Another Romantic Number featuring More DeQuincy along with Devon and Other Things
in the critical
Scottish Enlightenment and the lack of it: A note on Elizabeth David and Christian Isobel Johnstone
Elizabeth David reveled in her reputation as a scholar but did not always put in the time. Neither close reader nor deep thinker, David mars much of her work with inaccuracies and omissions. At times, as critiques of her British bestselling Book of Mediterranean Food have noted, she indulges in outright fabrication. Revered for a stern authenticity, David does not much care about rigorous research.
A note on two Digbys.
Digby English sparkling wine is revelatory on several levels. It is an extremely good sparkler, made in the traditional manner from 40% pinot noir, 35% chardonnay and 25% pinot meunier it is a legitimate rival to storied champagnes while displaying a distinct English style; crisp, bright, not toasty like Veuve Clicquot but hardly lacking depth. At south of $60 a bottle it is superb value for money, better value than its French and California rivals of comparable quality. As a playful bonus its proprietors have noses for culinary history as well as wine.
the critical archive
A Romantic Number featuring Discussion of Dinner, Derrida and other Things
A Number of Infelicities featuring Oysters and the Apocalypse, along with Thanksgiving from Our Archive
A Number of Infelicities featuring Beef, Beans, Oysters and the Apocalypse
A Number of Noteworthy Women
A Number of Miscellanies
A Number of Historical Figures, featuring Bostonian Foodways
A Number of Anomalies
- Assessments of Ireland’s Green Larder by Margaret Hickey (London 2018)
- Macaroni and cheese: A case study in the condition of culinary historiography during the culture wars.
A Non-English Number (or Maybe Not)
A Number of London Clubs along with A Gentleman Farmer
Our 10th Anniversary Number, featuring Pie & Prejudice
- That’s my fun day: Sunday supper
- Another attempt at assessing the state of British foodways: An assessment of Pie Fidelity by Pete Brown.
A Number of Drinks for Summer
- We revisit a visionary socialist who brews beer in rural Massachusetts.
- Some strange and wondrous drinks from 1939.
- Some rum.
- A note on the latest extension of the Jamesons brand.
A Southern Number featuring Mobilian Madness
- Ann Hood, hard times and the comfort of the kitchen.
- An Appreciation of Alex Toft Nielsen and his Cp44.
A Winter Number Featuring Questions of Authenticity
- The real, the surreal and the dirty: Perspectives on Colonial Williamsburg, anachronism, authenticity and pirate zombies.
- Notes on the state of Virginia foodways in the early national period.
- Two British cookbooks for wintertime: Buy them both.
A Number of 18th Century Notions
- A note on Sandra Sherman’s Fresh From the Past , eighteenth century abundance, including further thoughts on pudding and Jeri Quinzio’s Pudding
- Four exemplary beers in the New England style
Our Second Irish Number
A Number of British Foods in America
- Depredations historical and historiographical: A review of Hungry Empire by Lizzie Collingham
- A culinary destination in the West Village of Manhattan.
- A study in conflict and contradiction: Mark Bittman.
A Number of Inconsistencies
- Damp squib: “Nigel Slater’s chicken with butterbeans and rosemary.”
- A great divide: Mannered Northern ‘lads’ of culinary accomplishment and mundane musical meanderings.
- A study in conflict and contradiction: Mark Bittman.
- The Cook Book.
- Sea urchins from the stomachs of pigs, exploding chickens and lost food refound; the wide and wild British world of Dorothy Hartley featuring foraging.
- An anomalous name: Jane Grigson’s Vegetable Book.
A Number of Cook Books, featuring The Cook Book
- The Cook Book.
- Sea urchins from the stomachs of pigs, exploding chickens and lost food refound; the wide and wild British world of Dorothy Hartley featuring foraging.
- An anomalous name: Jane Grigson’s Vegetable Book.
A Number of Bars & Beers, Some of Them Irish
- All in the Cooking: An icon of twentieth century Ireland.
- A note on Guinness Foreign Extra.
- A traveler’s note; the beer! the beer!...
and books!, at Heathrow no less. - A wolf gives a gift of coddle and champions the can.
