July 19, Daily Harvest announced that it had identified tara flour, a high-protein flour made from the seeds of a tree native to Peru, as the cause of the issues, which affected about 470 people, including 30 people who had their gallbladders removed, according to the Los Angeles Times. Daily Harvest didn’t specify the producer of the tara flour. Per Daily Harvest’s statement:
We have only used this ingredient in French Lentil + Leek Crumbles and we are no longer sourcing from this producer who does not provide any ingredients for our 140+ other items. This was the first and only time we’ve used tara flour, which has been available and used in the North American market as a plant-based source of protein prior to our use. Our investigation team will continue working with the FDA, the tara flour producer and others to help determine what specifically made people sick.
At least one other company has pulled tara flour-containing products from its circulation. Revive Superfoods, another home delivery-based frozen food company, has removed its mango and pineapple smoothie from further sale, according to ABC7. Zandi Holup, a singer, reported similar problems of liver issues and hospitalization after consuming Revive’s product.
Are customers taking action against Daily Harvest?
As of June 21, Jeffrey Bowersox, a lawyer representing some customers affected by the Daily Harvest situation, told Eater he planned to file suit against the company “to encourage the actions described above.”
On June 27, the food safety law firm Marler Clark filed the “first of many” lawsuits against Daily Harvest on behalf of Carol Ann Ready, an Oklahoma woman who experienced severe abdominal pain, liver and gallbladder dysfunction, and eventual gallbladder removal after eating Daily Harvest’s product on two occasions. Marler Clark notably represented customers who fell ill as a result of the 1993 E. coli outbreak at Jack in the Box.
Update: June 28, 2022, 3:50 p.m.: This article was updated to include information about a lawsuit filed against Daily Harvest.
Update: July 20, 2022, 12:00 p.m.: This article was updated to include Daily Harvest’s identification of tara flour as the cause of the issues.
A colorful batch of the genus gracilaria variety of sea moss. | Shutterstock
Thanks to Hailey Bieber and viral smoothies from LA’s Erewhon, sea moss gel is everywhere
The internet is replete with “superfoods” and supplements that promise to make you healthier and more beautiful, but few have gotten more attention over the past year than sea moss: yes, literal algae. The sea moss trend has exploded since 2020, when (who else?) Kim Kardashian started tweeting about the benefits of the ingredient. In the ensuing years, sea moss has made its way toward the mainstream thanks to health influencers and, most recently, the viral Strawberry Glaze Skin Smoothie at Los Angeles grocer Erewhon.
Promising benefits ranging from weight loss to helping you get hornier, sea moss (or Irish moss, as it is sometimes called) is one of the hottest new health food ingredients. But what is it really? And is it actually worth spending $17 on a sea-moss-infused smoothie?
What is sea moss?
“Sea moss” is a catch-all term for various species of red algae that are found in ocean waters across the globe. The most commonly used varieties are gracilaria and chondrus crispus, and they go by various names throughout the world — ogo in Japanese, Irish moss in Jamaica.
How you consume sea moss might depend on where you are. It’s one of the key ingredients in agar, a gelatin substitute used in Filipino cooking and vegan desserts. As a child in the Caribbean, Dr. Yvonne Noel, an OB-GYN in Brooklyn, drank a special-occasion beverage called Irish moss that was made with milk, nutmeg, cinnamon, and sea moss. “We drank it almost like an eggnog, or what would be considered today as a smoothie,” Noel says. “On occasions where we would have gatherings, it would be one of the favored drinks.” In Jamaica, Irish moss — which takes its name from Irish laborers who came to the island — is a popular canned beverage that is sometimes touted as an aphrodisiac.
In places like Hawaii, Indonesia, and Malaysia, the gracilaria species of sea moss is frequently blanched and added to salads or boiled with fresh juice to make a pudding. In the United States, the current trend makes use of sea moss gel, in which the algae is blended with water to produce a smooth, jelly-like goop. Sometimes fruit is added to the puree to help mask the oceanic, musty smell that’s sometimes associated with dried sea moss. The gel is then eaten by the spoonful once or twice a day, or mixed into a beverage like Erewhon’s strawberry skin smoothie, which was created by Hailey Bieber. There are also recipes on Pinterest for fruit-based “ice cream,” gummies, and jams made with sea moss.
Outside of its edible uses, gracilaria is a popular species of algae for indoor aquariums, and is sometimes found in skin care products like jelly face masks.
