There's a long tradition of culinary April Fools. Atlas Obscura rounds up some of the best, including the famous spaghetti tree hoax, the origin story of "Hansel and Gretel," and the bull ball beer joke that eventually became reality.
Was it Nancy Meyers or HGTV that made Americans obsessed with decanting their groceries into matching clear containers? Whatever the cause, Jaya Saxena has had enough of it. "As you know by virtue of not being able to buy yogurt by the handful, most food is sold in containers," she writes. "But for many people, these containers are not good enough. So they have built a whole online world dedicated to the purpose of showing you what other types of containers to put your groceries in." Here's her story for Eater.
Onigiri Asakusa Yadoroku is believed to be the oldest onigiri (Japanese rice ball) restaurant in Tokyo. Its owner, Yosuke Miura, talked to CNN about what makes a good onigiri, the flavors he experiments with, and why his grandmother founded the eatery in 1954. “My grandfather didn’t work and my grandmother had trouble living a financially stable life,” he explains, telling CNN that this origin story is reflected in the restaurant name. "Directly translated, the restaurant’s name means ‘a useless person’s house,’” he says.
In the city of Negombo, on the west coast of Sri Lanka, there's an expansive fish market and nearby, fishermen dry their catch of mackerel, sprats and sardines. "Sun-dried fish can last for weeks and, because many residents don’t own refrigerators, is a staple in the local cuisine, adding a unique flavor to Sri Lankan dishes," says photojournalist Claudio Sieber, who took this great shot for @hakaimagazine.
Chef Rasmus Munk of Alchemist restaurant in Copenhagen has announced that he's partnered with “private astronaut training” company SpaceVIP and vessel builders Space Perspective to host a "holistic dining experience in space." There's no menu yet, and only vague details about how and where the food will be cooked, but there is a price tag — 3.5M Danish Krone, or around $500,000 — and a tentative date. Jaya Saxena explains her thoughts on the plan for @Eater. If you had a spare $500,000, would you spend it on a fancy space meal?
First, there was the cruffin and then, the cronut. Now, there's a new portmanteau pastry — the crookie — and it was invented in Paris, of all places. A mashup of croissants and chocolate-chip cookies, it was created by Stéphane Louvard of Boulangerie Louvard last year and went viral on TikTok last month (the bakery now sells 1,500 crookies a day, and 2,000 on Saturdays). The BBC explains more about the indulgent treat, as well as the history of the classic croissant.
A Michelin-starred New York sushi restaurant is facing criticism for serving smaller portions to its female patrons, charging the same price ($700 each for omakase service). A spokesperson for the restaurant, Sushi Noz, says that the diners may have misinterpreted the interaction. "Before the sushi section of the menu begins, the chef will often ask first-time guests if they prefer smaller rice portions, an offer which they are more than welcome to decline," they wrote in a statement to TODAY. Here's a look at what happened, along with some context on the history of "ladies' menus."
Cookbook author Laila El-Haddad's aunt, An'am Dalloul, known in her family as Khalto Um Hani, was killed in an Israeli airstrike in Gaza City last November. For Saveur, El-Haddad honors the memory of the woman who taught her to cook, and shares a recipe for sumagiyya — lamb stew. "With Ramadan fast approaching, and with no end in sight to the bombardment, it feels like I am the torchbearer now, the family’s keeper of treasured recipes," she says. "Like Um Hani, I will cook and I will teach, connecting the next generation of Palestinians to our homeland."
The holy month of Ramadan begins next Monday, and while it will be observed by approximately 1.9 billion people around the world, its significance and rituals are a mystery to many. Ambreen Hamed and her husband, Faraz Ahmed, have established the Texas Suhoor Fest in an effort to help others understand the season. Eater takes a look at what to expect from the free event, which will be held at the University of Texas in Dallas from 11 p.m. through 6 a.m. on Saturday March 23.
