Death-Cap Mushrooms are Terrifying and Unstoppable: A Wild Animation

in Biology, Food & Drink, Nature, Science | August 18th, 2023

Mush­rooms are just­ly cel­e­brat­ed as vir­tu­ous mul­ti­taskers.

They’re food, teach­ers, movie stars, design inspi­ra­tion…

…and some, as any­one who’s spent time play­ing or watch­ing The Last of Us can read­i­ly attest, are killers.

Hope­ful­ly we’ve got some time before civ­i­liza­tion is con­quered by zom­bie cordy­ceps.

For now, the ones to watch out for are amani­ta phal­loide, aka death cap mush­rooms.

The pow­er­ful ama­tox­in they har­bor is behind 90 per­cent of mush­room-relat­ed fatal­i­ties world­wide. It caus­es severe liv­er dam­age, lead­ing to bleed­ing dis­or­ders, brain swelling, and mul­ti-organ fail­ure in those who sur­vive. 

A death cap took the life of a three-year-old in British Colum­bia who mis­took one for a tasty straw mush­room on a for­ag­ing expe­di­tion with his fam­i­ly near their apart­ment com­plex. 

In Mel­bourne, a pot pie that test­ed pos­i­tive for death caps result­ed in the deaths of three adults, and sent a fourth to the hos­pi­tal in crit­i­cal con­di­tion.

As the ani­ma­tors feast on mush­rooms’ lim­it­less visu­al appeal in the above episode of The Atlantic’s Life Up Close series, author Craig Childs deliv­ers some sober­ing news:

We did it to our­selves. Humans are the ones who’ve enabled death caps to spread so far beyond their native habi­tats in Scan­di­navia and parts of north­ern Europe, where the poi­so­nous fun­gi feed on the root tips of decid­u­ous trees, spring­ing up around their hosts in tidy fairy rings.

When oth­er coun­tries import these trees to beau­ti­fy their city streets, the death caps, whose frag­ile spores are inca­pable of trav­el­ing long dis­tances when left to their own devices, tag along.

They have sprout­ed in the Pacif­ic North­west near import­ed sweet chest­nuts, beech­es, horn­beams, lin­dens, red oaks, and Eng­lish oaks, and oth­er host species.

As bio­chemist Paul Kroeger, cofounder of the Van­cou­ver Myco­log­i­cal Soci­ety, explained in a 2019 arti­cle Childs penned for the Atlantic, the inva­sive death caps aren’t pop­ping up in deeply wood­ed areas. 

Rather, they are set­tling into urban neigh­bor­hoods, fre­quent­ly in the grass strips bor­der­ing side­walks. When Childs accom­pa­nied Krueger on his rounds, the first of two dozen death caps dis­cov­ered that day were found in front of a house fes­tooned with Hal­loween dec­o­ra­tions. 

Now that they have estab­lished them­selves, the death caps can­not be roust­ed. No longer mere tourists, they’ve been seen mak­ing the jump to native oaks in Cal­i­for­nia and West­ern Cana­da.

Childs also notes that death caps are no longer a North Amer­i­can prob­lem:

They have spread world­wide where for­eign trees have been intro­duced into land­scap­ing and forestry prac­tices: North and South Amer­i­ca, New Zealand, Aus­tralia, South and East Africa, and Mada­gas­car. In Can­ber­ra, Aus­tralia, in 2012, an expe­ri­enced Chi­nese-born chef and his assis­tant pre­pared a New Year’s Eve din­ner that includ­ed, unbe­knownst to them, local­ly gath­ered death caps. Both died with­in two days, wait­ing for liv­er trans­plants; a guest at the din­ner also fell ill, but sur­vived after a suc­cess­ful trans­plant.

For­agers should pro­ceed with extreme cau­tion.