In limited doses, it might be. Proponents claim that sea moss gel can improve heart health, help you lose weight, and lower cholesterol. The evidence for those purported benefits is pretty slim, but experts suggest that it can be a good supplemental (and vegetarian) source of essential vitamins and minerals. “Overall, there are nutritional benefits in consuming sea moss, with a little bit of science behind them,” says dietician-nutritionist Lorraine Kearney. “It contains copper, magnesium, zinc, and vitamins B, B6, and B9.” It’s also a source of iodine, which can be good for people who lack dietary sources of iodine, like shrimp and iodized salt.
But there isn’t much scientific research on the efficacy of sea moss gel. “While there may be some benefits in sea moss, it’s not something that is FDA regulated,” says Dr. Selvi Rajagopal, an assistant professor of medicine at Johns Hopkins University. “When something isn’t FDA regulated, it means that there likely haven’t been large-scale randomized control trials, which are the gold standard for this type of research. There are some studies out there, but the evidence is sort of sparse right now.”
What are the risks in eating sea moss gel?
Consuming too much sea moss gel could increase the risk of iodine toxicity: Iodine is an essential nutrient, but in excessive doses, it can be dangerous. “With iodine toxicity, the concern is that you could have thyroid dysfunction, thyroid cancer, and gastrointestinal symptoms,” Rajapagol says. “It can also be hard to quantify exactly how much iodine you’re getting in a ‘dose’ of sea moss because it’s not an FDA regulated product.” Even though it is sometimes touted as a fertility supplement, Kearney advises that people who are looking to become pregnant or are currently breastfeeding should not consume sea moss gel, in part because of the risk of elevated iodine levels.
Also at issue is the risk of heavy metal toxicity. Our oceans are heavily polluted, and high levels of mercury, lead, and cadmium, along with industrial chemicals, have been found in algae. “Sea moss is grown under various conditions, and we know that it can absorb heavy metals from its environment,” Noel says. “These metals can accumulate in the body over time, to the point where it can become toxic in someone who is ingesting sea moss on a regular basis.”
So, should I be adding sea moss to my smoothies?
Not necessarily. In small, infrequent doses — a couple of times a week in a smoothie — it’s likely that sea moss gel wouldn’t be harmful. But it’s definitely not a nutritional panacea, and could have some negative impacts if you have certain health conditions or are trying to get pregnant.
It’s also important to have a conversation with your doctor before taking sea moss — or any other supplement — to ensure that it’s compatible with your specific health concerns. “In that case, if you think this might help you, then fine,” says Rajagopal. “But it should probably be with the knowledge of your doctor and under monitoring so that you can see whether or not your deficiencies are actually improving.”
Chef Kunihide Nakajima’s seafood creation is served medium rare in green tea
At NYC’s Nakaji, third-generation sushi chef Kunihide Nakajima solidifies his family’s legacy through his food. Taught by his father, Nakajima makes dishes using ingredients like melons, whelk, eel, and more.
In one dish, Nakajima uses octopus, which he calls “one of Japan’s most iconic food items.”
The octopus is sourced from Sajima in the Kanagawa prefecture and weighs three kilograms with the beak and eyes removed.
“I was about six years old when I first prepared an octopus,” he says, washing the mollusc, which causes the tentacles to curl and stiffen. This, he explains, proves the freshness and quality.
The octopus is then boiled, but first Nakajima makes cuts in between the joins to help it cook evenly.
Nakajima uses an Edomae style, which means his seafood sourced from the Tokyo Bay. The octopus is cooked in vinegar and soy sauce and prepared with adzuki beans, a style called sakurani.
“I’m using my father’s recipe where it’s cooked medium-rare in hojicha [green tea],” describes Nakajmia. “The aroma of the tea blends well with the octopus and it creates a unique flavor.”
He only cooks the octopus for about a minute and a half, and once it is done, the previously grey-ish octopus is a deep red color. The tentacles have also curled up significantly more.
He then cuts the octopus and straightens the tentacles out to get it ready for service.
“It’s not quite a sashimi, and definitely not a sushi” says Nakajima.
