The Juicy Bits
In honor of barbecue season now in full swing, we are introducing a new permanent section to Digest This. BBQ Hot Spot will feature top stories in the barbecue world all year long. This month's key BBQ news? A peek behind the jerk curtain of Caribbean barbecue. And now that the USDA has approved the sale of cell-cultured chicken in America, you can make your favorite jerk chicken recipe with lab-grown meat. Yay! Maybe you'd like to wash down that barbecue with America's best-selling beer? That would now be Modelo Especial, as Bud Light was recently dethroned from the #1 spot. Another recent #1: Central in Lima, Peru, has been named the #1 restaurant in the world by the "World's 50 Best" organization. Yes, it's award season, and you may be interested in the winners of the James Beard Awards announced recently in Chicago. If you're a fine dining superfan, you may also want to book reservations in Colorado, America's newest (and only 6th) dining destination to receive Michelin stars for its restaurants. Finally, it appears archaeologists have discovered that pizza may not have originated in Naples, Italy, after all. Maybe it can be traced back to ancient Pompeii. Here's to a world of new discoveries!
–Dave Joachim
Restaurants
The Best Restaurant In The World Is Central In Lima, Peru
Image Source: Céline Clanet/Bloomberg
The "World's 50 Best" organization has been ranking restaurants around the globe since 2002. This year, the top spot was taken by Central in Lima. Others in the top 10 include Disfrutar in Barcelona, Diverxo in Madrid, Asador Etxebarri in Atxondo Spain, Alchemist in Copenhagen, Maido in Lima, Lido 84 in Gardone Riviera Italy, Atomix in New York City, Quintonil in Mexico City, and Table by Bruno Verjus in Paris. If you're traveling to any of those cities this summer, now you know where to eat!
More Restaurant News
Colorado Becomes 6th US Dining Destination To Receive Michelin Stars For Its Restaurants
Oyster Master Guild Prepares To Certify First Master Oyster Sommelier, AKA Mermmelier
Feds Say They Prevented $3 Billion In Pandemic Restaurant Aid From Going Astray
NYC Sets First-In-Nation Minimum Wage For Food Delivery Workers and DoorDash Shifts Business Model To Allow Hourly Minimum Wage
Sick Restaurant Workers Linked To 40% Of Food Poisoning Outbreaks, CDC Says
Una Pizza Napoletana Remains #1 On List Of Top 50 US Pizzerias
Beverages
Bud Light Dethroned As Top-Selling Beer Brand In US After Boycott
Image Source: Natalie Behring/Getty Images
Modelo Especial is currently "the number one" beer in America, its US distributor said, after sales data showed it outsold longtime industry leader Bud Light. Modelo Especial store sales topped $333 million in May, a 15.6% rise over the same period last year, compared with Bud Light's $297 million, a 22.8% fall, according to Circana/IRI data. Bud Light's sales have been declining since April when the brand collaborated with transgender social media influencer Dylan Mulvaney, a partnership that sparked a conservative boycott. The rejection is working, yet Bud Light remains the top-selling beer brand in America for 2023 overall, according to NielsenIQ. We'll see how things end up once the NFL season gets underway.
BBQ Hot Spot
Journalist Unravels The History Of Caribbean Barbecue
Image Source: Greg Dupree/Food & Wine
Hallmarks of Caribbean barbecue include allspice, vinegar, Scotch bonnet chiles, and tropical fruit such as guava, according to food journalist Kayla Stewart. These elements can be traced to the Taino, an Indigenous people who inhabited various Caribbean islands. Today's barbecue in Jamaica, Cuba, Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic, Haiti, and Trinidad and Tobago was also influenced by African communities and European colonizers who brought new ingredients and cooking techniques to the islands. Of course, fire and smoke remain central to this barbecue style, and jerk remains its most well-known expression, in which allspice (berries of the pimento tree) creates a flavoring paste for food cooked over pimento wood. And with that story, I am now hungry for jerk pork and a cold beer.
Cooking
James Beard Foundation Announces 2023 Award Winners
Image Source: James Beard Foundation
The "Oscars of the food world" were held last month in Chicago. Among the Media Award winners were Andy Baraghani in the general cookbook category for his debut book The Cook You Want to Be, J. Kenji López-Alt for his single subject book The Wok: Recipes and Techniques and Kevin Bludso in the restaurant category for his Bludso’s BBQ Cookbook: A Family Affair in Smoke and Soul. The Restaurant and Chef award winners included Friday Saturday Sunday in Philadelphia for Outstanding Restaurant and chef Rob Rubba of Oyster Oyster in Washington, D.C. for Outstanding Chef. Congrats all!
Supply Chain
US Suspends Food Aid To Ethiopia, Citing Widespread Theft
Image Source: Ben Curtis/Associated Press
The US Agency for International Development (USAID) suspended all food aid to Ethiopia after an investigation found “widespread and coordinated” theft of emergency rations. A brief by the Humanitarian and Resilience Donor Group said the scheme “appeared to be orchestrated by federal and regional government of Ethiopia entities, with military units across the country benefiting from humanitarian assistance.” The US is the biggest single donor to Ethiopia, providing $1.8 billion in humanitarian assistance, including food aid, in 2022. In total, 20 million people across Ethiopia rely on food aid because of conflict and drought. It appears the government decided its military needed the food most. USAID intends to resume food assistance once they are "confident in the integrity of delivery systems to get assistance to its intended recipients."
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Last Bite
Pompeii Discovery Depicts What Could Be A 2,000-Year-Old Form Of Pizza
Image Source: Archaeological Park of Pompeii
Pizza in Pompeii?! But pizza was born in Naples, no? Archaeologists recently deepened our understanding of pizza history after unearthing a fresco (mural) in ancient Pompeii depicting what appears to be a round pizza or focaccia. The image was discovered on the wall of a house attached to a bakery, and the flatbread is topped with pomegranate, a fruit resembling a date, spices, and what may be an early type of pesto. "It was an ancient form of pizza," says Gino Sorbillo, owner of one of the oldest pizzerias in Naples, which is only 20 miles from Pompeii. “In ancient Pompeii, we already knew that there were forms of flatbread, made with grains, water, salt and maybe beer as a leavening agent,” he adds. Maybe this flatbread simply wasn't known as "pizza" until Neapolitans topped it with tomatoes and mozzarella. Either way, one thing is for sure: pizza is not made with a base of pulverized cauliflower. Go ahead, fight me on it.
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