Relat­ed Con­tent 

The Beau­ti­ful­ly Illus­trat­ed Atlas of Mush­rooms: Edi­ble, Sus­pect and Poi­so­nous (1827)

A Stun­ning, Hand-Illus­trat­ed Book of Mush­rooms Drawn by an Over­looked 19th Cen­tu­ry Female Sci­en­tist

Alger­ian Cave Paint­ings Sug­gest Humans Did Mag­ic Mush­rooms 9,000 Years Ago

– Ayun Hal­l­i­day is the Chief Pri­ma­tol­o­gist of the East Vil­lage Inky zine and author, most recent­ly, of Cre­ative, Not Famous: The Small Pota­to Man­i­festo and Cre­ative, Not Famous Activ­i­ty Book. Fol­low her @AyunHalliday.

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A Creative List of Meat Carving Terms from the Middle Ages: “Splaye that Breme,” “Splatte that Pyke” & More

in Books, Food & Drink, History | July 19th, 2023

A less­er adver­tised joy of work­ing in food ser­vice is achiev­ing com­mand of the slang:

Mon­key dish…

Deuces and four tops…

Fire, flash, kill… 

As you may have noticed, we here at Open Cul­ture have an insa­tiable hunger for vin­tage lin­go and it doesn’t get much more vin­tage than The Boke of Kervyn­ge (The Book of Carv­ing).

This 1508 man­u­al was pub­lished for the ben­e­fit of young noble­men who’d been placed in afflu­ent house­holds, to learn the ropes of high soci­ety by serv­ing the sov­er­eigns.

Few fam­i­lies could afford to serve meat, let alone whole ani­mals, so under­stand­ably, the pre­sen­ta­tion and carv­ing of these pre­cious entrees was not a thing to be under­tak­en light­ly.

The influ­en­tial Lon­don-based pub­lish­er Wynkyn de Worde com­piled step-by-step instruc­tions for get­ting dif­fer­ent types of meat, game and fish from kitchen to plate, as well as what to serve on sea­son­al menus and spe­cial occa­sions like East­er and the Feast of St. John the Bap­tist.

The book opens with the list of “good­ly ter­mes” above, essen­tial vocab for any young man eager to prove his skills around the car­cass of a deer, goose, or lob­ster.

There’s noth­ing here for veg­e­tar­i­ans, obvi­ous­ly. And some 21st-cen­tu­ry car­ni­vores may find them­selves blanch­ing a bit at the thought of tear­ing into a heron or por­poise.

If, how­ev­er, you’re a medieval lad tasked with “dis­fig­ur­ing” a pea­cock, close­ly observed by an entire din­ing table of la crème de la crème, The Boke of Kervyn­ge is a life­saver.

(It also con­tains some invalu­able tips for meet­ing expec­ta­tions should you find your­self in the posi­tion of chaum­ber­layne, Mar­shall or ush­er.)

In any event, let’s spice up our vocab­u­lary while res­cu­ing some aged culi­nary terms from obscu­ri­ty.

Don’t be sur­prised if they work their way into an episode of The Bear next sea­son, though you should also feel free to use them metaphor­i­cal­ly.

And don’t lose heart if some of the terms are a bit befud­dling to mod­ern ears. Lists of Note’s Shaun Ush­er has tak­en a stab at truf­fling up some mod­ern trans­la­tions for a few of the less famil­iar sound­ing words, wise­ly refrain­ing from haz­ard­ing a guess as to the mean­ing of “fruche that chekyn”.