- A return, of sorts, to historical form: The Plagiarist in the Kitchen by Jonathan Meades.
Another Northern Number, in Which We Return to Tourtière, and featuring Insular Foodways
A Number of Revivals & Reinventions,
featuring Oxtail and Treacle
- Another neglected outlier: Victor Gordon and The English Cookbook.
- A maelstrom of food, sex and death featuring a few British derivations.
A Number of Eccentrics & Eccentricities featuring Hybrids
A Summer Number of Sandwiches and Soup,
featuring Enquiries into Origin
- Considering A History of Chowder: Four Centuries of a New England Meal.
- A note on Good Sandwiches and Picnic Dishes by Ambrose Heath, featuring a description of the Bookmaker.
- A kind of consideration of toast.
A Northern Number
A Wintry Number featuring Cambridge
- Finding the middle way in high style at the Pint Shop in Cambridge, England.
- Narragansett ‘Allie’s Donuts Double Chocolate Porter.’
- The culinary oddity that is Cambridge, featuring a review of The Cambridgeshire Cook Book.
Our Fifth Anniversary Number, Featuring Figures Past and Future, and Ketchup
- Cognitive Cooking with Chef Watson: Recipes for innovation from IBM and the Institute of Culinary Education.
- A multicultural gem that beats the odds embedded in its genre: Edward Lee’s Smoke & Pickles: Recipes and Stories from a New Southern Kitchen.
A Number of Bloomsbury Fancies -
Culinary, Erotic & Otherwise
- A review of the estimable Angeline in New Orleans, embedding two recipes for posset
- An Appreciation of canned fish, including considerations of Tin Fish Gourmet by Barbara-jo McIntosh and Rust by Jonathan Waldman.
A Sort of Archeological Number
Our First Scottish Number
- A Bible even the Editor could appreciate.
- Clarissa Dickson Wright does it again with The Haggis: A Little History.
- Our first monthly miscellany, being a book of surprises.
- Shameless PLUG: Buy the October issue of Petits Propos Culinaires.
- The global wanderings of marmalade featuring a melancholy note on American Exceptionalism.
A Number of Savory Pies for Fall
- Shameless PLUG: Buy the October issue of Petits Propos Culinaires.
- Our first monthly miscellany, being a book of surprises.
- Some handy books for cooking savory pies (and one that is not so handy).
- Traditional Yorkshire Food
- An illustrated Appreciation of Hochstadter’s Slow & Low.
Our First Foray Toward the Foodways of India
- An illustrated Appreciation of Hochstadter’s Slow & Low.
- The mysteries of Mrs. Framji’s chicken curry, or , an assay into microhistory, embedding a review of The Raj at Table by David Burton.
- Andrew Tobin samples summer ciders
- Pat Chapman remembers the kitchens of the Raj, partially by proxy.
- Our Political Correspondent reveals to the Editor that art follows the life of imperial Russia at Bob Bob Ricard in London
An Eighteenth Century Interlude
- Our Political Correspondent reveals to the Editor that art follows the life of imperial Russia at Bob Bob Ricard in London
- A note on Sandra Sherman’s Fresh From the Past, eighteenth century abundance, including further thoughts on pudding and Jeri Quinzio’s Pudding.
- A Feast of Ice & Fire: The Official Companion Cookbook to George R. R. Martin’s A Game of Thrones by Chelsea Monroe-Cassel & Sariann Lehrer
- Art and Appetite: American Painting, Culture, and Cuisine at the Art Institute of Chicago.
A Winter Number featuring
More Curious Cuisine and Holiday Cheer
- Art and Appetite: American Painting, Culture, and Cuisine at the Art Institute of Chicago.
- Special bonus review: “Devouring Books” at the Ryerson Library of the Art Institute of Chicago.
- Beer (of a sort) in the City of Light
- Our Rural Correspondent heads north
for jet and fish: A visit to Whitby. - Owen & Engine extends the British beachhead in Chicago.
- The Vintage Tea Party Book by Angel Adoree, or: What if Tim Burton threw a tea party?
