The Juicy Bits
Tired of seeing high food prices? So is the Federal Trade Commission. A recent FTC investigation found that major grocery chains began price gouging during the pandemic and have kept prices unnecessarily high ever since. Go FTC! Strong-arm those fat cats into making everyday food affordable again! Or maybe you're tired of your old cookbooks? Find some inspiration in this spring's crop of new cooking titles, featuring everything from tropical island food to dishes made with bourbon. Here's one ingredient you may not have considered cooking with: ants! A team of San Diego food scientists can help light the way with their recent discovery that black ants contain bright, lemony aroma compounds; chicatana ants bring fatty, nutty, roasted flavors to foods; and weaver ants contain sweet, caramel-like flavor compounds. Perhaps you prefer good-old pork chops and bacon? If so, you'll love the cooking of Janaína Torres, who was just named the World's Best Female Chef. Torres runs A Casa do Porco restaurant in São Paulo, Brazil, a temple of appreciation for all things porcine. Finally, if you're looking to improve your own powers of flavor perception, you may want to undergo sommelier training. Scientists have found that learning to taste and describe various types of wine reshapes the brain's chemosensory acuity. Who knew? Pardon me while I pour a glass of pinot to improve my brain function! —Dave Joachim
Cooking
Fresh Spring Cookbooks Satisfy Every Culinary Craving
Image Source: Andrea D’Aquino
Feel like enjoying a plate of tropical island food? Or a tray of Italian appetizers? Whether you dream of recipes for hot pasta or cold pasta, for sauces or dips, for cooking with bourbon or cooking on your sheet pan, for preserved food or neo-hippie food, for Palestinian food, Jewish or Korean food, for cakes and other desserts, or for a sneak peek behind the curtain of #FoodTok, you'll find everything you hoped for in this spring's crop of inventive cookbooks. Food & Wine picks their top 24, while Epicurious widens the lens with 80 all-inclusive selections.
Restaurants
São Paulo's Janaína Torres Named World's Best Female Chef 2024
Image Source: Marcus Steinmeyer
"The World's 50 Best" organization ranks Brazil's A Casa do Porco the world's #12 restaurant, and recently named its chef, Janaína Torres, the World's Best Female Chef for 2024. Torres' temple of pork features wood-fired slow-roasted whole pig, artisan sausages, and other odes to porcine passion. The chef opened her first restaurant, O Bar da Dona Onça, in 2008, and now also runs Hot Pork (an organic hotdog kiosk), Sorveteria do Centro ice cream shop, and the Merenda da Cidade canteen, all in downtown São Paulo where she grew up. This award is voted on by 1,080 independent restaurant industry experts worldwide and will help Torres continue her work widening the culinary table as an advocate for dining accessibility, social inclusivity, and food education. Congrats Chef!
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Supply Chain
Pandemic Price Gouging Ran Rampant Among Food Retailers, FTC Report Finds
Image Source: Hiroko Masuike
Are skyrocketing food prices simply a result of retailers' rising costs? A new Federal Trade Commission report says no. “Some firms seem to have used rising costs as an opportunity to further hike prices to increase their profits," the report reads, "and profits remain elevated even as supply chain pressures have eased.” Profit margins for food retailers peaked in 2015 at 5.6%; that is, until the pandemic, when profit margins rose above 6% in 2021, then above 7% in 2023. The investigation also found that retailers like Walmart and Kroger pressured suppliers to favor them over smaller rivals, bolstering the FTC's challenge to Kroger's proposed acquisition of Albertsons. Time to rein in the price gouging.
Health
Ultra-Processed Food May Increase Risk For Certain Cancers And Other Illnesses, Study Finds
Image Source: Dan Kitwood
Ultra-processed foods contain substances not found in home kitchens, such as high-fructose corn syrup, artificial flavors, color enhancers, emulsifiers, and anti-caking agents. A recent umbrella study of more than 9 million people published in the British Medical Journal found that people who overconsume these foods have an increased risk of anxiety, depression, obesity, metabolic syndrome, colorectal cancer, and premature death. You might want to go easy on that leftover Easter candy.
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Science
Food Scientists Parse The Flavor Profiles Of Edible Ants
Image Source: Changqi Liu
Fresh out of lemon wedges for your seafood? You can substitute common black ants, according to Changqi Liu, a food science professor at San Diego State University. Black ants are full of formic acid, which gives them a tart flavor profile similar to lemon juice and vinegar. Liu and his team recently analyzed the odor profiles of several ant species, finding that Mexican chicatana ants contain aldehydes and pyrazines that bring fatty, nutty, roasted aromas to foods, and weaver ants contain pyrazines and pyrroles that bring sweet, caramel-like flavors. Many cultures consider ants a delicacy, and if you make it Pujol, one of Mexico City's finest restaurants, you may unknowingly get a taste of chicatana ants in chef Enrique Olvera's delicious mayonnaise served with steamed baby heritage corn.
Last Bite
Discovery Of 8,600-Year-Old Bread Gives Rise To Half-Baked Claims
Image Source: Getty Images
Archaeologists in southern Turkey's ancient Neolithic site of Çatalhöyük recently discovered unbaked, leavened bread containing wheat, barley, and pea seeds dated to around 6,600 BCE. "We can say that this finding in Çatalhöyük is the world's oldest bread," claimed Ali Umut Turkcan, Head of Anadolu University's Excavation Team. However, back in 2018, researchers in Jordan uncovered an older, unleavened flatbread at the Black Desert Shubayqa site that dated to around 12,400 BCE. Which country can lay claim to the world's oldest bread? It depends on how you define bread. If unleavened breads such as lavash and tortillas are indeed breads, then Turkey's recent claim to the world's oldest bread doesn't hold water.
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