TidBits
Butter me up: Paris gets its first boutique devoted to France’s favorite fat
PARIS | The contradiction of the trim Parisian and the butter croissant now has a storefront. Le Butter Shop, billed as Paris’ first boutique devoted entirely to butter, opened last month a short walk from the Eiffel Tower — with 30 varieties from small family producers in Brittany, the Loire Valley and northern France. France […]
Read our big scoop: Ice-cream cones, the ingenious invention of American immigrants
DETROIT | Read this quickly, before it melts. Ice cream was a rare and expensive treat for centuries because of the difficulty of storing ice. In the summer of 1790, President George Washington spent $200 on ice cream, the equivalent of $7,259 today, according to the International Dairy Foods Association. By the 1800s, inventions like […]
Once shaped by court rituals, China’s imperial cuisine lives on today
BEIJING | It is said that Empress Dowager Cixi once dreamed of a pastry during the final decades of imperial China. The same treat was served to her at breakfast the following morning. Delighted, she summoned her chef and rewarded him with a silver ingot. “It was originally called ‘minced pork pancake,’ but because it […]
Once the preserve of elite chefs, sushi-making can be fun
TOKYO | No food says Japan more than sushi. But few people make it themselves, even Japanese. The art of making sushi traditionally meant decades-long training to become a master. But times are changing. Now, just about anyone can enjoy it. “There is no sushi that tastes better than the ones you make yourself,” said […]