Ingredients

A lemon tree is a subtropical plant, and in its natural habitat, its fruit is green and only slightly acidic. For lemons to develop their tart flavor and yellow color, the temperature must dip below 50 degrees F/10 degrees C but remain above freezing. (If temperatures drop below freezing mature lemons on a tree will […]

Before the well-known English company, Fry & Sons worked out how to manufacture chocolate into a confectionary bar in 1847, chocolate had only been used as a drink for millenia. Chocolate was initially brought back to Europe by the Spanish Conquistador Don Hernán Cortés, who toasted the Aztec King Moctezuma with a gold goblet of his […]

Photo by Edsel L “Despite its name, Worcester sauce was originally an Indian recipe, brought back to Britain by Lord Marcus Sandys, ex-Governor of Bengal. One day in 1835 he appeared in the prospering chemist’s emporium of John Lea and William Perrins in Broad Street, Worcester, and asked them to make up a batch of […]

Rice, the main source of sustenance for half of the world’s population, comes in an endless variety of shapes, sizes, and colors. Rice grains can be long, like those of basmati rice from India and jasmine rice from Thailand; tiny, like mochi-gome from Japan, which is similar in shape to Italian arborio rice; or somewhere […]

Olive groves line the rocky hillsides of Italy and the Mediterranean coast. For millennia, the region has produced gorgeous olives (they were a favorite street snack in ancient Rome) and olive oils (tools for making olive oil that date back 4500 years have been found in Crete). The average age of southern Italian olive trees […]

Chilli Pepper Photo by pixel2013 You could not count the number of chiles — fresh and dried, pickled and ground — that greet you when you enter a Mexican market center. The chile is ancient — evidence in Mexico traces it back to 3500 BCE. In the 16th century, the Portuguese explorers brought these fiery […]

Photo by odonata98 (Kimberly Reinhart)  This herb, which is native to Malaysia and grown throughout Southeast Asia and California, is one of the most important in Southeast Asian cooking. With the great popularity of the food of that region, lemon grass has made its way onto countless ingredients lists for all sorts of dishes. It has […]

Photo by avlxyz  Soy sauce is a staple condiment and ingredient throughout all of Asia. Produced for thousands of years, soy sauce is a salty, brown liquid made from fermented soy beans mixed with some type of roasted grain (wheat, barley, or rice are common), injected with a special yeast mold, and liberally flavored with salt. […]

Photo by BocaDorada Bonito is a type of tuna, which is a member of the mackerel family, and one of the most important fish in Japanese cuisine. Rarely eaten fresh, the dark, oily meat is dried into very hard cubes, which must be ground or shaved with a special tool before use. Bonito shavings form […]

Homemade vs. Store Bought Though a complete list of pasta shapes could take up volumes, there are two basic types available: factory-made, dried macaroni pasta made with flour and water, and homemade “fresh” pasta, made with eggs and flour. The two have different consistencies, textures and uses. They are truly separate and truly equal. Factory-made […]