Anyone who has spent time in a hospital knows that the food is standardized, bland, overcooked and under-spiced. Kate Washington became deeply interested in the subject when her husband spent several weeks unable to eat and then was charged with gradually getting back to regular meals. He didn't feel good, and hospital meals did not entice him to make an effort to eat. There are reasons behind the way food is in hospitals: the need to deliver scientific nutrition without doing harm, and the industrial scale of feeding all those patients.  

In the move from individual at-home care and feeding for sick patients to mass institutions, medical science shifted to a big-picture, data-driven set of prescriptions and practices. Doing so undeniably saved lives, thanks to astonishing medical advances. But in the midst of institutionalizing and standardizing care, the medical establishment may have lost sight of the function of appetites and individual taste.

Food — for many patients one of the few sensory pleasures they can enjoy — can be an important, healing part of that corrective shift. Catering to patients’ tastes and preferences can certainly be more expensive, yet as Brad and I both learned, it can make a huge difference to the very sick, who may have lost almost all sense of themselves. Eating, among the most basic of human acts, can help reawaken that sense.

Washington turned to cookbooks from hundreds of years ago to find food that would appeal to a patient who didn't want to eat, in recipes from a time when the sick were cared for at home. And she researched the switch from home convalescence to the business of feeding modern hospital patients to find out why hospital food is so bad. The good news is that some institutions are trying new methods to make it better. Read about how hospital food got that way at Eater. -via Digg

(Image credit: Allegra Lockstadt)

The question at reddit's AskMen forum was "Alrighty, what's the most depressing, single man meal you've made?" The answers are sad, very sad, so sad that you can't help but laugh. The questioner admitted his was peanut butter toast with cheddar cheese with fries. Others were worse.

One man recounts stuffing his face with cereal and washing it down with milk because he was too lazy to do the dishes and fashion a clean bowl.

Another’s meal: “Sliced cheddar cheese and Lays potato chips substituted as crackers.”

Some insane doofus made a Bloody Mary with vodka and SpaghettiOs.

“Spaghetti but with ramen noodles, ketchup and chopped hot dogs.”

Let's hope these guys have learned something about stocking a kitchen since then. You can read the highlights at Mel magazine, or peruse the entire thread at reddit.

(Image credit: Charles Brooking)

When cooking with other people, you sometimes have to stop and explain what you mean when you say "pepper." There's black pepper, ground from peppercorns, and then there's the various vegetables that originated in America: bell, banana, jalapeño, etc. Black pepper originated in Asia, so why do we call the other plants "peppers"? It was due to Christopher Columbus trying to find a new route to Asia. He didn't, but he still tried to make the best of it by bringing back spices to enrich King Ferdinand. A little misnaming would do.   

Black pepper (Piper nigrum) had been a culinary mainstay of fine cuisine since the Roman Empire, beating out prior spicy compounds such as horseradish, mustard, and the arguably better long pepper. It was a valued addition to both food and medicine, yet getting it from Asia was expensive and difficult. Columbus was so eager to find pepper that he carried peppercorns with him. When he landed, he showed them to locals. They were similar enough to the allspice berries growing wild in Jamaica that Columbus also likened them to pepper: pimienta de Jamaica. Marjorie Shaffer writes in Pepper: A History of the World’s Most Influential Spice that Columbus was likely smart enough to know what he had wasn’t pepper, but that he probably didn’t care. Allspice and hot peppers headed for Europe.

Peppers from the New World were a hit, to the chagrin of Dutch spice traders. Read about the initial misnaming of peppers and how that affected world trade at Atlas Obscura.

Remember when KFC made prom corsages out of fried chicken a few years back? This is a step beyond that. You can have a wedding bouquet made of pizza! Villa Italian Kitchen in New Jersey is offering an edible wedding bouquet and a matching boutonniere for the groom. They're even giving some away to affianced couples who enter a contest.

On the one hand, this is a way to save money by combining the expense of flowers with the expense of food for the reception. On the other hand, pizza grease can leave a real mess behind on a wedding gown or a rental tux. Read more about the pizza bouquet at Elite Daily. -via Metafilter

The original condiment called ke-tchup was a fermented fish sauce from China. It became popular among sailors for spicing up bland food on long ocean voyages, and folks in other parts of the world then tried to duplicate it for themselves. The recipes varied widely until any fermented and/or vinegary sauce was called ketchup.

But ketchup became truly American once it was wed with the tomato and bottled industrially. While an early ketchup recipe with tomatoes appeared in Britain in 1817, calling for “a gallon of fine, red, and full ripe tomatas [sic],” and also anchovies, shallots, salt, and a variety of spices, it was Americans who really invented tomato ketchup.

The American tomato, with its origins in what is now Mexico and South America, was introduced to Europeans and North Americans by the Spanish conquistadors, and by the 19th century had become a ubiquitous garden plant. (Earlier it had been considered unhealthy and even poisonous.) Tomatoes became the base of many a sauce or stew, and before long were bottled as concentrated, fermented ketchups, preserved with vinegar and spices much the same way housewives would make a mushroom ketchup.

