world
You may feel like it's cold where you live, but in the Arctic, the average temperature is well below freezing all year round. In winter, it's also pitch black f…
If we at Gastropod were asked to name a perfect food, the oyster would be at the top of our list. Oysters are pretty much always our answer to the question of w…
You've probably never heard of David Fairchild. But if you've savored kale, mango, peaches, dates, grapes, a Meyer lemon, or a glass of craft beer lately, you'v…
About ten years ago, insects were constantly being hyped as the future of food. Headlines proclaimed that, within the decade, everyone would be eating bugs as p…
To painters and poets in late-1800s France, absinthe was "the green muse" or the "green fairy," an almost magical potion that promised vivid dreams, wild ideas,…
During World War II, the Soviet city of Leningrad was surrounded, cut off from food supplies for nearly two and a half years. People were desperate: they ate bo…
In 1870, a strange fruit arrived on the docks in New Jersey, starting an industry that would change the world. That fruit was a banana, and, although it was a s…
Yes, it's true: the banana we know and love is going the way of the dodo bird. An incurable strain of the fungal Panama disease known as TR4 is currently wiping…
Today, 'vanilla' often means boring, and yet the edible seedpod of this Central American orchid is one of the most expensive spices in the world, not to mention…
Reality TV may be popular around the world, but it's also roundly mocked as formulaic and contrived. So, can that kind of fragile fantasy world meaningfully inf…
