New recipe discoveries. Food stories. From around the world.
Welcome to The Menu, our weekly newsletter and blog. Smart stories, curious facts, and recipes worth making.
Ancient Rome Left Us a Cookbook. The Menu Gets Weird Fast.
Suppose tonight's recipe begins: "Scald the flamingo." That's not satire. Ancient Rome left behind a cookbook filled with birds, dormice, fish sauce, honey, vinegar and enough pepper to make you wonder what exactly was…
Three French food classics that aren’t quite what they seem
Croissants are French. Coq au vin is ancient. Vichyssoise was obviously invented somewhere near a château by a man named Henri wearing an alarming amount of…
It’s 2019 in Ethiopia. Dinner’s right on time.
Your phone says September 2026. In Ethiopia, it's 2019. On Friday, Ethiopians welcomed a new year with family, flowers, coffee and a table built for serious…
Vietnam is ancient. Pho isn’t.
Pho may feel timeless, but Vietnam's famous noodle soup is barely more than a century old. Its rise runs through migration, war, diaspora and a surprising…
Adobo has a Spanish name. The dish is another story.
Say "adobo," and Spain enters the room before dinner does. The word is Spanish. The food has a more complicated passport.
India has no single curry. Why?
Order “curry” and you might get chickpeas, paneer, lentils, meat, seafood or something entirely different. India has no single curry, so how did one word end…
Wait, kimchi wasn’t always red?
Picture kimchi, and chances are you see cabbage stained a deep, fiery red. But kimchi had a long life before red pepper became part of the…