Six Americans test-bake the most American staples from “The Great British Bake Off” host’s new cookbook, “Bake”
Like any good supervillain and/or reality TV judge, Paul Hollywood is an easy target for anger. On television’s gentlest show — The Great British Bake Off — Hollywood plays the bad cop to co-judge Prue Leith’s good cop, jabbing his pointer finger into fresh-baked bread loaves and maligning delicate Swiss rolls as cracked and dry, no matter that they were made lovingly by retired NHS workers who bake every Sunday morning with their grandchildren. Hollywood is the kind of judge that reality television was made for: mean and icy, with a laser stare and button-down shirt. But no matter how irritable his feedback makes people, viewers and bakers alike can’t help it. Everyone still wants to impress Paul.
Yelling angrily at the screen while Hollywood critiques another perfectly delicious Black Forest gateau within an inch of its life is one way to find catharsis. Another? Becoming the judge yourself. This week, Hollywood releases Bake, his first cookbook in five years and a compendium of over 80 recipes that he calls “my best ever recipes for the classics.” Oh? We’ll be the judges of that.
In an attempt to put the judge himself to the test, six Eater editors with intimate experience of both eating and baking American desserts got to work testing some of Hollywood’s most American recipes. Were they approachable or were the instructions as slimmed down as those of a technical challenge? Did the ingredients make sense? Was the process accurate and the result delicious? Were there any soggy bottoms, or worse, underbakes? In a snafu, the recipes that Eater editors originally used were from Bake’s U.K. edition, so ingredients like Bird’s Custard Powder had to be special-ordered and finer-grained caster sugar swapped for regular sugar, a more standard American ingredient.
“A good bake is a good bake regardless of where it’s baked,” Hollywood wrote to Eater by email. “The globe has adopted the brownie. Cheesecake is an ancient recipe from Greece. I developed these recipes for all types of cooks and bakers, especially someone curious about the ways they can transform what’s ‘classic’ and expand upon recipes that stand the test of time.” Sure, sure.
But the question remains: Is Hollywood himself deserving of a Hollywood handshake?
Key Lime Pie
Over email, Hollywood told me that Key lime pie was his favorite American recipe to bake. “Had it in Miami and made it with a chef there and loved it,” he wrote. This description is short, sweet, and to the point, just like Hollywood’s recipe for Key lime pie. The U.K. version that I originally read called for digestive biscuits or Hobnobs, which if you can believe it, I already had, but once I got access to the American edition, I was relieved to see that Hollywood knew what was what: Graham cracker crust or bust. The real tell was whether he called for actual Key limes or just regular limes, the latter being a fairly common suggestion given limited regional access to Key limes. What do you know? “Here I have adapted the recipe for regular limes,” he writes.
The thing about a Key lime pie is that pretty much anyone can bake it and that’s why it’s so great. You need only whisk egg yolks with a can of sweetened condensed milk, lime juice, and lime zest, and voila. You have a perfect summer dessert in very little time. I appreciate that Hollywood’s recipe is fewer than seven actual steps — that’s the right number to accomplish Key lime pie. And the result tasted just like Key lime pie — tart and creamy with a buttery crunch from the graham cracker crust — due to Hollywood’s call for simplicity. However. When Hollywood asks you to “whip the heavy cream and load it into a pastry bag fitted with a 1/2-inch fluted tip,” I did this only because I imagined getting scolded by him for not doing it. In the future, I will do what I always do and just dollop a pile of whipped cream on top of the pie. The American way. — Dayna Evans, staff writer and Eater Philly editor
Apple Pie
The Paul Hollywood apple pie was far from my best. This, of course, could very well be my fault. I was cooking from a version of the recipe that used British measurements and ingredients, so it felt unlike a typical American apple pie from the get-go. I had to make swaps and adjustments. In the recipe I was working from, Hollywood requested Braeburn apples, caster sugar, and something called custard powder. I swapped the Braeburns for Granny Smiths, opted for granulated sugar, and ordered custard powder from Amazon, only to realize upon opening the dusty canister that it was essentially cornstarch.
