Inside fortress Maotai: secrets of China hard liquor that’s rocket fuel for...
Visitors detect Maotai, nestled on the slopes of a tiny valley in the north of Guizhou province, long before they see the small town. The stench from its fermentation tanks is carried on the wind, and...
View ArticleNew Philippine English words in Oxford English dictionary give us food for...
Many in Hong Kong have been belatedly celebrating the September 2017 inclusion of Hong Kong English expression “add oil!” in the Oxford English Dictionary. The most recent update, released this month,...
View ArticleYasmin Khan’s flavours of Palestine: recipes for kefte, hummus, pickled...
What is the Palestinian kitchen, asks Yasmin Khan in Zaitoun: Recipes and Stories from the Palestinian Kitchen (2018). “As I write, there is no country called Palestine, it hasn’t existed since the...
View ArticleAlain Ducasse is a businessman but Alain Chapel is the ‘god of cooking’, says...
What are your childhood memories of food? “I was born in 1967, in the town of Flers, in Normandy, France, but growing up we lived in Paris as my parents were charcutiers and caterers there. Every...
View ArticleNew Zealand avocado farmers arm themselves against opportunists and organised...
It was the wrong side of dawn when the makeshift alarm sounded, its shrill whirr slicing through the frigid winter night. Ashby Whitehead sprang from his bed and ran to his ute, hoping that his...
View ArticleVines that survived Europe’s phylloxera epidemic in the 1800s, and the wines...
There exist, in a few rare pockets in unexpected places, grape vines that survived the “great wine blight” of the late 1800s, which decimated the vineyards of France before moving on to the rest of...
View ArticleHow to make pad thai: recipe for popular Thai stir-fry is easy to master
Pad thai is available on street corners across Thailand, but if you live elsewhere, you will probably need to go to a restaurant to get your fix. Making it at home requires a lot of preparation, but it...
View ArticleThe Nordic Baking Book – an ambitiously broad take on cooking in multiple...
As you’d expect from a guide to all types of baking in Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, Sweden, Greenland and the Faroe Islands, The Nordic Baking Book (2018), by Magnus Nilsson, is large, coming in...
View ArticleChef Paul Pairet on his three-Michelin-star restaurant Ultraviolet and an...
Has anything changed since Ultraviolet received its third Michelin star last year? “It hasn’t changed at all – at least commercially. It’s a very small place [10 seats at one table], so it has always...
View ArticleThe 2,000 year history of China’s ‘national liquor’ Maotai: truthful tale or...
As part of the ongoing effort to project Chinese culture, or “soft power”, abroad, a baijiu college has been established in Sichuan province, at a cost of 400 million yuan (US$58 million), with the...
View ArticleFrench vs Californian wines: the blind tasting that pitted old world against...
A popular dinner-party game among oenophiles is to blind taste wines and try to guess what they are. The best-known blind-tasting event was the 1976 Judgment of Paris, which pitted Californian...
View ArticleHow to make Philippine pork belly adobo – a one-pot meal to keep you warm...
When the weather turns cooler, we start to crave hearty, warming dishes. These two recipes – one from the Philippines, the other Cantonese – take a little time to prepare, because the meat needs to...
View ArticleGordon Ramsay: ‘I never wanted to be a TV chef’, in fact he did not intend to...
Mother’s little helper I was born in Scotland in 1966 and lived there until I was five. Most of my childhood was spent in Stratford-upon-Avon, in England. Growing up I used to watch Mum cook; she would...
View ArticleFrom paella to Ferran Adrià: Russian writer Anya von Bremzen recalls history...
Russian author Anya von Bremzen has observed how the cuisine of Spain has changed over the many years she has been returning there. “The first time I visited the country was in the early eighties, as...
View ArticleSan Francisco Chinatown chef’s quest to earn respect for Chinese-American...
Is this your first trip to Hong Kong? “No. The first time I came to Hong Kong was when I was in high school, on a family trip with my parents and grandparents for a big tour of China in 1995. We came...
View ArticleMalaysian grandmothers share recipes for classic dishes – don’t judge this...
Food snobs are often disdainful of community-produced cookbooks. It is true that many of them are bad – the type wherein PTA parents contribute recipes that are popular with their children, and which...
View ArticleChar siu and pineapple bun chocolates, anyone? 3D printed treats inspired by...
Pineapple bun, milk tea, French toast, red bean, caramelised char siu and egg tart – these are a few of the iconic Hong Kong flavours that have inspired a new gift box of 3D-printed chocolates by...
View ArticleA juicy Thanksgiving turkey recipe with bread and Chinese sausage stuffing
Turkey isn’t the most flavourful bird, but it is an easy option if you need to feed a large group, as at Thanksgiving (which this year is on Thursday) and Christmas. And there are a few ways to make...
View ArticleSeven Bordeaux bargains: excellent value everyday wines that the average...
The wines of Bordeaux have long been considered as being out of reach for many drinkers. First-growths sell for thousands of dollars and even fifth-growth wines can cost a pretty penny. But winemakers...
View ArticleHow to make salt and pepper shrimp taste fresh and juicy: keep the shells on...
Shrimp and prawns differ in several ways, including anatomically, but when it comes to cooking, most people use them interchangeably, unless a specific type is called for (such as carabineros and...
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