Writing on Food

Everybody eats, even Richard Nixon (who didn’t eat Watergate salad) and William Howard Taft (who did eat possum).

on the (possible) kosher origins of kentucky barbecue

Dan warned me his theory was “99 percent bullshit.” More fanciful than factual, not entirely either. He had what he called a “slender thread” of evidence that indicated Kentucky’s native barbecue — mutton, often doused in a dark sauce — owed its existence, in part, to adherents to kashrut, Jewish dietary laws.

what is watergate salad?

You'd be forgiven for not knowing what a Watergate salad is. The dish has largely vanished like 18 minutes of audio tape.

bushy tails and old cookbooks

Eating small game kept countless Southerners alive in the days before supermarkets and automobiles. Then, it became a punchline in the worst kind of jokes.