If you’ve ever been served a piece of fish that tasted like an ashtray with a side of battery acid, you’ve been a victim of the great “Blackening” misconception. Most people believe blackening is an ancient Acadian tradition, but it is actually a specific 1980s invention, popularized by a celebrity chef, that has been hijacked … Read more
Cajun cooking has become perhaps overly identified with New Orleans, causing many to think that Cajun food is food that originates there. Cajun country is, on the other hand, the countryside, and is also called Acadiana. The true cooking of New Orleans is more than boiled crawfish and gumbo. It is also more than Cajun. New … Read more
The Savior and the Shadow: Why the Olive Oil Mafia Story Sticks If you spend any time in the culinary corners of YouTube or TikTok, you’ve likely encountered the “Savior.” They appear on your screen with a grave expression, pointing to a bottle of extra virgin olive oil and delivering a cinematic warning: Your oil … Read more
If you had tried to put beer in a tin can in 1933, you wouldn’t have ended up with a drink, you would have ended up with a bomb. While canned food had been a staple for a century, the first canned beer was delayed by a huge engineering problem. Beer presented a physical nightmare … Read more
Did people in the Middle Ages really eat moldy bread? It’s a common belief that our ancestors had iron stomachs capable of handling food that would send a modern person straight to the ER. While it is true that medieval Europeans frequently consumed stale, hard bread that was beginning to turn, the reality of their … Read more
In the world of Southern cooking, ‘fish fry’ is more than just a recipe—it’s a social institution. But for Zatarain’s, the legendary New Orleans spice company, the term became the center of a decades-long legal battle. At stake was a fundamental question of food law: can a company own the exclusive rights to a name … Read more