It turned out there was a fully Americanized version of the recipe that I should have been using, one that does indeed call for cornstarch. I chose the correct apple variety, but learned that for some reason it was not a one-to-one switch and I used one fewer apple than called for. But even if I had gotten everything right, I’m not convinced this would have been a good pie, or at least not the kind of apple pie I’m used to. The crust, which included a couple tablespoons of powdered sugar, was difficult to work with. The cornstarch, sprinkled on top of the bottom crust before filling to prevent a soggy bottom, wasn’t quite the hack Hollywood promised. The recipe also called for making an apple stock with the leftover apple peels and cores and a cinnamon stick, which added a significant amount of time but, ultimately, little flavor. And it could be because of an off apple ratio (Pink Ladies were the second variety in play) but the resulting filling was more tart than sweet, tasting (almost) healthy. It worked well as an ice cream topping, but for my time and money, I’ll be returning to Nicole Rucker’s sour apple pie (not actually sour!) from her cookbook Dappled. That’s an apple pie that tastes as one should. — Monica Burton, deputy editor
Blueberry Muffins
Mr. Hollywood’s take on what he calls an “All-American hero of a bake” — the blueberry muffin — is delicious and flavorful and just the kind of subtly sweet thing I want at breakfast with my coffee. There is, however, just one problem: It’s not a muffin. The golden, blueberry-studded domes that result from this recipe are, in fact, some hybrid between scones and Southern-style biscuits, cooked in a muffin tin, with blueberries inside. How does this come about? Well, first he eschews oil, which is frequently used in American muffins, for butter — a lot of it — which, he claims, gives the dough more flavor. That’s true! But it also makes it less like a muffin. Equally un-muffiny? The way the dough (I wouldn’t call this a batter) is mixed, by working the butter into the flour with your fingers and pouring the wet ingredients into a well in the center. I ended up adding extra blueberries, a move I feel any natural-born muffin eater on this side of the pond would have agreed with. Still, despite not being an actual muffin, what came out of the oven was good, great even, and less cloyingly sweet than the American classic. Paul Hollywood invented the bisconuffin, and I’m into it. — Lesley Suter, special projects editor
New York Chocolate Brownie Cheesecake
I’m not the target audience for Hollywood’s take on New York cheesecake. I live a few blocks from Junior’s, the chainlet that inspired Hollywood to create this recipe after he visited during his City Bakes series. So I can walk 15 minutes to grab a slice or I can spend the better part of a day baking this brownie-cheesecake mashup. It starts with a sponge base (like Junior’s), adds a layer of chocolate brownie batter (Hollywood’s addition), then swirls in cheesecake batter (Junior’s). After an hour baking and four more in the fridge, it turned out well, even with my mistakes (the water bath penetrated the tinfoil that I wrapped around the pan; the top browned too much). The cheesecake was a lactic smack in the tastebuds and the brownie was rich as ganache, but they played surprisingly well together. Maybe it was thanks to the sponge, which remained doggedly fluffy beneath the wet layers. If you can while away a day in the kitchen (or you’re pining for cheesecake from the other side of the Atlantic), bake this up — just plan to share. Junior’s serves its cheesecake in mountainous slices, but I can’t imagine having more than a thin piece of this super-intense rendition. — Nick Mancall-Bitel, editor
Note: A 9-inch springform pan does not fit in a 9-inch baking dish for the water bath, so get a bigger pan or bend a 9-inch tinfoil pan, as I did.
Chocolate Brownies
Admittedly, I was skeptical about the prospects of these brownies, in part because I have seen the ways in which brownies are routinely bastardized under Paul Hollywood’s own auspices on The Great British Bake Off. So I imagined this recipe would constitute another crime, one that would entail, say, a thick and needless layer of frosting or Italian meringue. And certainly, the recipe headnote prepared me for the worst: “Even if I say it myself,” our man writes, presumably while wearing the trademark grin that makes him resemble the Fancy Feast cat, “these are the best brownies you’ll ever taste.” Oh, you say it yourself? Quelle surprise, mister. But you know what? These are actually very good brownies. First, they are extremely chocolatey, owing to almost one pound of chocolate (semisweet, bittersweet, and milk). Second, they are appropriately rich: There are two full sticks of butter in here, bound together with a scant amount of flour. Aside from a sprinkling of cacao nibs, they reject head-scratching embellishment. I personally don’t think the nibs are necessary, in part because it costs about $9 to buy a bag you will use precisely one tablespoon of, and the textural contrast and flavor they contribute are negligible. All in all, these brownies fall on the rich-but-not-ridiculous end of the spectrum: You can eat a couple without feeling like you will die. And I appreciate that they have a nice crackly top and soft, semi-crumbly interior. Even if these aren’t the absolute best brownies I’ve ever tasted, they are ones I would make again, minus the nibs. — Rebecca Flint Marx, Home editor
