As the saying goes, we are what we eat, and here are a few interesting articles on how food and the cultivation of food shaped the world as it is today…
AMERICANS and Europeans stand out from the rest of the world for their sense of ‘ourselves’ as individuals. They tend to think of themselves as unique, autonomous, self-motivated, self-made. People in the rest of the world are more likely to understand themselves as interwoven with other people — as interdependent, not independent. In such social worlds, your goal is to fit in and adjust yourself to others, not to stand out. People imagine themselves as part of a larger whole — threads in a web, not lone horsemen on the frontier. In America, we say that the squeaky wheel gets the grease. In Japan, people say that the nail that stands up gets hammered down. What drove this difference could be explained through the staples served up on our table – it is all defined in what we cultivate Wheat or Rice, as T. M. Luhrman explained.
TV reality shows have opened up a new awareness on food preparation. Although we have enough TV exposure to have picked up uncanny traits and habits from celebrity chefs, many of us are still left to figure out how to handle the daily kitchen conundrums. New York Times has published a series of instructional videos dispensing step by step explanation on basic cooking techniques from how to hold a knife to more sophisticated tricks like preparing roux…With each video lasting less then a minute, why not make yourself the deal to learn these techniques before the year ends.
Whilst we are still on the subject of videos and cooking and the New York Times, we want to share with you our 2014 obsession with food columnist Melissa Clark (Sorry Mark Bittman!). The author and cook Melissa Clark runs a food column at the New York Times, with many recipes accompanied by well edited and entertaining videos. From exquisite to simple meals, Melissa Clark is the one we turn to whenever we needed that spark of inspiration for our dinner parties. If you are at lost at which recipe to try, we recommend trying her Red Wine Honey Cake with Plums. This Christmas why not toss away the panettone and let your guests eat cake!
The China Study was first published in the United States in January 2005 and had sold over one million copies as of October 2013, making it one of America’s best-selling books about nutrition. The book examines the relationship between the consumption of animal products and chronic diseases. Also equally well known amongst health foodies are Michael Pollan’s food rules. With abundance of reading material on the relation between food and diseases, William Li’s theory on starving cancer cells should not be too difficult to comprehend nor accept. We highly recommend William Li’s talk on Anti-angiogenesis on TED and start your 2015 by eating right!
ViTRINE 