- The R’evolution starts now
A Meandering Fall Number, With Curious Questions and, Perhaps, Curious Cuisine
- Beer (of a sort) in the City of Light
- Our Rural Correspondent heads north
for jet and fish: A visit to Whitby. - Owen & Engine extends the British beachhead in Chicago.
- The Vintage Tea Party Book by Angel Adoree, or: What if Tim Burton threw a tea party?
- The R’evolution starts now
An Eclectic Summer Number featuring a Forgotten Champion and More Musings on Madeira
- A new oyster bar and fish house in New Orleans: Pêche Seafood Grill.
- The R’evolution starts now
- New Orleans: A Food Biography is badly written, promotes anachronism and traduces the British culinary tradition.
Our First Quarterly Number, featuring
a Vanished Ireland and Worcestershire
- The Churchill Tavern: Romance and ruin in midtown south
- The fall and rise of the Irish cheese.
- Downton Abbey and the drive for ratings, featuring a review of the Unofficial Downton Abbey Cookbook by Emily Ansara Baines.
A Wintry Number of Soups & Stews
- Nostra culpa redeemed, perhaps, by some advice about celery.
- An Appreciation of British Soups
- A note on cooking with beer, including reviews of Beer and Vittles by Elizabeth Craig and Beer and Skittles by Richard Boston.
- Ferry Plaza Seafood and the Hog Island Oyster Company: Two oyster bars at the San Francisco Ferry Terminal and a note about clam soup on the west coast.
Our Third Holiday Number
- Our Graduate Correspondent visits Los Angeles and gets some surprises, including Ye Olde King’s Head.
- A raucous evening of Restoration Comedy.
- Our annual roundup of noteworthy books.
- Our Rural Correspondent visits The Anchor in Oxford.
- Our Rural Correspondent somehow finds
The Oxford Arms - The resilient British brewing tradition: Eight transatlantic case studies.
Our Second Preservation Number
- The global wanderings of marmalade featuring a melancholy note on American Exceptionalism.
- The resilient British brewing tradition: Eight transatlantic case studies.
The Philadelphia Story
- The Standard Tap in Philadelphia; Yards and other ales in cask.
- The rise and rise of rhubarb, including some recommended products.
Sandwiches, Salads and Spitalfields
- An unexpected delight: Canteen.
- A vindication of sorts for Midwestern beer.
- A bagel by any other name?
- Cakes and ale… and oysters in London at the aptly named English Restaurant hard by Spitalfields Market.
Oystermania and A Riverine Expedition
- Oysters in a Little Town.
- Three Men, a Diary and a Dog or riverine and pooterish fare from our Rural Correspondent, being the return of our occasional series on food in books.
- Tracks, Penn Station: the other train station oyster bar in New York
- Imitation and innovation at Shaw’s Crab House.
- An unlikely pilgrimage to the Matunuck Oyster Bar.
- Failure in New Orleans, or, the demise of Desire.
- Oysters at Lüke in New Orleans.
- An enduring if annoying New York legend; the Oyster Bar at Grand Central Terminal.
- Oysters at Randall & Aubin in London.
- Cakes and ale… and oysters in London at the aptly named English Restaurant hard by Spitalfields Market.
The Oyster Number
- Imitation and innovation at Shaw’s Crab House.
- An unlikely pilgrimage to the Matunuck Oyster Bar.
- Failure in New Orleans, or, the demise of Desire.
- Oysters at Lüke in New Orleans.
- An enduring if annoying New York legend; the Oyster Bar at Grand Central Terminal.
- Oysters at Randall & Aubin in London.
- Cakes and ale… and oysters in London at the aptly named English Restaurant hard by Spitalfields Market.
- A review of two books on oysters that follow different paths, featuring a digression on the lifestyle of the fortunate oyster.
Another Spring Number Featuring
the Poetry of Ronald Johnson
- Two contrasting cookbooks hot off the press, from April Bloomfield and Brian Yarvin.
- Bon Appétit climbs our Wall of Shame and publishes some good recipes in the process.
- A tale of two critiques: Our Rural Correspondent considers Tender by Nigel Slater.
A Chicago Number Featuring Pies
- Bon Appétit climbs our Wall of Shame and publishes some good recipes in the process.
