Food news antipasto

Don’t you hate it when lemon pips escape into whatever you are cooking or baking? A solution to this age-old problem is around the corner. Food & Wine reports that Wonderful Company (the company behind POM Wonderful Juices & Wonderful Pistachios) has developed a commercial seedless lemon variety, available in US stores starting this month. While seedless lemons themselves are not new, getting one that was productive enough for nationwide distribution proved difficult until Wonderful took up the challenge.

If you’ve visited Serious Eats in the past week or so, you may have noticed a sporty new site redesign. The website boasts a new menu with drop-downs (and an accordion-style menu on mobile), which features new ways to search and navigate on the site (although there are still lots more options when you search via EYB). Categories have changed a bit, with “Techniques” expanded into “How-Tos”, “Equipment” re-titled as “Product Recs” , and “Features” morphing into “Culture”.

Feeling withdrawal because the Great British Bake Off (Baking Show) is over? Here’s a terrific interview with winner David Atherton on how he overcame the ‘Paul Hollywood bias’, and an announcement that there is going to be a mashup program between GBBO and The Derry Girls. The show will be a New Year’s special in the UK, with a to-be-determined release date in the US.

The Wall Street Journal isn’t primarily known for its food writing, although Bee Wilson and others contribute fantastic articles to the daily publication. I don’t often link to these articles because of the paywall, but this weekend the WSJ is letting its guard down, literally – all articles are free through 11 November, no registration or subscription required. You can start with Bee Wilson’s recent piece on the misguided obsession with authenticity.

With all the hype over ‘plant-based meats’ like the Impossible burger, you might not think that anything like this has ever been considered before. Not only has it been contemplated, it’s been done (well, except for the ‘bleeding’ part): the Chinese have a long history of making faux meats. From soy- and peanut-based wings to faux duck made from tofu, there are dozens of examples of this. Fuchsia Dunlop explores this in her book The Food of Sichuan, where she explains that during the Han dynasty, Buddhist monks would make fake-meat dishes for visiting guests.

Photo of All-American portobello burgers from Eating Well Magazine