Tomato ketchup was a sensation, but recipes still varied until a company called Heinz started tweaking the recipe to balance shelf life and taste. That's when the story really takes off, and the success of Heinz ketchup led to other milestones in American agribusiness and cuisine. Read the story of ketchup at Smithsonian.

(Image credit: Visitor7)

Do you like butter tarts? Have you ever heard of a butter tart? I had to see a recipe to know what they are, and have ascertained that they are like tiny pecan pies, except sometimes they are made with walnuts or raisins instead of pecans, and sometimes with no nuts at all. In fact, Wikipedia describes them as just that, except the filling is runnier than American pecan pie because they don't use corn starch, and that's why they are in individual crusts. Sweet! Butter tarts are a favorite Canadian treat and comfort food. This came up because Saturday, June 9, is Ontario's Best Butter Tart Festival in Midland, Ontario. The festival opens with The Piping of the Tart with a bagpipe and drum band, and includes all the normal festival trappings, but the main event is the butter tart cooking competition. So if you want to try Canada's best butter tarts, you've got a week to get there. -via Fark

(Image credit: Rob Campbell)

Europe had no pineapples, and they were completely unknown there until Christopher Columbus returned from his second voyage to the New World in 1496. He packed some of the fruit for import along with parrots, tomatoes, tobacco, and pumpkins. While the tobacco and pumpkins survived the journey the best, it was the pineapple that really made an impression.

The fateful pineapple that reached King Ferdinand was the sole survivor: it was the only specimen that had not dissolved into a sticky rot during the journey. It produced enough of an impression for Peter Martyr, tutor to the Spanish princes, to record the first tasting: “The most invincible King Ferdinand relates that he has eaten another fruit brought from those countries. It is like a pine-nut in form and colour, covered with scales, and firmer than a melon. Its flavour excels all other fruits.” At least part of the excitement came from the fruit’s spiked form, which sent Europeans into rapture. King Ferdinand’s envoy to Panama, Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo y Valdes, writes, “[It is] the most beautiful of any fruits I have seen. I do not suppose there is in the whole world any other of so exquisite and lovely appearance.” The sweetness of the pineapple, too, should not go unmentioned. Renaissance Europe was a world essentially bereft of common sweets. Sugar refined from cane was an expensive commodity, and orchard-grown fruits were subject to seasons. The pineapple may well have been the tastiest thing anyone had ever eaten. But delicious or otherwise, it was still the preserve of adventurers, and the pineapple might never have made it into common lore if it hadn’t coincided with yet another global development: the widespread dissemination of the written word.

Pineapple became a sensation for three reasons: it was completely new, it was expensive due to shipping and was therefore reserved for the wealthy, and it was really tasty. Read about the rise of the pineapple at The Paris Review.

-via Messy Nessy Chic

Macaroni and cheese has been an American (and Canadian) staple since Thomas Jefferson regaled the recipe he encountered in France. It expanded to nearly all American tables because it was simple, delicious, and most of all, cheap. After all, cheese itself was invented as a survival food to make milk last longer when there was nothing else to eat.   

Although processed cheese was invented in Switzerland, big American cheese producers—as part of our factory-scale, get-big-or-get-out philosophy of food production—bought into processed cheese so heavily that the very definition of “American cheese” has come to be a processed product. Many Americans may never have had a macaroni and cheese made with real cheese, and many who grew up on mac and cheese may never have had a version that wasn’t made with a powdered mix. While the most popular brand of boxed mac only just recently quietly removed artificial colors and preservatives from their “cheese sauce,” it seems, from a traditional roux-making perspective, still far removed from the original recipe.

Macaroni and cheese has been served as long as there has been a United States of America, but in a 20th-century economy driven by convenience packaging and industrialization, it was elevated to an ideal American food: Pasta and processed cheese are very cheap to make and easy to ship and store, and they certainly fill up a belly. It’s no wonder a hot gooey Velveeta mac and cheese tastes like a winner to so many Americans, even those attending a fancy contest in San Francisco.

The contest the author refers to is one in which the popular vote went to a chef whose recipe for macaroni and cheese included Velveeta, causing a scandal among the gourmet judges. Read about how Americans fell in love with macaroni and cheese at Smithsonian.

As someone who does not eat seafood, I never thought much about seafood recipes. I've read in several places that you shouldn't combine cheese with seafood. Okay, but why? I assumed it was some ancient prohibition against combining a food that spoils easily (seafood) with a food that uses things like bacteria or fungus to exist at all (cheese). Dan Nosowitz did some research on the "rule," and found that it is far from universal.

The prohibition on combining seafood and cheese is ancient and strong, but localized. The Top Chef judges state this prohibition as if it is a universal rule, but of course there are dozens of centuries-old dishes combining seafood and cheese that are beloved outside the United States—in Greece, Mexico, France, and even in specific pockets of the U.S. itself. To assume that the combination of seafood and cheese is inherently wrong is bizarre, and yet common. So where did it come from?