Pecan Pie
This is not a pie. This is a tart. It’s baked in a 9-inch tart tin. You heard about the U.S.-U.K. recipe mix-up, right? I was so sure Paul said to use a tart tin for a pecan pie because the British don’t really have American-style pies. They make them in tart tins. I begged Dayna for the U.S. recipe as soon as I found out. The only ingredient swap was molasses for black treacle. I began to read the instructions: “Line a 9-inch (23cm) loose-bottomed tart pan” — um, okay. For the record, this matters: The sides of an American dessert pie are angled and it’s served out of a dish, whereas a tart is straight-sided and served unmolded. Now you know. Does Paul not know? He must. No fan of pecan pie, I dreaded making this for weeks. I shouldn’t have: This pecan tart is one of the best things I’ve baked this year. Credit goes to the golden syrup and black treacle in the U.K. version of the recipe I followed; the flavor here was deep and warming in a way that corn syrup just isn’t. The pastry is a keeper, too: Easy to make, easy to roll, and easy to finish with a clean, sharp edge, the result of baking with dough overhang that’s trimmed off before filling and finishing. Wait for the entire thing to cool, and you might get a clean cut. If not, who cares? The filling is good enough to eat with a spoon; it is a pudding, after all, in the much broader British sense. It certainly isn’t a pie, but since that’s the only thing off about this recipe — a technicality, really — I think Paul deserves the win here. Ice cream entirely unneeded. — Rachel P. Kreiter, senior copy editor
A plate of slightly over-salted calamari lands on the table, accompanied by marinara or perhaps some lemon aioli. You can’t wait to grab a piece. Then, your friend gingerly slides a couple of squid rings onto their fork and places them on their small plate. They spoon the condiment over into a shallow puddle, which slowly starts to soak into the breading, and the rest of the table follows. This is wrong. Finger foods should be eaten with your fingers, straight from the plate on which they were served.
Using utensils to eat foods that are already in discrete pieces betrays the spirit of app-sharing. It shifts the vibe. We’re all at a lovely meal together, and suddenly people are double-checking whether they airlifted the same number of plantain chips to their plate as their friend. To me, it’s giving elementary school lunch line, not adults at dinner.
Some foods just call for hand-use. Have you ever seen someone stick a fork in a potato wedge? It’s completely unnatural. Spinach borani tastes better when directly scooped from the bowl with a torn-off bit of barbari bread.
To be fair, I’m pretty blase about germs. In a pre-COVID world, I was the friend who finished your half-eaten lollipop or didn’t care who else drank from my water bottle. The number of co-workers who have proudly presented me with their janky leftovers, knowing I would eat them without question, is somewhere in the double digits.
But if you’re a separate-dish person, I implore you to at least test the waters. Experience the joy of not having to flag down a server for a small plate. Take a walk on the saucy side and dunk your spring roll straight into the soy sauce ramekin (trust me, it’s so much better than swirling it around on your shallow dish). See what it’s like to grab life — with your hands — by the squid ring.
Aditi Shrikantis a Brooklyn-based reporter. She reports on consumer trends.
Today at event in London, chefs from around the world gathered to learn which restaurants have landed on the World’s 50 Best list. Stanley Tucci is acting as host; the event was originally to take place in Moscow; the organization announced the move to London in February following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Though the organization didn’t say explicitly that the invasion is what prompted to the venue change, though did confirm before the start of the ceremony that Russia restaurants would not be eligible for the list this year. A spokesperson told Eater: “We do not hold any restaurants or bars individually responsible for the actions of their government and we acknowledge all those in Russia who have bravely denounced the actions of their leaders. However, by including Russian restaurants or bars in our high-profile lists, we would be tacitly supporting hospitality-driven tourism to Russia, boosting revenue in the country and indirectly supporting the government through taxation ... As an organization, we do not believe it is right to promote Russia as a dining or drinking destination at this current time.”
Blocking Russian restaurants from this year’s list means two open slots in the top 50: those held by Moscow’s White Rabbit (No. 25 in 2021) and Twins Garden (No. 30 in 2021). No Russian establishments will appear on the World’s 50 Best Bars 2022 list either; that list will drop in October.
