Food & Writing Sites for July 2025
Monday, June 16, 2025
A temptation of treats, seen (but not, alas, sampled)
in Whitby, North Yorkshire, England
“Sumer is icumen in,” or so the ancient song suggests. We’ve had a series of fiendishly hot days interspersed with cold, dark, and rainy ones—which means we’ve had plenty of time to post several new Substack pages when we should have been weeding the garden. The posts are destined to be part of the fourth volume of Substack Lightnin’—or, possibly, other books (but you can read them now, for free):
“One more time...,” another (historically inaccurate) story;
“Why It’s So Hard to Part with Books,” addiction and rationalization;
“An Evolutionary Tale,” speculation on the origins of poetry;
“The Poets’ Corner,” a tale of verse and amateur aeronautics;
“Illegitimi Non Carborundum,” on a less-satisfying part of the creative life;
“Eighty-one…,” a tale of two mentors who might, or might not, have met;
“Stalk Reality,” a vegetable love story; and
“What’s in a Name?” adventures in etymology.
You can, should you choose to, follow us on Facebook (where, among other things, we post a lot of photographs) and Twitter. Still more of our online scribbles can be found at A Quiet Little Table in the Corner and other Substack pages. There’s even an Amazon author’s page, that includes food writing and anything else we manage to get into print.
Summer is the season of concupiscent curds, and On the Table’s culinary quote collection is getting first licks:
I doubt whether the world holds for anyone a more soul-stirring surprise than the first adventure with ice cream. Heywood Broun
Age does not diminish the extreme disappointment of having a scoop of ice cream fall from the cone. Jim Fiebig
Ice cream is exquisite. What a pity it isn’t illegal. Voltaire
My advice to you is not to inquire why or whither, but just enjoy your ice cream while it’s on your plate—that’s my philosophy. Thornton Wilder
I don’t cry over spilt milk, but a fallen scoop of ice cream is enough to ruin my whole day. Terri Guillemets
Without ice cream, there would be darkness and chaos. Don Kardong
The only emperor is the emperor of ice cream. Wallace Stevens
Gary
July 2025
PS: If you encounter broken links, changed URLs—or know of wonderful sites we’ve missed—please drop us a line. It helps to keep this resource as useful as possible for all of us. To those who have pointed out corrections or tasty sites (this month we’re tipping our virtual hat to Kristin Jensen—thanks, and keep them coming!
PPS: If you wish to change the e-mail address at which you receive these newsletters, or otherwise modify the way you receive our postings or—if you’ve received this newsletter by mistake, and/or don’t wish to receive future issues—you have our sincere apology and can have your e-mail address deleted from the list immediately. We’re happy (and continuously amazed) that so few people have decided to leave the list but, should you choose to be one of them, let us know and we’ll see that your in-box is never afflicted by these updates again.
— the new sites —
(Jay Cheshes’s article in The Smithsonian)
(Calvin Tomkins’s 1974 New Yorker tribute)
(a 2005 Gourmet article by Fucshia Dunlop)
Do You Even Paloma? The Many Origins and Identities of the Do-It-All Drink
(Greg Benson’s highballs of tequila and grapefruit, served at VinePair)
Ethnobotany of Foraged Food & Peculiar Produce, The
(Kevin Healey’s blog on unusual edible plants)
Fast Food Market Size, Industry Share & COVID-19 Impact Analysis
(as reported by Fortune Magazine)
(part of historic recipe blog: History in the Making)
How Did Root Beer Get Its Name?
(CaLea Johnson floats an answer at Mental Floss)
(searchable archive of historic books on the subject)
(Slate Magazine navigates the aisles of grocery stores, in search of the proprietary sauces of fast food chains)
(Rebecca Blackwell’s Substack page of resources)
Ornate Ice Cream Saloons That Served Unchaperoned Women, The
(Jessica Gingrich gets the scoop at Gastro Obscura)
Pizza Brain’s Museum of Pizza Culture
(sounds like fun, but the museum closed in June 2024)
(proof of the 2008 book edited by Betty S. Travitsky and Anne Lake Prescott; PDF)
(searchable database of their collections, with copyright-free images for any use)
(collection in the library of The University of Iowa)
— inspirational (or otherwise useful) sites for writers/bloggers —
7 Miserable Old Ads From Back When Meat Was a Special Luxury
7 Wild Stories From the Prohibition Era
Art of Cooking, The: The First Modern Cookery Book
Arts of Cooking, The: Modern Times and the Dynamics of Tradition
Bottle’s the Thing, The: The Branding Evolution of Soda Pop
Curating Culinary Culture: The Rhetorical Function of Cookbooks and Their Paratexts
Dilemma of Deliciousness, The: When Taste Outruns Meaning
Five Greatest Sandwiches of All Time, The, According to David Lynch: “The Chips Are Optional”
Flint, Yeast and Butter: Chardonnayspeak, Translated
How a Hazelnut Spread Became a Sticking Point in Franco-Algerian Relations
How Did Our Taste Buds Get So Spoiled?