(It’s not the “chekyn” part giv­ing us pause…)

Ter­mes of a keruer —Terms of a carv­er

Breke that dere — break that deer

lesche y brawne — leach the brawn

rere that goose — rear that goose

lyft that swanne — lift that swan

sauce that capon — sauce that capon

spoyle that henne — spoil that hen

fruche that chekyn — ? that chick­en

vnbrace that malarde — unbrace that mal­lard

vnlace that cony — unlace that coney

dys­mem­bre that heron — dis­mem­ber that heron

dys­playe that crane — dis­play that crane

dys­fygure that pecocke —dis­fig­ure that pea­cock

vnioynt that byt­ture — unjoint that bit­tern

vntache that curlewe — untack that curlew

alaye that fesande — allay that pheas­ant

wyn­ge that partryche — wing that par­tridge

wyn­ge that quayle — wing that quail

mynce that plouer — mince that plover

thye that pegy­on — thigh that pigeon

bor­der that pasty — bor­der that pasty

thye all man­er of small byrdes — thigh all man­ner of small birds

tym­bre that fyre — tim­ber that fire

tyere that egge — tear that egg

chyne that samon — chine that salmon

stryn­ge that lam­praye — string that lam­prey

splat­te that pyke — splat that pike

sauce that playce — sauce that plaice

sauce that tenche — sauce that tench

splaye that breme — splay that bream

syde that had­docke — side that had­dock

tuske that bar­bell — tusk that bar­bel

culpon that troute — culpon that trout

fynne that cheuen — fin that cheven

trassene that ele — ? that eel

traunche that stur­gy­on — tranche that stur­geon

vnder­traunche yt pur­pos — under­tranch that por­poise

tayme that crabbe — tame that crab

barbe that lop­ster — barb that lob­ster

Here endeth the good­ly ter­mes.

Peruse a dig­i­tal copy of the sole sur­viv­ing copy of the first edi­tion of the Boke of Kervyn­ge here.

Via Lists of Note

Relat­ed Con­tent 

What Did Peo­ple Eat in Medieval Times? A Video Series and New Cook­book Explain

A 13th-Cen­tu­ry Cook­book Fea­tur­ing 475 Recipes from Moor­ish Spain Gets Pub­lished in a New Trans­lat­ed Edi­tion

A List of 1,065 Medieval Dog Names: Nose­wise, Gar­lik, Have­g­ood­day & More

Tast­ing His­to­ry: A Hit YouTube Series Shows How to Cook the Foods of Ancient Greece & Rome, Medieval Europe, and Oth­er Places & Peri­ods

Ernest Hemingway’s Favorite Ham­burg­er Recipe

– Ayun Hal­l­i­day is the Chief Pri­ma­tol­o­gist of the East Vil­lage Inky zine and author, most recent­ly, of Cre­ative, Not Famous: The Small Pota­to Man­i­festo and Cre­ative, Not Famous Activ­i­ty Book.  Fol­low her @AyunHalliday.

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How to Make the 2000-Year-Old “Pizza” Discovered on a Pompeii Fresco

in Food & Drink, History | July 18th, 2023

Just last month, we fea­tured here on Open Cul­ture the dis­cov­ery of a Pom­pei­ian fres­co pur­port­ed to depict an ancient ances­tor of piz­za. For most of us piz­za-lov­ing mil­lions — nay, bil­lions — around the world, this was a notable curios­i­ty but for Max Miller, it was clear­ly a chal­lenge. As the cre­ator of the hit Youtube chan­nel Tast­ing His­to­ry, each of whose episodes involves faith­ful re-cre­ation of dish­es from eras past, he could­n’t pos­si­bly have ignored this devel­op­ment. But it also pos­es even stiffer dif­fi­cul­ties than most of his culi­nary projects, pro­vid­ing him not a recipe to work with but a pic­ture, and not a par­tic­u­lar­ly detailed pic­ture at that.

The fres­co’s genre is xenia, which, Miller explains in the video above, “comes from the Greek word that referred to a sort of social con­tract between hosts and guests.” The ancient Roman archi­tect Vit­ru­vius (he whose work inspired Leonar­do’s Vit­ru­vian Man) described how the Greeks, after becom­ing wealthy, “began pro­vid­ing din­ing rooms, cham­bers, and store­rooms of pro­vi­sions for their guests.”