Throughout the World’s 50 Best Restaurants list’s 20 iterations, only European or North American restaurants have occupied the “best” restaurant slot. The top spot has never gone to a South American or Asian restaurant, and there are no restaurants on the 2021 list from anywhere in the Middle East. The organization did launch a new regional list covering the Middle East and North Africa this year, with Dubai having a particularly strong showing. Whether any restaurants from Dubai — or India, or anywhere on the African continent beyond a single restaurant in South Africa — make it onto this year’s list remains to to be seen.
The list has committed to gender parity among its 1,000-plus judges, though it’s not clear what impact that decision will have on the composition of the list. The 2021 list included just four restaurants helmed by female chefs.
René Frank of Coda in Berlin was named the World’s Best Pastry Chef.
Here now is the list so far. We’ll be updating as more restaurants are announced.
The waterfront in Juneau | Getty Images/iStockphoto
Alaska is unlike any other place in the world
This post originally appeared on July 16, 2022, in Stephanie Wu’s newsletter, “From the Editor,” a roundup of the most vital news and stories in the food world.Read the archivesandsubscribe now.
A few years back, I visited Alaska on a small cruise ship with my husband. The seven-night trip through Southeast Alaska took us to some of the most jaw-droppingly beautiful places I’ve been, from Windham Bay to Stephens Passage and Glacier Bay National Park. It was nothing short of the adventure of a lifetime: We saw deep blue glaciers, stunning sunsets over the water, and an incredible array of birds and sea animals. The food was top-notch (I remain impressed to this day by how UnCruise, our cruise line, pulled off five-star meals in the smallest kitchen space I have ever seen) and the seafood couldn’t have been fresher. I’ll never forget the fierce pinpricks on my skin after a polar plunge in bitterly cold Alaska waters, or the sheer adrenaline rush of encountering a bear on a hike. But the feeling that has stayed with me the most is staring up at a massive calving glacier, thinking, I can’t wait to return — while knowing that due to climate change, the places I’d visited might be completely unrecognizable when I finally made it back.
The thing about visiting a tiny corner of a massive state is that you leave knowing you’ve seen maybe 1 percent of what this gloriously wild place has to offer. That’s why I’m so thrilled to share Eater’s latest travel guide, which delves into the most delicious aspects of Alaska. “There is no influence more important to Alaska’s food culture than subsistence, the Indigenous tradition of living off the land,” writes consulting editor Julia O’Malley in the introduction to the package. Jennifer Fergesen explores Southeast Alaska’s adobo and how it is uniquely influenced by Filipino migration and Native Tlingit cooking traditions. Consulting editor Joshua Hunt celebrates the indestructible cracker that is Alaska’s favorite — and most versatile — food. Video producer Daniel Geneen discovers just how difficult it can be to fish for salmon. And of course, we have maps on where to eat in Anchorage, Juneau, and more. It’s a fascinating compilation of stories that will have you immediately planning a trip for next summer — or, like me, scheming about how to get back ASAP.
Below, you’ll find some of my favorite reads from the past two weeks. If you liked this email, please forward it to a friend or encourage them to sign up here.
Eater senior correspondent Meghan McCarron published a three-part investigation into Blue Hill and Stone Barns in New York. It’s a long but important read about whether a fine dining restaurant and its nonprofit farm partner can live up to its own standards for saving the world. Part One looks at Blue Hill, the famed restaurant; Part Two explores the livestock program at Stone Barns; Part Three investigates the nonprofit and its lofty (and somewhat unrealistic) mission.
An interview with Dhamaka chef Chintan Pandya on how he got his job. I love that he still sometimes does delivery between his restaurants.
How SingleThread Inn in Sonoma puts together its Japanese-inspired tasting menu.
FX orders Season 2 of hit restaurant show The Bear — beware, spoilers for Season 1 in here if you’re as behind with your pop-culture viewing as I am. For a spoiler-free read, here’s Amy McCarthy’s review.
Scammers have hit restaurantsacross the country, threatening them with an onslaught of one-star reviews unless they receive an online gift card.
Eater is hosting two events at the upcoming New York City Wine & Food Festival — dinner with Anthony Ha and Sadie Mae Burns of Ha’s Đặc Biệt at Gage & Tollner, and lunch with the chefs behind Cote Korean Steakhouse and Dhamaka. I’ll be at the latter, and hope to see you all there!
The dining room of Disney Wish’s “Arendelle: A Frozen Dining Adventure.”
Disney’s new cruise food didn’t have to be good. But it’s... actually great?