How to Avoid Crying While Cutting Onions, According to Physics
How to feed an Army in the 1950s
Introduction: Foreign Cookbooks
Mushrooms and Our Search for Meaning
Mystery of Munchies, The: Why Does Weed Make You Hungry?
Natural History of the Kitchen, A
Re-Thinking the Aesthetics of Food
Re-visiting Old Cookery Manuscripts as Books for the Present. Two Approaches
There’s No Right Way to Say “Taco”
Towards a Structured Approach to Reading Historic Cookbooks
What Will Happen to Our Endangered Deli Meats?
Which Country Produces the Most Lemons in the World?
Why Is Flour Sold In Paper Bags?
— podcasts, et cetera —•
At Modena’s Casa Maria Luigia, Chef and Collector Massimo Bottura Blurs Food, Art, and Philosophy
Charles Bock: Writing Success in the Age of Overload
Forgotten History (and Slippery Science) of Canola Oil, The
— that’s all for now —
Except, of course, for the usual legalistic mumbo-jumbo and commercial flim-flam:
As an Amazon Associate, this newsletter earns from qualifying purchases made through it. These include our own books (listed below), and occasional books mentioned in the entries above. If you order anything via those links, the price you pay is not increased by our commission.
Occasionally, URLs we provide may take you to commercial sites (that is, they’ll cost you money to take full advantage of them), or publications that have paywalls. We do not receive any compensation for listing them here and are providing them without any form of recommendation—other than the fact that they looked interesting to us.
Your privacy is important to us. We will not give, sell or share your e-mail address with anyone, for any purpose. Ever. Nonetheless, we will expose you to the following irredeemably brazen plugs for our own books:
The Resource Guide for Food Writers
(Hardcover)
(Paper)
(Kindle)
(newsletters like this merely update the contents of the book; what doesn’t appear here is already in the book)
The Herbalist in the Kitchen
(Hardcover)
(Kindle)
The Business of Food: Encyclopedia of the Food And Drink Industries
(Hardcover)
(Kindle)
Human Cuisine
(Paper)
(Kindle)
Herbs: A Global History
(Hardcover)
(Kindle)
Sausage: A Global History
(Hardcover)
(Kindle)
Can It! The Perils and Pleasures of Preserving Foods
(Hardcover)
(Kindle)
Sauces Reconsidered: Après Escoffier
Terms of Vegery
(Paper)
(Kindle)
How to Serve Man:
On Cannibalism, Sex, Sacrifice, & the Nature of Eating
(Paper)
(Kindle)
How to Write a Great Book
The Digressions of Dr Sanscravat: Gastronomical Ramblings & Other Diversions
(Paper)
(Kindle)
Ephemera: a short collection of short stories
(Paper)
(Kindle)
Prophet Amidst Losses
(Paper)
(Kindle)
Future Tense: Remembrance of Things Not Yet Past
(Paper)
(Kindle)
The Backstories: As retold by Gary Allen
(Paper)
(Kindle)
Tabula Rasa, Baby: (Not Written in Stone)
(Paper)
(Kindle)
Unbelievable: A Modern Novella (the Extended Edition)
(Paper)
(Kindle)
Noirvella: The Extended Edition
(Paper)
(Kindle)
Hot Hot Hot/Risky Business
(Paper)
(Kindle)
The Long & Short of It: A Miscellany
(Paper)
(Kindle)
Beer Taste & Other Disorders
(Paper)
(Kindle)
Galloping Gourmand: A Culinary Collection
(Paper)
(Kindle)
Substack Lightnin’: Volume One, The First Year
Substack Lightnin’: Volume Two, Second Year
Substack Lightnin’: Volume Three, Third Year
Here endeth the sales pitch(es)...
...for the moment, anyway.
______________
The Resource Guide for Food Writers, Update #297 is protected by copyright and is provided at no cost, for your personal use only. It may not be copied or retransmitted unless this notice remains affixed. Any other form of republication—unless with the author’s prior written permission—is strictly prohibited.
As the author of this page—being a real living person—I have not used AI for any purpose (beyond routine spellcheck). Nor do I permit the use of any of its content for training of AI systems, or in the generation of AI content.
Copyright ©2025 by Gary Allen.