The food and drink they brought out for their din­ner par­ties became the sub­ject of xenia art­works like this fres­co from Pom­peii, which hap­pens to include a famil­iar-look­ing round bread. What’s more, “some schol­ars have sug­gest­ed that one of the ingre­di­ents that prob­a­bly is on this bread is sort of piz­za-like, inso­far as it is a kind of spread­able cheese.”

The qual­i­ty of that ingre­di­ent, called more­tum, seem­ing­ly makes or breaks this ancient piz­za, and so Miller spends most of the video explain­ing its prepa­ra­tion, draw­ing details from a poem attrib­uted to Vir­gil. Those fol­low­ing along in their own kitchens will need to gath­er a cou­ple heads of gar­lic, large hand­fuls of pars­ley and cilantro, a small hand­ful of rue, and ten ounces of white cheese. When you’ve made the more­tum, you can bake the Roman bread, loaves of which were pre­served by the explo­sion of Mount Vesu­vius, then spread on the more­tum and “top it with things like white cheese, dates, pome­gran­ates, or what­ev­er else you saw in the fres­co.” Miller notes that actu­al Pom­pei­ians prob­a­bly would­n’t have sliced the final prod­uct, but rather picked off and eat­en its top­pings one-by-one before get­ting around to the bread: a piz­za con­sump­tion method prac­ticed by more than a few of us mod­erns, at least in child­hood.

Relat­ed con­tent:

A New­ly Dis­cov­ered Fres­co in Pom­peii Reveals a Pre­cur­sor to Piz­za

His­tor­i­cal Ital­ian Cook­ing: How to Make Ancient Roman & Medieval Ital­ian Dish­es

The First Piz­za Ordered by Com­put­er, 1974

A Culi­nary Videos Series Shows Every Con­ceiv­able Way to Cook Eggs, Pota­toes, Piz­za, Bacon & More

A Tour of All the Piz­za Styles You Can Eat in the Unit­ed States (and the His­to­ry Behind Your Favorite Slices)

Tast­ing His­to­ry: A Hit YouTube Series Shows How to Cook the Foods of Ancient Greece & Rome, Medieval Europe, and Oth­er Places & Peri­ods

Based in Seoul, Col­in Marshall writes and broad­casts on cities, lan­guage, and cul­ture. His projects include the Sub­stack newslet­ter Books on Cities, the book The State­less City: a Walk through 21st-Cen­tu­ry Los Ange­les and the video series The City in Cin­e­ma. Fol­low him on Twit­ter at @colinmarshall or on Face­book.

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How Olive Oil Was Made in Ancient Rome in the Middle Ages (Plus in Modern Times)

in Food & Drink, History, Travel | July 12th, 2023

If you think cannabis pos­sess­es a broad range of appli­ca­tions, olive oil is going to blow your mind!

Humans have been hip to this mir­a­cle elixir since approx­i­mate­ly 2500 BCE, when Mediter­ranean dwellers used it as lamp fuel and to anoint roy­al­ty, war­riors, and oth­er VIPs. (Not for noth­ing does “mes­si­ah” trans­late to “the anoint­ed one”…)

Its culi­nary appli­ca­tions entered the mix between the 5th and 4th cen­turies BCE.

Even amur­ca, the bit­ter tast­ing, foul smelling liq­uid byprod­uct of the oil press­ing process had numer­ous things to rec­om­mend it, as least as far as the ancient Romans were con­cerned. They used it as a fer­til­iz­er, a pes­ti­cide, a floor plas­ter, a sealant for jars, a fire accel­er­ant, moth repel­lent, axel grease, a sur­face var­nish, a nutri­tion­al sup­ple­ment for live­stock, and a rem­e­dy for skin dis­eases and infec­tions.

It’s also a seri­ous pol­lu­tant, so good on them for divert­ing it from the land­fill.

Meth­ods for extract­ing this prac­ti­cal, nutri­tion­al pow­er­house from the olive fruit have evolved over time.

Bronze Age fres­coes and ancient papyri doc­u­ment the ear­li­est approach.