- Wall of Shame special bonus item: Ruth Reichl resorts to unfortunate phrasing in Saveur.
- The West Town Tavern in Chicago continues to thrive and thrill, with a little help from Becker Lane Organic Farm.
- A cautionary tale from Publican in Chicago.
Our First Irish Number
- Wall of Shame special bonus item: Ruth Reichl resorts to unfortunate phrasing in Saveur.
- Is There an Irish Cuisine?
- Wall of Shame
- Go to Gravy, but only for Mr. Hollins and the food.
A Preservation Number
- Go to Gravy, but only for Mr. Hollins and the food.
- North and south in both geography and metaphor, or a review of Northern Hospitality: Cooking by the Book in New England by Keith Stavely & Kathleen Fitzgerald
- The soul of a vanished world; a restaurant review of Husk in Charleston, South Carolina.
A Number of Classics for the Holidays
- Perfidious Albion: A restaurant review.
- A review of A History of English Food by Clarissa Dickson Wright and its reviewers
- Roast beef, ovens and spits; or, all that’s old is new again.
Our Second Thanksgiving Number
- A review of two new books, on milk and on beer: Which would you choose?
- Punting and Eating in Oxford: The Cherwell Boathouse
A Dairy Number
- A review of two new books, on milk and on beer: Which would you choose?
- Punting and Eating in Oxford: The Cherwell Boathouse
- Pizza Delivery: Elizabeth David, Rabbits, Kirsch, and More
O! Canada - A Number Devoted to
North Atlantic Foodways
- Notes from Canada on How to Cook Fish: Canadian Fish Cook Book
- Of Plumbers’ Flares and Flambéed Pears:
Another Caribbean Number, featuring Jamaica
- Phoebe Dinsmore and the Editor visit a struggling British outpost in New Orleans: Feast.
- Beer in London
- An appreciation of Westerhall rum
A First Caribbean Number, featuring Barbados
Our First Nautical Number
The Hardship, War & Austerity Number, Part 2
- Wartime Cookery, featuring not only imposters but also erotomania
- It left a bad taste: The Editor considers The Taste of War: World War Two and the Battle for Food by Lizzie Collingham
- The Curmudgeonly Raconteur doubles down on St. John with the Editor.
The Hardship, War & Austerity Number, Part 1
- A review of At Elizabeth David’s Table and the consequent award of our first Ally.
- The Curmudgeonly Raconteur doubles down on St. John with the Editor.
- Two Museum Exhibits and The Ministry of Food by Jane Fearnley-Whittingstall
The Food of the People
- An Appreciation of British Soups
- Phoebe Dinsmore and a friend enter the Wayback Machine to visit Henry Public
- Our Guest Historian Reads Lark Rise
Our Customary January Supplement
- Andrew Edmunds in the kitchen and on the page
- Elizabeth David’s Spices, Salt and Aromatics in the English Kitchen: A reappraisal four decades on.
Our Inaugural Holiday Number
- Andrew Edmunds in the kitchen and on the page
- Elizabeth David’s Spices, Salt and Aromatics in the English Kitchen: A reappraisal four decades on.
The Thanksgiving Number
A First All Hallows Number
A VictoEdwardian Number
The Midsummer Number
Britain and the American South
- A Review of Great British Food from Canteen, and Pig: King of the Southern Table by James Villas
- A Discussion of Cheese Straws
A Second Seasonal Number
- Foragers, fine food and more, encountered on television and in Cheltenham
- Our French Correspondent Visits The Breslin
A Seasonal Number
The Bristolian Number
The Elizabeth David Number
- An Introduction to Elizabeth David
- Elizabeth David’s Spices, Salt and Aromatics in the English Kitchen
- A new British block of New York: West 10 Street
- A Review of Two Good Books
- College cuisine
The Killjoy Number
- A Note on The Economist
- The Financial Times and the Art of Eating, or Good Taste is No Fun.
- A Case Study in Branding: the Conglomeration of Mark Hix (with Restaurant Review of Hix Oyster & Chop House)
The Charcuterie Number
The Launch Number