A few weeks ago, ‘curry’ popped up on my YellowDig feed. I had just released a blogpost about Massaman curry , and that prompted a question about terminology. One student wanted to know whether we should even use the word ‘curry’. The question came from a good place: an interview by cookbook author Priya Krishna. Krishna thinks that we should ditch the term curry altogether. Here’s what she says: Curry was a word that was popularized as a way to make blanket assumptions about

Like most people, I’ve expanded my cooking repertoire since the pandemic began. In part, I credit Costco for this. On a lark, my husband ordered pork tenderloin. Expecting a pound of meat, we were surprised by an enormous log, seven pounds in total, sealed in a vacuum pack. “That’s a lot of pork,” my husband said with a sigh. “What can you make?” I looked through my recipes and smiled, “Vindaloo.” Vindaloo with guabao (April 2020) ***** While vindaloo is not yet a household

In March 2012, a chance trip to a restaurant changed my life. No, I didn’t meet Barak Obama, the Dali Lama, or Brad Pitt. For the budding food historian in me, it was more momentous. I encountered Biryani. I was in Toronto, playing hooky from a dreary conference. Tired of panels, I decided to wander around the city with my husband, checking out all of the hipster cafes. By early evening, the exercise left us famished. “I’m hungry,” the husband declared. “What’s the plan?” We

The idea for this blog goes back a ways. Five summers ago, I was sitting at a table with Yang Yong, a visiting student from China. We were doing what scholars usually do: acting like gluttons for punishment. So we decided to translate a group of medical manuscripts, discovered in a tomb from ancient Northwest China (first century AD). Each day, we sat at my desk on the fifth floor of Thayer and put our endurance to the test. Character by character, we transcribed the Chinese

The question is a real one. It was something that the Japanese government actually considered only a few years ago. In 2006, the Japanese government decided it had to act. The number of Japanese restaurants overseas had swelled, reaching in the tens of thousands. Some officials were thrilled (what a great opportunity, they thought, to exercise "soft" power). Others were alarmed. On their travels abroad, Japanese officials discovered that the "Japanese" food often looked and t