This Week's Best Long Reads, From Boozy Taco Bell to Ethical Coffee

A roundup of worthy weekend reading material.

A Visit To The World's First Boozy Taco Bell
NPR

It's a slushie, supersweet with a vaguely Mountain-Dew-like flavor — exactly the daiquiri you'd make if you were 8 years old and given the chance to bartend.

Why Everything Is Bad for You
New York Times

Like those federal agents who brought down Al Capone on a charge of tax evasion, we are not above indicting certain food items for reasons having nothing to do with the health risks they may pose.

The Mason Jar, Reborn
The Atlantic

At that point my mother would begin canning what we couldn't eat, storing the vividly colored contents in transparent Mason jars that would reappear throughout the fall and winter—like a bit of summer preserved in amber.

Feasting on Memories
Life and Thyme

Every weekend I'd wake up to the sound of the coffee pot making its monotonous drip, drip, drip. My sister and I would jump out of bed and race down the stairs to join the gathering that had begun well before the sun had even risen. Entering the kitchen was an intoxicating experience. Laughter reverberated off the walls, orders were barked, arguments ensued, pots were banged. Life was happening.

Our Guide to Buying Ethical Coffee
Modern Farmer

This isn't a perfect guide; coffee, like any other product grown in a developing country and destined for a developed country, has a long ways to go before the various certifications and regulations really provide good working conditions and wages to the producers. But that shouldn't stop you from trying. It's not every product that allows you to act ethically every single morning.

What 200 Years of African-American Cookbooks Reveal About How We Stereotype Food
Smithsonian

And many cookbooks featured recipes developed by African-American servants for the tastes of their white employers. Mammy's Cook Book, which was self-published in 1927 by a white woman who credits all of the recipes to the black caretaker of her childhood, includes recipes for egg custards and Roquefort and tomato salad.

Ed Schoenfeld's Chinese Food History of New York
Serious Eats

So in the U.S., Cantonese cuisine reigned supreme and unopposed, forming Americans' collective ideas of what Chinese food meant and how it tasted. Families, not professional chefs, opened restaurants, deploying woks to cook affordable and accessible American favorites: sweet-and-sour pork, lo mein, and egg rolls.

What Are Conflict Cafes and Can They Actually Change the World?
Eater

How much can a pop-up dinner raise awareness of international conflict? Among chefs and food writers, it can be tempting to portray the power of food as something almost mythical. If two sides of a conflict could only just share a meal, there would be peace between them. If families would make time to eat together, children would grow up strong and happy. If the apathetic would just try some of this suffering country's food, they would be moved to care for its people. It's an enormous burden to place on food alone.

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