The Romans and Greeks took things up a notch with mechan­i­cal press­es, such as the repli­ca at the Bib­li­cal His­to­ry Cen­ter, above.

In an episode of his Nation­al Geo­graph­ic Unchart­ed series, chef Gor­don Ram­say trav­eled to Moroc­co to take a turn at one of the man­u­al­ly-turned stone grind­ing wheels that were the Mid­dle Ages’ con­tri­bu­tion to the his­to­ry of olive oil, dis­cov­er­ing in the process that such “bloody hard work” is bet­ter accom­plished by an ass.

His labors were reward­ed with a taste of olive oil straight from the press - oh my lord, that is beau­ti­ful! I’ve heard of extra vir­gin but this is gonna be extra-extra vir­gin!

Insid­er Food tracks olive oil to the 21st cen­tu­ry, where pro­duc­tion is under­way at a mill in Monop­o­li in the south­ern Ital­ian region of Puglia, an area where olive trees out­num­ber humans, 15 to 1.

Puglia’s 1,000-plus mills sup­ply 40% of the country’s olive oil pro­duc­tion, and 12% world­wide.

Con­tem­po­rary olive oil mak­ers obtain a tra­di­tion­al qual­i­ty prod­uct by split­ting the dif­fer­ence between the ancient and the mod­ern, with con­vey­or belts fer­ry­ing the fruit to a vat where machine-dri­ven gran­ite wheels crush them to a pulp.

It’s less pic­turesque, but also more effi­cient and hygien­ic than pre-Indus­tri­al meth­ods, thanks, in part, to rub­ber gloves and stain­less steel.

Grad­ing oil accord­ing to its puri­ty is also a mod­ern inno­va­tion, pro­vid­ing con­sumers a han­dle qual­i­ty, taste and health attrib­ut­es.

Learn more about the his­to­ry of olive oil here, then get cookin’!

Relat­ed Con­tent

Vis­it Monte Tes­tac­cio, the Ancient Roman Hill Made of 50 Mil­lion Crushed Olive Oil Jugs

3,000-Year-Old Olive Tree on the Greek Island of Crete Still Pro­duces Olives Today

Cook Real Recipes from Ancient Rome: Ostrich Ragoût, Roast Wild Boar, Nut Tarts & More

– Ayun Hal­l­i­day is the Chief Pri­ma­tol­o­gist of the East Vil­lage Inky zine and author, most recent­ly, of Cre­ative, Not Famous: The Small Pota­to Man­i­festo and Cre­ative, Not Famous Activ­i­ty Book. Fol­low her @AyunHalliday.

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A Newly-Discovered Fresco in Pompeii Reveals a Precursor to Pizza

in Art, Food & Drink, History | June 29th, 2023

Archae­ol­o­gists dig­ging in Pom­peii have unearthed a fres­co con­tain­ing what may be a “dis­tant ances­tor” of the mod­ern piz­za. The fres­co fea­tures a plat­ter with wine, fruit, and a piece of flat focac­cia. Accord­ing to Pom­peii archae­ol­o­gists, the focac­cia does­n’t have toma­toes and moz­zarel­la on top. Rather, it seem­ing­ly sports “pome­gran­ate,” spices, per­haps a type of pesto, and “pos­si­bly condiments”–which is just a short hop, skip and a jump away to piz­za.

Found in the atri­um of a house con­nect­ed to a bak­ery, the fine­ly-detailed fres­co grew out of a Greek tra­di­tion (called xenia) where gifts of hos­pi­tal­i­ty, includ­ing food, are offered to vis­i­tors. Nat­u­ral­ly, the fres­co was entombed (and pre­served) for cen­turies by the erup­tion of Mt. Vesu­vius in 79 A.D.

If you would like to sign up for Open Culture’s free email newslet­ter, please find it here. Or fol­low our posts on Threads, Face­book, BlueSky or Mastodon.

