Culinate Main Feed

Sweet on liqueurs — Take another look at these spirits

2012-05-16T22:06:13Z

Our resident bartender welcomes a revival of the sweet stuff.

Testing recipe writers — No, you’re not a slow cook

2012-05-15T14:51:44Z

If you’ve ever been the victim of a recipe that takes far longer than promised, you’ll probably enjoy Tom Scocca’s Slate post on why recipe writers lie about how long it takes to caramelize onions.

“Onions do not caramelize in five or 10 minutes. They never have, they never will — yet recipe writers have never stopped pretending that they will,” he writes.

The problem is not limited to onion cooking. Again and again, recipes promise to be quick — short prep times, with minimal hands-on activity — only to disappoint the busy home cook. So what gives?

Scocca’s take: “Telling the truth about caramelized onions would turn a lot of dinner-in-half-an-hour recipes into dinner-in-a-little-over-an-hour recipes.”

In the never-ending quest to make cooking seem quick, recipe writers have shaved minutes off of each step in an attempt to appeal to the kitchen-averse. The fact is that unless you have a cadre of prep cooks at the ready, most recipes take longer than they say they will. And until someone invents a faster stove, onions will need 45 minutes to caramelize.

Culinate Main Feed

Sweet on liqueurs — Take another look at these spirits

Testing recipe writers — No, you’re not a slow cook

A Different Kind of Luxury — Japanese Lessons in Simple Living and Inner Abundance

Coupon economics — But no food politics

Calling out endocrine disruptors — Nicholas Kristof takes up the cause

Tracie McMillan — The undercover journalist

Still buzzing — Neonicotinoids are everywhere

Jolly green asparagus — The spears of spring

The pro-meaters — The winners are in

The new GMO corn opposition — On farming as well as health grounds

Wabi-sabi cookery — Cooking is a constant history lesson

Mad cow disease in the news — Is the latest case of the disease cause for alarm?

Headcheese and chicken feet — How the rest of the world treats meat

Snacktastic — Kellogg's expands into snacks

The mercury mess — Is it really related to developmental disorders?

Freedom milk — All about the raw-milk battle

Fabulous favas — A green herald of summer

Drugged out — Our poor livestock

Morels — Pleasure in the hunt

Carcinogens in alcohol? — Heavy drinking can lead to cancer — or not

Plastic people — What are we eating?

The vegan debate, again — Is going vegan really good for you?

A quiche lesson — The crux is the crust

Pesticidal corn — You've got till Friday to complain

Vote today! — On meat ethics

Game for wine — Pairing wild fare and the grape

Shrinking from shrimp — Badly produced and poisoned

Mycophilia — Revelations from the Weird World of Mushrooms

Do food deserts matter? — Not really, say some recent studies

Food school — Edible awareness goes academic and medical

Truffle 'fries' at home — A treat for the happiest of hours

Global eats: sustainable? — A report on feeding the future

Egg-boiling essentials — Mark Bittman's gone back to basics

Big Ag in the news — Antibiotics, arsenic, pesticides, and animal welfare

Farm finder — A new online food locator shows us where our food is grown

Herbicide hoopla — Arguing over atrazine

Reflections on kitchen remodeling — Tips from a (new) pro

Kids thrive in the garden — Little farmers

Just label it — Pink slime, that is

Powerlessness to the people — The feds refuse to listen to popular demand

A contest for meat eaters — The moral majority?

Chocolate and child labor — What kind of chocolate is in your Easter bunny?

The cooking student — From ignorance to competence

Crazy for eggs — They're back in style

The food-desert problem — Beyond 'convenience' food

Making Piece — A Memoir of Love, Loss, and Pie

The ethics of eating — Is one way of eating more socially responsible than another?

Crunch time — A lesson on texture