Food & Writing Sites for April 2025
Sunday, March 16, 2025
Lenten Roses (Hellebores) & antique chocolate mold
Our clocks have already sprung forward; Easter (and Purim & Passover) are fast upon us. We know it’s almost Passover because our grocery store shelves carry Fox’s U-bet, Jelly Rings, and Macaroons again. Already, Hamantaschen, Hot Cross Buns, and Paczki are sweetening our lives. Can chocolate bunnies, jellybeans, and marshmallow peeps be far behind?
When not frantically searching for signs of Spring (and seeing a few croci bloom in the front yard, and buds swelling on a few precocious trees), we diverted ourselves by posting several new Substack pages:
“Math Aversion” and a bit of dissembling;
“Salacious Reading” on early literacy and Worcestershire Sauce;
“Reacquaintance,” a new story about an old scoundrel;
“Eating to Live, Living to Eat,” on funeral food;
“Thanatopsis,” high school revisited;
“Thanatopsis Exhumed” on noms de plume;
“Writers Coming out of the Woodwork,” a sequel to the above;
and
“Say Whaaaaaaaa?” …yet another sequel.
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.
April may seem sometimes cruel, but—hidden inside—it contains the sweet promise of first fresh finds from the garden (and yields occasional excerpts from On the Table’s culinary quote collection).
In the vegetable world, there is nothing so innocent, so confiding in its expression, as the small green face of the freshly-shelled spring pea. William Wallace Irwin
A tiny radish of passionate scarlet, tipped modestly in white. Clementine Paddleford
Gary
April 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 Michael Procopio—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 —
(a tongue-in-cheek series on cookbooks that may soon be banned)
Culinary Tourism: An Exploratory Reading of Contemporary Representations of Cooking
(a paper by Douglas Brownlie, Paul Hewer & Suzanne Horne in Consumption, Markets and Culture)
(a paper, written in 1934 by Wilson Popenoe, on the history and etymology of the guacamole fruit)
History of Food Trucks Dates Back Farther Than You’d Think, The
(Carla Vaisman, in The Takeout, tracks them “way back to 1866”)
(excerpt from Julian Baggini’s How the World Eats: A Global Philosophy)
Invention of Iceberg Lettuce Changed the Way Americans Ate, The
(Lindsey Reynolds on lettuce’s technological history for Takeout)
Maine Ship Captain Who Invented the Modern Donut, The
(a flash of deep-fried insight, in 1858)
RENDERED 34: Granny Smith Apples
(Lari Burgos’ substack page tells all)
(Nic Miller’s substack post on NaCl—with good links)
Scientists Finally Figured Out Why Tomatoes Don’t Kill You
(Andrew Paul reveals the facts about steroidal glycoalkaloids for Popular Science)
(the answer, at Take Out, from Dennis Lee)
When Did People Start Drinking Coffee?
(Dr. Russell Moul’s history in IFLScience)
Why Cask-Strength Spirits Require Distinct Bottle Designs
(Pete O’Connell explains that it’s not just marketing a luxury product)
— inspirational (or otherwise useful) sites for writers/bloggers —
Beginner’s Guide to Making Sausage at Home, The
Fresh Beds Make for Fresh Ricotta
have you given yourself permission?
Is There a Difference Between a Café and a Coffee Shop?
Maine Ship Captain Who Invented the Modern Donut, The
Neo-Prohibitionists Are Coming, The
Oral History of Louisiana’s Drive-thru Daiquiri Stands, An
Other People's Bookshelves Q&A with Mecca Bos
Slow Food Xingu: Indigenous Foodways as Resistance in the Brazilian Amazon
“We Still Mourn That Book”: Cookbooks, Recipes and Foodmaking Knowledge in 1950s Australia
What It Was Like to Eat with Anthony Bourdain
When is it Time to Write Your Book Proposal?
Why Don’t More Fast Food Restaurants Serve Alcohol?
— podcasts, etcetera —•
Distribution of 19 Types of Berries Native to North America
How Phyllo Is Handmade by One of Greece’s Last Pastry Masters
On Writing Cookbooks, with author Kate Leahy
— 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
Here endeth the sales pitch(es)...
...for the moment, anyway.
______________
The Resource Guide for Food Writers, Update #294 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.
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