If you would like to sup­port the mis­sion of Open Cul­ture, con­sid­er mak­ing a dona­tion to our site. It’s hard to rely 100% on ads, and your con­tri­bu­tions will help us con­tin­ue pro­vid­ing the best free cul­tur­al and edu­ca­tion­al mate­ri­als to learn­ers every­where. You can con­tribute through Pay­Pal, Patre­on, and Ven­mo (@openculture). Thanks!

Relat­ed Con­tent

Explore the Roman Cook­book, De Re Coquinar­ia, the Old­est Known Cook­book in Exis­tence

How to Bake Ancient Roman Bread from 79 AD: A Video Intro­duc­tion

Watch the Destruc­tion of Pom­peii by Mount Vesu­vius, Re-Cre­at­ed with Com­put­er Ani­ma­tion (79 AD)

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Is Coffee Good for You?: A Coffee Connoisseur Reviews the Scientific Research

in Food & Drink, Health | June 23rd, 2023

Accord­ing to NPR, “Caf­feine is the most wide­ly con­sumed drug in the world. Here in the U.S., accord­ing to a 2022 sur­vey, more than 93% of adults con­sume caf­feine, and of those, 75% con­sume caf­feine at least once a day.” Giv­en the preva­lence of cof­fee world­wide, it pays to ask a sim­ple ques­tion: Is cof­fee good for you? Above, James Hoff­mann, the author of The World Atlas of Cof­fee, pro­vides an overview of research exam­in­ing the rela­tion­ship between cof­fee and var­i­ous dimen­sions of health, includ­ing the gut/microbiome, sleep, can­cer, cog­ni­tion, mor­tal­i­ty and more. If you want to explore this sub­ject more deeply, Hoff­mann has cre­at­ed a list of the research papers reviewed here.

If you would like to sign up for Open Culture’s free email newslet­ter, please find it here. Or fol­low our posts on Threads, Face­book, BlueSky or Mastodon.

If you would like to sup­port the mis­sion of Open Cul­ture, con­sid­er mak­ing a dona­tion to our site. It’s hard to rely 100% on ads, and your con­tri­bu­tions will help us con­tin­ue pro­vid­ing the best free cul­tur­al and edu­ca­tion­al mate­ri­als to learn­ers every­where. You can con­tribute through Pay­Pal, Patre­on, and Ven­mo (@openculture). Thanks!

Relat­ed Con­tent 

Philoso­phers Drink­ing Cof­fee: The Exces­sive Habits of Kant, Voltaire & Kierkegaard

How Cof­fee Affects Your Brain: A Very Quick Primer

Why Cof­fee Naps Will Perk You Up More Than Either Cof­fee, or Naps, Alone

Paul Gia­mat­ti Plays Hon­oré de Balzac, Hopped Up on 50 Cof­fees Per Day

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How to Bake Ancient Roman Bread from 79 AD: A Video Introduction

in Food & Drink, History | June 21st, 2023

Ecce panis—try your hand at the kind of loaf that Mel Brooks’ 2000-year-old man might have sunk his teeth into. Lit­er­al­ly.

In 1930 a loaf of bread dat­ing to AD 79 (the year Vesu­vius claimed two pros­per­ous Roman towns) was exca­vat­ed from the site of a bak­ery in Her­cu­la­neum.

Eighty-three years lat­er, the British Muse­um invit­ed Lon­don chef Gior­gio Locatel­li, above, to take a stab at cre­at­ing an edi­ble fac­sim­i­le for its Pom­peii Live exhi­bi­tion.

The assign­ment wasn’t as easy as he’d antic­i­pat­ed, the telegenic chef con­fess­es before whip­ping up a love­ly brown miche that appears far more mouth-water­ing than the car­bonized round found in the Her­cu­la­neum oven.