Let’s face it: No one is boarding a Disney Cruise Line vessel simply for the food. But if you do find yourself wrapped in the arms of the mouse while traipsing through the Bahamas on the company’s brand-new Disney Wish ocean liner, you’ll eat surprisingly well.
If you’re unfamiliar with Disney’s voyages at sea, here, Captain Minnie takes the helm. There is no casino or ice-skating rink on board like you’d expect from a standard cruise ship, but instead first-run theatrical releases playing inside a Peter Pan-inspired cinema and a waterslide outfitted with animated Mickey Mouse clips. Kids clubs let young ones embark on Resistance missions beside Chewbacca in a gritty, porg poop-lined Star Wars cargo bay, learn skills alongside Black Panther in a Marvel hero academy, and even playfully train for gainful employment at Walt Disney Imagineering, the creative outfit that develops all of Disney’s high-flying attractions, restaurants and, yes, cruise ships. (Don’t be too jealous — adults can visit, even via the twisty entry slide, during open house hours.) It’s all Disney, all the time, but less in-your-face than you might expect, even when everything — from the Avengers charger plates to dinner’s amuse-bouche — honors the company’s films. Carpets on the Disney Wish celebrate Cinderella with an insignia that’s only recognizable upon second glance; the horn blaring seven notes of “When You Wish Upon a Star” is charming, not maddening.
Fifth in a fleet of seven — two more are on the way — the Disney Wish is far and away Disney’s nicest vessel, not to mention its first in a decade. From beignets at the Princess and the Frog Bayou bar to Jiminy Cricket’s likeness printed on soy cappuccinos, each dining experience remains an attraction of its own. It’s Disney, so there’s plenty for the kids — chicken fingers, Mickey waffles, scoops of colorful yet bland gelato within an Inside Out ice cream shop — but the food is far from a tragic mess of sweaty pizza slices and rubbery chicken breasts. The best thing I ate was foie gras and squab pigeon layered inside a puff pastry at the elegant high-end French restaurant, with the impeccable miso congee served daily at Marceline Market’s daily breakfast buffet right behind it. One day, you’ll find yourself chowing down on kjottkake, or Danish meatballs with egg noodles and lingonberry chutney, as a fully articulated Olaf rolls past on a trolley of dishes; the next, you’re eating Snake River Farms’ American wagyu tenderloin in an Italian restaurant that’s built a cult following on its impeccable pasta and souffles.
The interior of Enchanté.
Not every location requires you to pay your respects to Mickey Mouse prior to dining, as there are a pair of adults-only restaurants that dim the levels of Disney theming in favor of the world-class service and immense kindness their staffers are known for. Palo, whose name resonates deep in the heart of Disney Cruise Line die-hards in the same tenor that one recalls a once-in-a-lifetime meal at, say, the French Laundry, saw their go-to Italian escape reinvented as a steakhouse for this ship, offering cowboy rib-eye, Angus porterhouse, and yes, Japanese A5 wagyu (for a surcharge of just $45). Palo’s dinner prix-fixe menu ($45) is a small but worthwhile fee, as is the massively popular brunch, which books up regularly. Then there’s Enchanté, irrefutably the best dining experience aboard. In a refined space with marble tabletops, gold accents, and blue swirled carpet mimicking the seas outside, chef Arnaud Lallemant’s menu of wild halibut with vermouth sauce and a stewed tomato, cooked for 12 hours and served four ways, could very well rival that of L’Assiette Champenoise — if only his three-Michelin-starred Reims gastronomic getaway offered seatings between showings of The Little Mermaid. From Maine lobster with caviar to a glazed chocolate mousse plated with silver leaf, the dishes on Enchanté’s tasting menus transport you to a universe beyond the inflatable Incredibles obstacle course, despite being just next door.
But still, the way most folks chow down aboard the Disney Wish is within its thematic dining halls. Disney Cruise Line pioneered “rotational dining” when it launched in 1998, where in lieu of a grand ballroom filled with families eating mediocre steaks in tandem, guests and their pre-assigned waitstaff move between a trio of restaurant concepts each night. And with Disney, restaurants are never just restaurants; everything is a tactile, physical venue for storytelling. While the interiors play off the movies as we know them, menus instead honor the cuisine of real-world locations that inspired the filmmakers.