“It definitely originated in Italy, there’s no doubt about that,” says Julia della Croce, a cookbook author, teacher, writer, and one of America’s foremost experts on Italian cuisine. “Italians are very religious about mixing cheese and fish or seafood, it just isn’t done.” I spoke with several food historians and nobody seems to disagree on this point: The prohibition, and its aggressiveness, come from Italy.

The next question is why. While there is no consensus on the reason, there are quite a few possibilities, which you can read about at Gastro Obscura.

(Image credit: Aïda Amer)

Remember back in college, when you had limited money, limited access to alcohol, and limited supplies in the dormitory kitchen? Making a cocktail, or even a highball, was a matter of inventiveness often driven by desperation. You mixed what you had. It can also happen when you are adult, but broke, or a high school student sneaking what's available up to your room.

We had a drink called "the latest technology" that was equal parts tab, jagermeister, and nyquil.

— Jeff Haley (@jeffchaley) May 9, 2018

Deadspin collected stories of these cocktail recipes born of desperation dredged from readers' pasts. -via Metafilter, where you'll find even more.

(image credit: Elena Scotti (GMG))

King Charles XII ascended to the Swedish throne at the age of 15 in 1705, and immediately set out to wage war against the world around him. He earned the nickname "the Swedish Meteor" when he conquered Denmark-Norway and Saxony-Poland-Lithuania in the 18th century.

The meteor, as it happened, fizzled. In 1708, Charles XII decided to make what is now considered a military misstep: invading Russia. After Russian forces destroyed his troops at the battle of Poltava in 1709, Charles fled to the Ottoman Empire, another enemy of Russia. Settling with 1,000 men in what is now Moldova, he spent five years shuttling around the Empire, including Constantinople. In 1710, he convinced Sultan Ahmed III to declare war on Russia.

Though Charles was champing at the bit to get back to Sweden, it’s said he and his men gained a taste for Ottoman Turk cuisine, such as sherbet and what’s now known as Turkish coffee. Voltaire even wrote that a Russian-paid assassin tried to slip poison in Charles’s coffee. While the Swedish government didn’t specify which recipe Charles XII liked so much, the king and his followers likely encountered köfte, the spiced lamb and beef meatballs of Turkish cuisine.

Having made several nations of enemies, Charles did not live a long life. Like a meteor, indeed. It was a while before his favorite meatball recipe slipped into the public eye and became Sweden's pride and joy. Read how that happened at Gastro Obscura.

You've probably been using the same deviled egg recipe your entire life; now its time to try something different! Tye Lombardi at the Necro Nom-nom-nomicon has a spicy, colorful recipe for pickled basilisk eggs. You will need:

6-8 basilisk eggs.
1 fireproof suit and gloves.
Large mirror
Blindfold

Oh, wait, that's the recipe for immortals. For the rest of us, it's a matter of pickling your eggs for a few days with brine colored with beet juice, then deviling the yolks with with wasabi and avocado filling. That's where the fuchsia and chartreuse color scheme comes from. Bone appetit!

Three old friends in Durham, North Carolina, staged a pop-up museum project at the Durham Hotel called "O Moldy Night," featuring premiere dishes of molded food from 40 experienced chefs, home cooks, and artists. The idea of molded food was dominated by tributes to old family recipes involving Jell-O, agar, or aspic, but it was not limited to those ingredients. Some were molded of chocolate or cooked beans. The dish pictured is “Jell-O by the Sea” by Kate Fulbright.

Medium: Agar agar, Jell-O, coconut milk, Swedish Fish, graham crackers, sprinkles

Inspired by an episode of “Rugrats,” I set out to make a grand, wiggly-jiggly mold of the ocean. Using Swedish fish to represent ocean life, and a combination of tapioca balls and zigzags representing bubbles and kelp, I suspended this all in layers of agar agar (a gelatin derived from algae). Crushed graham crackers and sprinkles adorning the edge as sand and seashells completed the tableau.

The dishes ranged from the nostalgic (“Nothing Says I Love You Like Green Jell-O”) to the exotic (“Big in Japan”) to the alcoholic (“Jiggle Gin Fizz”) to the disgusting (“I Would Heart for You to Trotter on Over and Vent Your Spleen”). The best-named dish was certainly "Congealed Item." You can see the most notable of the molded foods at Bitter Southerner. -via Metafilter

(YouTube link)

Jun Yoshizuki of Jun's Kitchen makes American-style sushi with what seems like the entire contents of a grocery store to the beat of a fast, bouncy soundtrack. You don't even need to like sushi to enjoy the efficient moves of his practiced technique. His "studio audience" consists of his curious and appreciative cats Haku and Nagi, who are both well-fed and well-trained. We can assume that Poki is in another room with the door shut. -via Laughing Squid

(YouTube link)

Come close and watch robots in Emporia, Kansas, make Hostess cupcakes, donettes, and Twinkies! No, we're not going to get any recipes, but we will see battalions of cakes marching in formation through the factory as layer after layer of sweet sugary stuff is added to them. Cream filling? Check. Frosting? Check. Swirls? Check. Powdered sugar? Check. You might get a sugar high just by watching, but my guess is that you'll go find a sweet snack right after the video is finished. -via Geekologie