South Korean fried chicken franchises are popping up all over the country. Tight competition is squeezing owners.
Tag: food
BEIJING — If you’ve ever had trouble ordering at Starbucks, just know you probably have plenty of company: millions of Chinese coffee lovers. When one customer recently posted an open letter online to the chief executive of Starbucks in China to complain about the way the American coffee chain calls its different size cups, the […]
The heir to the Hiltl dynasty of vegetarian restaurateurs decided veggie eateries need not be sober, puritanical settings, like the one his great-grandfather founded in 1898. Vodka, for example, is vegan.
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Sizzling Sardines
Once the fish had been caught, the fisherman’s wife in Nazaré would put them directly on the grill for breakfast. Bom apetite!
PORTO ALEGRE — Sitting on the bed in her white hospital gown, Jéssica Almeida was devouring a hamburger. But the scene is deceiving. In total, the 17-year-old spent a month in the hospital and lost 10 kilograms (22 pounds). Such weight loss, which might indicate malnutrition, is common among hospital patients in Brazil, and it […]
CHINON — Serge Desazars’ bodyguards are very hairy. Hip-Hop, a two-year-old Springer, jumps whenever a new visitor arrives. Serge lets out a smile, surreptitiously materializing on the unemotional farmer’s face. Hip-Hop is clearly too playful for this former international director for the clothing brands Petit Bateau, Céline and Holland & Holland. Desazars, who abandoned carpeted […]
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Herculean Skewer
This was a souvlaki of epic proportions, near the ancient site of Mycenae in southern Greece.
OCUMARE — It’s midday on this Thursday, and hundreds of people are squeezing inside a supermarket in Ocumare, a poor city about an hour’s drive south of Caracas. Armed police officers are allowing people in, but just a few at a time, infuriating the multitude massed outside since dawn to buy corn flour at a […]
BEIJING — In his book on Confucianism, Taiwanese academic Kung Peng-Cheng explored how Chinese people have historically had among the fewest cultural restraints related to the food and drink they consume. “They eat almost anything,” Kung remarked. Even alcohol, strictly prohibited in many societies for religious reasons, has only occasionally been banned in Chinese history, […]
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Paella Epicenter
If you’re eating paella in a restaurant in Valencia, there’s a good chance you’re eating the real deal: The authentic paella valenciana was born there.
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Spiny Delicacy
From September to April in southern France, seafood lovers can participate in the “oursinades” festivals. Sea urchins are cut open, and you eat the gonads raw, with a squeeze of lemon.
BOGOTÁ — Mmmmm. How about the World’s Largest Rodent on your Easter menu? That’s right. The capybara, a bigger and arguably uglier cousin of the guinea pig, may soon be legally served in the homes and restaurants of Colombia, after having been classified as a threatened species and thus banned from markets and menus. That […]
Did you know the funny yellow stuff was born in the land of beurre?
Five centuries after Spanish conquistadors took over Mexico, Mexican billionaires are busy buying up chunks of Spain. After four years of recession, it was the perfect match between cash-rich customers and a needy economy.
Orthorexia is to eating right what anorexia is to eating less. It’s the condition of imposing such stringent control over one’s diet, insisting on eating only healthy or organic food, and it is becoming a health concern in developed nation
BEIJING — Throughout the world, people eat in one of three ways: with a knife and fork, with chopsticks, or with their hands. Though the knife-and-fork folk seem to be the most powerful and widespread group, those who use chopsticks most clearly reflects human wisdom when they eat. Nobody is sure when chopsticks were invented, […]
-OpEd- BOGOTÁ — The Colombian Health Ministry wants to tax sugary drinks. The Supreme Court is ordering parliament to regulate labeling on food products so consumers know which ones contain genetically modified ingredients. A nationwide debate has begun on the poor quality of school meals, as the regional head of the World Food Programme tells […]
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Time Of The Seasoning
See those red garlands adorning this house on the shore of Lake Balaton? They’re chili peppers, from which Hungarians extract paprika they use to season stews and soups, like the famous goulash.
As vegetable wholesalers around Buenos Aires ignore government calls to moderate prices, angry shoppers may resort to their last weapon.
It’s possible to spend an entire day in Monaco, on the French Riviera, off the tourist trail, far from ostentatious jewelry and pampered princesses.
