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Jun. 9th, 2010
The Chemical Weapons of Onions and Garlic
Jun. 9th, 2010 05:44 am
By HAROLD McGEE
Published: June 7, 2010
WHAT do garlic and onions have in common with gunpowder? A lot. They’re incendiary. They can do harm and they delight. Sulfur is central to their powers. And they helped inspire the work of a chemist who has just published a welcome treatise on the smelly yet indispensable allium family. More
Rosés, With All Due Respect
Jun. 9th, 2010 05:46 am
By ERIC ASIMOV
Published: June 7, 2010
FEW wines are both as beloved and belittled as rosé. Since its return to fashion in the last five years or so, the public has embraced it as a wine of summer. Yet bottles of rosé seem to come with neon-red warning signs admonishing consumers that they run the risk of pomposity if they dare to critically assess the wines. More
Ancient Manna on Modern Menus
Jun. 9th, 2010 05:49 am
Grains of Shir-Khesht manna and Hedysarum manna.
By DAVID ARNOLD
Published: June 8, 2010
AFTER several weeks of wandering the desert after their escape from Egypt, the Israelites were hungry, the Bible says, and started grumbling.
So God conjured up two things for them to eat. In the evening, there were quails.
“In the morning,” the Book of Exodus says, “there was a layer of dew around the camp. When the layer of dew evaporated, behold, on the surface of the wilderness there was a fine flake-like thing, fine as frost on the ground. When the sons of Israel saw it, they said to one another, ‘What is it?’ ”
In ancient Hebrew, “what is it” can be rendered man-hu, a likely derivation of what this food has come to be called, manna.
The Bible describes it as being “like coriander seed,” and “white, and its taste was like wafers with honey.”
But as miraculous as its biblical apparition may seem, manna is real and some chefs have been cooking with it. More
Leg of Lamb With Kick
Jun. 9th, 2010 06:19 am
By MARK BITTMAN
Published: June 4, 2010
I LIKE rack of lamb but think it’s overrated, one of those “luxury” (that is, expensive) meats that, like tenderloin of beef (whence filet mignon comes), is far less flavorful, indeed less enjoyable, than almost all the supposedly lesser cuts from the same animal. So I figured there had to be a better way to employ persillade — a combination of parsley and garlic — than to smear it on top of a rack. More