Hot Tamales

For over a century, the tamale has been a staple in the Mississippi Delta after Mexican and Tejano migrant workers brought them to the region. Locals adopted the dish, and tamale stands and carts became common throughout Mississippi. Robert Johnson sang about them in 1936 (above).

More:

“Hot tamales are a big part of Mississippi Delta cuisine,” Janet K. Keeler,  Tampa Bay Times

“Hot Tamale Trail,” Southern Foodways Project

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Dumplings

Miranda Brown traces the history of dumplings in this TED-Ed video, narrated by Pen-Pen Chen. Animation by Na Na Na Studio.

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Food Commercials Are Expensive. Here’s Why.

It costs hundreds of thousands of dollars to make TV commericials for fast food mouth-watering and eye-opening. It’s not just the special cameras and food stylists. It takes engineering, robots, and catapults. Abby Narishkin explains.

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Pope Francis: Cured by Pizza?

Pope Francis entered Rome’s Gemelli Polyclinic hospital last Wednesday with a case of bronchitis. He was discharged on Saturday after a treatment of antibiotics and pizza. His Holiness really, really, really likes pizza.

More:

“Vatican: Pope OK to leave hospital, has pizza, baptizes baby,” Frances D’Emilio, Associated Press

“A Timeline of the Pope’s Obsessive Love Affair With Pizza,” Wil Fulton, Thrillist

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Image by Mike Licht. Download a copy here. Creative Commons license; credit Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com

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Cookie Wars!

Phil Edwards covers the 20th century cookie wars. Spoiler: Oreos won. Why? Technology, distribution, consolidation, and marketing.

More:

“Uneeda Business History: the Nabisco Story, Gary Hoover, American Business History Center

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TV Dinners Changed How America Cooks

Decades before kitchens got microwaves, frozen TV dinners changed how Americans cook and eat. An NBC News video by Kate Sammer and Jeff Morganteen:

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Top image (“TV Dinner”) by Mike Licht. Download a copy here. Creative Commons license; credit Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com

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FDA Okays Lab-Grown Chicken

The Food and Drug Administration has given the go-ahead to a lab-grown chicken product from GOOD Meat, and the company announced that chef José Andrés will serve it in one of his DC restaurants soon. But not so fast — the product has to be cleared by the U.S. Department of Agriculture first. GOOD Meat has been serving its lab-grown chicken in high-end Singapore restaurants since 2020.

This is the second synthetic chicken product cleared by the FDA. The first was from UPSIDE Foods back in November. There may be as many as 99 companies trying to develop cell-cultured meat. While the market for these food products is uncertain, this is a great time to be selling the bioreactors in which the stuff is “grown” and the nutrients that “feed” it.

More:

“A second lab-grown chicken producer got a step closer to hitting the shelves,” Julia Malleck, Quartz

“Lab-grown meat moves closer to American dinner plates,” By Leah Douglas, Reuters

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Image by Mike Licht. Download a copy here. Creative Commons license; credit Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com

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Thick and Tangy: The History of Ketchup

The history of ketchup, now a pantry staple, goes back centuries, but the ubiquitous condiment didn’t even include tomatoes until 1812. A Weird History Food video.

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Artificial Flavors

How did we get artificial flavors? Danielle Bainbridge explains, for The Origins of Everthing, from PBS Digital Studios.

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Noodles

Chef Liu, originally from Hong Kong and now in Manila, shows how to make lamian, hand-pulled noodles. Presto!

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