Food news antipasto

Every year my garden has at least one item that grows prolifically. This year it is cucumbers, and I’ve been running out of ideas to use them before they get limp. I guess I need to follow Logan Moffatt, aka TikTok’s ‘Cucumber Boy’, who has posted myriad ways to enjoy a cucumber salad. Armed with nothing more than a cucumber, mandoline, quart-sized deli container, and some herbs and spices, Moffatt has been shaking his way through summer with endless cucumbers – and going viral in the process.

On a related note, Eater’s Bettina Makalintal offers tips on how to safely use a mandoline slicer without requiring a trip to the emergency room. I carry around a scar at the base of my thumb from a mandoline incident, so I urge you to pay attention to her advice. Thankfully my injury did not require a doctor’s visit, but I wish I had gone more slowly as Makalintal recommends. One too many passes over the blade is all it takes, so be careful!

Food writer Bee Wilson had an op-ed in the NY Times earlier this week with a strategy for making a nation of meat eaters learn to love the humble bean. Telling what not to eat isn’t going to work, she says. Instead, people need to be shown the magic that can be found in a lowly bag or can of beans. Bee says that if the US government wanted to make a push for people to eat more legumes, it should “offer workshops and online videos on delicious, easy ways to cook them.” Would that be enough to budge the typical American consumer? I’m skeptical, but I am already a convert to bean cuisine so I am not the target for such a campaign. A more effective strategy may be to tell people that they aren’t allowed to eat them any longer. We Americans tend to bristle at being told what we can’t do; perhaps this reverse psychology would work.

Last week’s viral trend, the chocolate muffins from the Olympic village in Paris, caused a sensation in the East Village neighborhood of New York City. Local tea shop Isshiki Matcha allegedly imported 300 of the legendary muffins into their store, causing lines to snake for blocks as people queued up for their chance to taste the muffin sensation. An RSVP was required to snag a muffin, so a lot of those people likely came away without that particular treat.

Chef Adam Liaw penned an excellent column about how to determine what kind of cooking oil to use in different scenarios. He tries to cut through the disinformation and mixed messaging that we are bombarded with about various fats in our diet. He doesn’t believe that there is one particular oil that is better for us than all of the others, but rather that the dish that you are making determines whether an oil will be the best choice for that use. Liaw offers advice on how to choose the right fat for the job.

Yotam Ottolenghi wrote this week about the joy of comfort food, trying to pinpoint what it is about a dish that makes it comforting. He starts by offering his definition of comfort: “the ability of a dish to be nostalgic and novel all at once.” He says that portability is at the heart of a lot of comfort food. It’s not like you can lug around your childhood bedroom or the picnic area that brings good memories, but you can try to recreate a special dish that reminds you of a time where your parents offered food to make you feel better.