Wendy's has clarified its dynamic pricing strategy, saying that surge pricing (where prices increase when demand is highest) will not be implemented. "Digital menu boards could allow us to change the menu offerings at different times of day and offer discounts and value offers to our customers more easily, particularly in the slower times of day,” a spokesperson told NBC in an email.
Haitian spaghetti — espageti — has a rich history tied to America's occupation of the country, and served as a source of comfort after the devastating earthquake in 2010. Food reporter Joseph Lamour, who is of Haitian ancestry but grew up in the U.S., writes for TODAY about how he was once embarrassed by the dish, but came to appreciate it, and shares his mom's recipe.
Restaurants in America are in crisis because they can't hire and retain qualified workers. To stave off oblivion, restaurateurs are exploring options like replacing tipping with mandatory service fees, reducing waitstaff in favor of counter ordering, and dynamic pricing, where you pay more or less according to demand. Business Insider's food reporter Corey Mintz delves into the issues, concluding: "The fundamental problem is that restaurants have long mistreated their workers. So when many veteran employees had a chance to get out of the industry during the pandemic, they did." Which of these solutions would you be prepared to swallow?
Attention, U.S.-based folk who are looking for restaurant reviews and other food news that is relevant to where they live! @Eater has federated all of its local Magazines. Here's how to discover all their stories.
William Post, who was often credited with inventing the Pop Tart, has died at age 96. CNN takes a look at how he went about creating the toaster snack that now generates $1 billion a year for its maker, including a beautiful video of Post visiting the plant where it all started 60 years before.
Why is it called a hamburger when there's no ham? What's the white stuff that comes out of chicken when it's cooking? And why does Swiss cheese have holes in it? Reader's Digest has created a @Flipboard Storyboard with the answers to these questions.
In 1998, 12 friends in Vienna started an orchestra of unconventional instruments. They figured out how to coax melodies from carrots, leeks and lotus roots and performed at a student festival; as they finished with each "instrument," it was added to a pot of soup on stage. Since then, they've rubbed leeks at the Shanghai Arts Centre, banged pumpkin drums at the Royal Festival Hall in London, and blown pepper horns at the Centre Pompidou in Paris. Atlas Obscura has the full story of the Vegetable Orchestra.
There's a proper way to taste wine, and it doesn't involve waxing lyrical about the obscure notes you identify in the liquid. Here's a breakdown from Food & Wine of how to swirl, sniff, slurp and — if necessary — spit your way to appreciating fermented grape juice. How do you feel about wine?
QR code menus became popular during the pandemic and now a majority of restaurants in the U.S. and Canada use them. The Walrus's Anne Thériault bemoans their existence, from how they change the communal experience of dining out to the way they can track consumer behavior.
Fake olive oil is everywhere because of a drought-related global shortage of the real stuff. @euronews explains how fraudsters are dressing up cheap seed oil by adding chlorophyll and carotenoids to change its color, and the different traceability tools that can help you work out if you're being scammed.
A Naples restaurateur has done the unthinkable (for Italy) and added pineapple to a pizza. Gino Sorbillo says he created the Margherita con Ananas to "combat food prejudice," but it has created uproar. What do you think: Does pineapple belong on a pizza?
Fun fact: The Hawaiian pizza was invented in Canada — in Chatham, Ontario, to be precise — by chef Sam Panopoulos. "I had pineapple in the restaurant and I put some on, and I shared with some customers and they liked it," he told Food Network Canada.
What is Canadian cuisine in 2024? @straphanger writes for Food & Wine about how immigrant communities are bringing their unbridled creativity to cooking, and recommends six unmissable restaurants in Vancouver, Toronto and Montreal.
Different types of gingerbread are made all around the world (and some don't even contain ginger). Food writer Anne Ewbank writes for Atlas Obscura about varieties like Mexico's cochinitos, the Netherlands' pepernoten, Germany's printen, and parkin, the tasty, treacly treat that's made in the north of England and mostly eaten around Bonfire Night.