Arendelle: A Frozen Dining Adventure was an absolute highlight. In this Nordic eatery developed as a theater in the round, guests attend an engagement party for Queen Anna and Kristoff thrown by Oaken, the burly small business owner from the films, seen here in the flesh for the very first time. Guests enter through a lengthy hallway flocked with ornate details and are sat in wooden chairs with colorful insignias around the stage, where storytellers provide inventive acoustic reinterpretations of popular Frozen songs that won’t give you flashbacks to 2011 inside your family minivan, guaranteed. The koldtbord platter was a favorite, as were the scallops, cooked in a shrimp-tarragon bisque and housed within a towering puff pastry. (I won’t lie — I took a bite and immediately ordered seconds.) And the desserts: a Norwegian pancake roulade and a twist on the traditional Kvæfjordkake butter cake with baked meringue and, naturally, a sugar snowflake.
Disney’s rolled out plenty ofAvengers-y dining experiences already, but Worlds of Marvel is their first true sit-down joint, and my hopes weren’t high for this one, considering the only food really eaten on-screen during the course of the series was a post-battle round of shawarma. But Worlds of Marvel remained full of surprises. Namely, that I never anticipated the first thing to happen at a Marvel-themed dinner would be a video of Paul Rudd acknowledging the “Thanus” fan theory over bread baskets and beer orders, or of Brie Larson and Anthony Mackie reprising their roles as captains Marvel and America. Worlds of Marvel brings us our first taste of Sokovian food — the Eastern European region Scarlet Witch (nee Wanda Maximoff) hails from — as well as flavors of Wakanda. To build a flavor profile that honors both Africa and the fictional, vibranium-rich region Black Panther calls home, the culinary team utilized berbere for their pork chops, rounding out a global menu of pork bao buns, vegan udon and, of course, lamb shawarma salad, served tableside as sizzle reels of Marvel Cinematic Universe films and television shows — available on Disney+! — play on oversized television screens.
Congee from Marceline Market.
An appetizer with John Dory and sea urchin at Enchanté.
But alas, if there’s one thing you’ve heard about on Disney Cruise Line’s newest ship, it’s the Hyperspace Lounge. The tiny, intimate Star Wars bar allows guests to sip drinks like the Baby Yoda-inspired zero-proof Temple Twist (with “frog egg” popping pearls) beside screens projecting ship traffic from across the galaxy between intermittent horizontal jumps into hyperspace. If you’ve heard two things, the other is likely about that $5,000 Kaiburr Crystal cocktail, an instant headline-maker that PR immediately shut down inquiries about, despite its vessel sitting on display during interviews. (What comes in Disney’s four-digit drink, exactly? Individual shots of 23-year Pappy, Taylor’s Kingsman Edition Very Old Tawny Port, and Watenshi gin, along with a yuzu-kumquat cognac cocktail with Grand Marnier Quintessence, all served in a Camtono safe. Purchase also nets the drinker an exclusive invitation to visit Skywalker Ranch in Marin County.)
You can find cheaper thrills throughout the ship, of course. Disney mixologists are really in their foam-and-smoke era, between domed drinks and a bubble-explosion martini. But everything I tasted was well-balanced, from an Old Fashioned served with a chocolate-dunked orange from the Rose, the ship’s high-end cocktail lounge, to slurping a passionfruit concoction with cucumber-rose gin out of a glass bird at Nightingale’s piano bar; I would have tried more if our sailing — full of invited reporters, travel agents, and influencers — didn’t, quite literally, begin drinking multiple bars dry.
Bars and lounges are midship and, in some cases, open onto public walkways, making it easier than ever to obtain a tipple while on family vacation. (Kids are allowed in all of them, including Star Wars Hyperspace Lounge, until they transition to 18-plus at night.) Same with coffee — the adult-centric Cove Café sees a Moana redux on this ship, but even with its siphon, Chemex, and hand-pour V60 brewing techniques, there are even more options at the bars next to the ship’s main atrium, making it easier than ever to opt for a pick-me-up by way of Vietnamese, Thai, or Turkish coffees.
Folding an abundance of adult beverages, like coffee and cocktails, into the most-frequented areas on the ship is proof Disney Cruise Line is doubling down on its promise to offer just as much for adults as it does for kids. Thankfully, eating, drinking, and snacking your way through the Disney+ library never tasted so good.
Carlye Wiselis a theme park journalist and expert who reports about things like how Butterbeer was invented and Disney’s secret food lab on her podcast,Very Amusing With Carlye Wisel.
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