The Kitchn Archive: Jan 2017

There really is only one choice when deciding which flavor to serve at your Super Bowl party.

If you think tomatoes are flavorless and not what they used to be, then you’re not wrong: The taste quota of the fruit, which originated in Central and South America, has been on a steady decline. But all hope — er, taste — is not lost! An international team of researchers from the United States, China, Spain, and Israel have been studying different breeds of tomatoes for a decade and have a solution.

Starbucks has responded to Trump’s immigration ban by promising to hire more refugees. President Trump signed an executive order on Friday that stops the resettlement of Syrian refugees in the United States and bans immigrants and refugees from seven Muslim-majority nations (Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen) for 90 days.

I’m just gonna say it: Filet mignon is the wine cooler of the meat world. It’s the bland, boring, boneless, skinless chicken breast beef equivalent. I can’t, for the life of me, figure out why anyone would order it. I went on a blind date with a guy a few years ago. After some online communication, we set up a time to meet for dinner.

Not merely content with television and perhaps soon-to-be cookbook domination, Oprah has entered the refrigerated meal market, reports Bloomberg. Her new venture — called Mealtime Stories — is a part of a collaboration with Kraft Heinz Co. The prepared meals will feature ready-made refrigerated dishes that focus on making wholesome food more widely accessible.

When you think of any Chinatown in any city in the country, the image that springs to mind is almost always of glistening, lacquered ducks hanging in the storefronts. (Whether those are Peking ducks or not is up for debate, but I digress.) Peking duck has long been one of the iconic Chinese dishes, and it’s easy to see why — the tableside preparation, the communal eating, the multiple courses, the pure deliciousness of it.

When it comes to selecting a bright-orange, synthetic cheese-covered cornmeal snack with which to fill your bowl, there really is only one choice: cheese puffs. Although, indeed, there are some cheese ball enthusiasts out there, I contend that a puff-centric Super Bowl party will be vastly superior to one in which those little orbs run rampant. So lick the powder off your fingers, and read these five reasons why puffs outscore balls every single time. Eating a cheese ball isn’t natural.

Ever since Americans discovered the health perks of eating sweet potatoes, the root vegetable’s popularity has skyrocketed. From 2000 to 2014, consumption increased by 80 percent, with the average American eating around seven-and-a-half pounds of sweet potato a year. But there was once a time in American history when sweet potatoes were grown and consumed at equally high rates.

Whether it goes by the name General Tso’s, General Gau’s, or General Gao’s (see a spirited Yelp discussion on the matter here), the deep-fried nuggets of boneless chicken tossed in sweet-spicy sauce and served on a bed of broccoli is America’s reigning Chinese dish. According to the food delivery site GrubHub, General Tso’s chicken was the most popular Chinese takeout item of 2014, and the fourth most-ordered dish overall.