His recipe could be mis­tak­en for mod­ern sour­dough, but he also has a go at sev­er­al details that speak to bread’s role in ancient Roman life:

Its perime­ter has a cord baked in to pro­vide for easy trans­port home. Most Roman homes were with­out ovens. Those who didn’t buy direct from a bak­ery took their dough to com­mu­ni­ty ovens, where it was baked for them overnight.

The loaf was scored into eight wedges. This is true of the 80 loaves found in the ovens of the unfor­tu­nate bak­er, Mod­es­tus. Locatel­li spec­u­lates that the wedges could be used as mon­e­tary units, but I sus­pect it’s more a busi­ness prac­tice on par with piz­za-by-the-slice.

(Nowa­days, Roman piz­za is sold by weight, but I digress.)

The crust bears a tell­tale stamp. Locatel­li takes the oppor­tu­ni­ty to brand his with the logo of his Miche­lin-starred restau­rant, Locan­da Locatel­li. His inspi­ra­tion is stamped ‘Prop­er­ty of Cel­er, Slave of Q. Gra­nius Verus.’ To me, this sug­gests the pos­si­bil­i­ty that the bread was found in a com­mu­nal oven.

Locatel­li also intro­duces a Flintston­ian vision when he alludes to spe­cial­ly-devised labor-sav­ing machines to which Roman bak­ers yoked “ani­mals,” pre­sum­ably donkeys…or know­ing the Romans and their class sys­tem, slaves.

His pub­lished recipe is below.  Here is a con­ver­sion chart for those unfa­mil­iar with met­ric mea­sure­ments.

INGREDIENTS

400g biga aci­da (sour­dough)

12g yeast

18g gluten

24g salt

532g water

405g spelt flour

405g whole­meal flour

Melt the yeast into the water and add it into the biga. Mix and sieve the flours togeth­er with the gluten and add to the water mix. Mix for two min­utes, add the salt, and keep mix­ing for anoth­er three min­utes. Make a round shape with it and leave to rest for one hour. Put some string around it to keep its shape dur­ing cook­ing. Make some cuts on top before cook­ing to help the bread rise in the oven and cook for 30–45 min­utes at 200 degrees.

For an even more arti­sanal attempt (and extreme­ly detailed instruc­tions) check out the Arti­san Pom­peii Miche recipe on the Fresh Loaf bread enthu­si­ast com­mu­ni­ty.

True Roman bread for true Romans!

Note: An ear­li­er ver­sion of this post appeared on our site in 2015.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Explore the Roman Cook­book, De Re Coquinar­ia, the Old­est Known Cook­book in Exis­tence

Tast­ing His­to­ry: A Hit YouTube Series Shows How to Cook the Foods of Ancient Greece & Rome, Medieval Europe, and Oth­er Places & Peri­ods

Cook Real Recipes from Ancient Rome: Ostrich Ragoût, Roast Wild Boar, Nut Tarts & More

Ayun Hal­l­i­day is an author, illus­tra­tor, and Chief Pri­ma­tol­o­gist of the East Vil­lage Inky zine. Fol­low her @AyunHalliday

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In Search of the Best Croissant in Protest-Filled Paris

in Food & Drink | May 11th, 2023

An Ital­ian tourist went to Paris in search of the best crois­sant. A nat­ur­al thing to do. Except he did it amidst a city-wide strike, one pre­cip­i­tat­ed by Emmanuel Macron’s attempt to raise the min­i­mum retire­ment age in France. It all makes for a unique kind of food/travel video.

So what boulan­geries (bak­eries) made the list? Tout Autour du Pain on rue de Turenne; Car­ton Paris on Boule­vard de Denain; Stohrer (estab­lished in 1730) on Rue Mon­torgueil; Du Pain et des Idées on Rue Yves Toudic; and Cedric Gro­let OPÉRA on rue de l’Opéra.

And what bak­ery takes the prover­bial cake? Turns out, it’s Du Pain et des Idées. When we vis­it Paris in June, we’ll be sure to stop by…

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via Kot­tke

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Open Culture was founded by Dan Colman.