Food news antipasto

The croissant is one of France’s most easily identifiable pastries. The flaky crescents are adored and emulated around the globe. Many chefs have made mashups of the butter-laden treats and other well known pastries, resulting in the Cronut and the Cruffin. The Ritz Paris’ renowned pastry chef François Perret has a new way to put a spin on the beloved croissant. He is not combining it with another pastry, but instead wants to change the shape – but he is not giving it a new name. Can you still call it a croissant if it is not a crescent?

Fifteen years ago American Morgan Spurlock documented what happened when he ate only fast food for a month, resulting in the short film Super Size Me. British TV presenter Dr. Chris van Tulleken is following a similar model as he explains what happened after he challenged himself to eat a diet of ultra-processed foods for a month. The results, as you might expect, were not increased vigor and good health.

When the pandemic hit, most of us drastically changed the way we purchased our food. Online grocery shopping became the norm for many, and people tended to avoid going to multiple different stores to buy ingredients they couldn’t find at their local grocer. For me, this meant I was not going to the Asian supermarket that I would normally drive past during my commute. It was difficult to find the items I would frequently purchase there, but that is only because I did not explore the rapidly expanding online options. As Vice’s Bettina Makalintal explains, there has never been a better time to shop online for Asian groceries.

If you were to name the best wine producing regions in the world, England would probably not land at or near the top of your list. That might change after you read an article in The Independent (free registration required) that explains why signs in the English wine industry point to the “genesis of a brand new wine region” that could not merely hold its own with other excellent producers, but could even surpass them.

I like to keep a well-stocked pantry, and that includes having items such as dates, freeze-dried fruit, and dehydrated mushrooms. Dried foods such as these can add a significant flavor boost to your meals, and those examples barely scratch the surface of what’s available. Food and Wine takes a peek inside the pantries of several chefs to bring us 22 dried foods that they always keep in stock to elevate their cooking.