Author: Jawdah Hannad Basara

A British Sunday is marked by a certain aroma: roasting meat, something caramelizing in a hot oven, and the subtle sweetness of parsnips starting to burn at the edges. For the majority of the nation’s history, that scent was associated with lunch, family, and a weekly reset that was almost religious in its regularity. On a Sunday in, say, 2015, you could enter a village pub and see the same routine in action: Yorkshire puddings that had reached unbelievable heights, crisp roast potatoes, and carved beef. It was reliable. It was England. There is still that smell. However, other flavors…

The food industry seldom rewards a certain kind of stubbornness. The industry tends to ignore, at least temporarily, chefs who establish themselves in small towns, refuse to pursue the gravity of London or New York, and maintain that the land they were raised on is sufficient. That type of chef is no longer Mark Birchall. However, he may have been a short time ago. The Lancashire market town of Chorley, where Birchall was born, is difficult for most restaurant critics to locate on a map. The assumption was courteous but obvious when he opened Moor Hall in 2017, inside a…

Nestled beneath a residential block close to Euston station, there isn’t a sign worth taking pictures of, no Instagram-worthy mood lighting, and no PR firm sending press releases to food editors. Served with a bowl of rich, intensely spiced dhal, the flaky, slightly blistered roti canai costs less than a pint at most central London pubs. For many years, Roti King has been there. It has long been known to the locals. And that was sufficient for a very long time. The thing about London’s actual dining culture is that it relies almost entirely on trust, unlike the version that…

Most people pass the Brutalist building on the Strand without giving it a second look. The architecture is angular and frigid, giving the impression that it is more of a statement than an invitation. This makes it somewhat fitting that Ikoyi, a restaurant that recently won the title of world’s best, is located behind its doors. For almost ten years, Ikoyi has resisted every attempt to be clearly defined. Chef Jeremy Chan and his schoolmate Iré Hassan-Odukale founded Ikoyi in 2017. Initially marketed as a Nigerian restaurant, which the founders have had to repeatedly clarify was never quite accurate, the…

A child eating fruit is not the first thing you see in a Mexican schoolyard. It’s the cart’s absence. For years, vendors set up shop just beyond the gates, selling Dorilocos, chili-dusted peanuts, and frozen sugar in plastic cups. The after-school crowd would swarm them in the same manner that children everywhere swarm anything that adults haven’t had time to forbid. The government then made the decision to outlaw it last spring. Mexico quietly instructed its schools to empty the shelves with the message, “Farewell, junk food!” posted to X. The ban, which went into effect at the end of…

If your flat white seems to cost more than it should, that’s because it does. A cup that cost roughly four euros eighteen months ago is now closer to five-twenty, and those who pour it are not being avaricious. They are performing calculations that are no longer accurate. A study published in early May stated that the average pound of ground roast was 9.46 dollars, up 55 percent from two years prior. In January, arabica futures reached 3.80 dollars per pound on the ICE exchange, the highest level since mid-December. These figures do not represent a passing spike. This feels…

There’s a bag of lettuce in your refrigerator right now, and you might be surprised by how strange its life has been. It most likely began in soil that was nourished by nitrogen extracted from natural gas in the Salinas Valley of California. It was cut by a diesel harvester. It was transported over the majority of a continent by a diesel truck. Petroleum was also used to make the plastic film that kept it crisp. If you go back far enough, lettuce is essentially refined oil that has learned to be environmentally friendly. Additionally, oil is currently embroiled in…

The word keeps coming up in the most unexpected places. You can find “the longevity mushroom” stamped on oyster mushroom blends, reishi powders, and even homemade tinctures that people seem to be feeding their dogs if you browse enough wellness-related websites. I’m usually suspicious of the phrase because of its marketing slickness. However, beneath all the breathless Facebook posts and Instagram captions that promise a 16% decrease in mortality, there is something truly fascinating happening that has nothing to do with the mushroom. It concerns a compound that the majority of people are unaware of. Ergothione. The marketers probably prefer…

From spice racks in Karachi to California, a yellow powder has subtly entered a discussion about Mars. Turmeric. Scientists attempting to determine how a human body might survive the lengthy, radioactive journey to the Red Planet are now interested in the same root that stains cutting boards and colors curry. At first, it seems like a stretch. It’s not quite. Turmeric is being asked to solve a brutally straightforward problem. Because Mars only has a thin layer of atmosphere and no actual magnetic shield, the radiation that Earth deflects essentially flows down without any problems. Astronauts would encounter solar energetic…

Engineers have been working for years in a lab outside of Turin to figure out how to prepare a meal that will survive the journey to Mars. The food must not go bad for months. After a long day of floating in a metal tube, it must taste like something someone would genuinely want to eat. Additionally, since deep space lacks a corner store, it must provide precise nutrition. The odd thing is that people who have never left the planet are now finding the same food, essentially, on their kitchen counters and in wellness stores. Argotec, an Italian company…