Slow food, slow journalism, slow photography … Just when the world seemed to be getting faster and faster, some folks decided to cool things down. The Italians were the first to put on the brakes when a protest against the opening of a (fast food) McDonald’s in Rome, in 1986, morphed into the Slow Food […]
MOSCOW — A new crackdown has begun on food illegally imported from Western countries that have imposed sanctions on Russia. But rather than just targeting goods brought in across the border, Russian officials now have the go-ahead to raid shops, warehouses and grocery chains throughout the country. Although most prohibited goods are stopped at the […]
-Analysis- MUNICH — Slaughterhouses and farms are becoming increasingly larger in size. Tracing the origins of an animal has become next to impossible as our sources of meat are increasingly transported across Europe, and the world. This not only affects the animals but inevitably us as well. The schnitzel on your plate was once a […]
TURIN — From the forbidden apple to Esau’s lentils, the Bible offers a divine feast of food-related storytelling. How should Cronus, the Titan who ate his children, be classified? With the cannibals, or among those with gastroesophageal reflux disease? If you want to know how important it is to eat healthy food, consult the Bible. […]
Saying that a starred rating in the Bible of fine dining actually turns off locals, Donatella restaurant in Oviglio has decided to give back the precious star.
The holes in Swiss cheese have stumped scientists for nearly a century. Now a team in Switzerland says they’ve found the holy grail.
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Surprise Meal
As I’ve already pointed out, eating in China is a singular experience. And though the stalls of the soup vendors in the streets of Xi’an, in central China, smelled delicious, you have to keep an open mind and expect something … well … exotic in your bowl.
VIGEVANO — For one traffic warden in this northern Italian city, “a structure with a circular base, 30 centimeters in diameter and 30 centimeters in height, with an attached tray containing water” was illegally occupying public land. For the bar owner who put it there, it was just a doggy water bowl left as courtesy […]
A second Obica location has now opened in New York, bringing the global chain’s high-end authentic mozzarella experience to a new level of global expansion.
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International Delicacies
I’m not exactly an adventurous eater, but I did taste that alligator pie in Lafayette, Louisiana, during a big jazz festival. It tasted like veal. I also nibbled on a fried scorpion in China — tasteless — and, together with 12 fellow travelers in South Africa, ate a gigantic omelette made with a single ostrich […]
If you want milk or Berlin-made vodka, bring your own bottles. At Original Unpackaged, there’s no cardboard or shrink wrap, nothing jarred or canned. Is this the smart consumer of the future?
After monks went on a hunger strike to push for a citywide ban on animal slaughter, the local government declared Palitana a meat-free zone. But the city’s Muslims are not happy.
TURIN — As surprising as it may sound, what we order in restaurants has very little to do with what we actually want. It’s all about the menu. A recent study, conducted by Cornell University researchers on more than 200 menus and 300 meals in New York, shows that only two things really dictate what […]
Parents and health experts in had voiced outrage that the American fast-food giant was behind a program to teach German students about good nutrition.
PARIS — The figures are dizzying. According to the Rome-based Food and Agriculture Organization, 1.3 billion tons of food — one-third of the world’s total food products — are thrown away or wasted each year. Among the food we needlessly toss are yogurt pots that have passed their “best before” date and potatoes that aren’t […]
Russia may be officially forbidding Western food on grocery shelves, but facing skyrocketing prices and shortages, it’s allowing Belarus and Kazakhstan to act as intermediaries.
TIGRE — Is there a place they haven’t thought of yet to hide drugs? How about a meat pie? Argentine police have uncovered a so-called “narcopizzeria” in the district of Tigre in the northern outskirts of Buenos Aires, which supplied customers with cocaine hidden in “pizzas, pies and chicken.” A report in Clarín showed pictures […]
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How Much For That Nothing In The Window?
Even if Romania’s growth rate was among the highest in eastern Europe when we traveled there in 1966, many shop windows were nevertheless empty. And things weren’t going to get better, as the country was just beginning to become familiar with a certain Nicolae Ceausescu. Interestingly, it’s in this city of Timisoara that the Ceausescu […]
Master Chef and other TV shows celebrating fine food are all the rage. But in real life, both rich and poor are increasingly buying pre-packaged meals. Reflections from a London-based Sicilian.
If you’re here searching for the secret to eternal life forget it, we’re not there yet. But in the meantime, here’s some supercentenarians from around the world with their own secrets to a long life. Some might surprise you!