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Fearless Critic Austin Restaurant Guide, 2nd Edition, is now out
The Fearless Critic Austin Restaurant Guide, Second Edition (Fearless Critic Media, 592 pages, paperback, $15.95, distributed by Workman) has been released. The book’s scope has been vastly increased,...
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Fearless Critic Washington DC Area Restaurant Guide released this week
The Fearless Critic Washington DC Area Restaurant Guide (Fearless Critic Media, 608 pages, paperback, $15.95, distributed by Workman) is now on its way to stores. The book reviews 500 restaurants in...
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Can people distinguish pâté from dog food?
As reported by Jerry Hirsch in today’s LA Times, my latest research article, co-authored with John Bohannon (the “Gonzo Scientist”) of Harvard University and Alexis Herschkowitsch of Fearless Critic...
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Dog food vs. pâté on Colbert Report
Apparently Stephen Colbert was amused by our paper investigating whether people could taste the difference between pâté and dog food. His conclusion was pretty funny.
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Do the molecular gastronomists have no clothes?
On culinary televangelism and the Parkerization of cuisine In the introduction to his book La Cocina al Desnudo (roughly “The Kitchen Laid Bare”), the chef Santi Santamaría writes: “one of the...
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Do you think the Spanish and Italians are drinking wine? They’re really...
The wine cultures of Spain and Italy are idealized. But much of the time, in real-life situations, their populations—whether it’s old men guzzling at midday or twentysomethings at night—actually favor...
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GQ’s Alan Richman trashes Italian pizza, but makes a glaring mistake
It’s one thing for a food writer to opine about which pizza style is his or her favorite—everybody seems to do it, whether in New York, New Haven, or Naples. But it’s a breathtaking mistake for a...
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Do taste and smell adjectives signal value, or do they create it?
We may disagree about our favorite artists and musicians, but it’s relatively easy to agree that a particular color is blue, or that a particular note is C-sharp. They’re described by wavelengths and...
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The problem with fetishizing pork jowl
Over the course of a road trip across America, I was lucky enough to spend plenty of interstate time with my friend Andrea Armeni. One of the things we discussed at length was the question of in what...
View ArticleDidn’t brine your Thanksgiving turkey? Don’t worry (by Justin Yu)
“You have got to brine it,” said Andrea Van Der Heyden of Van Der Heyden Vineyards as she hulked over my monstrous 28¼-pound Heritage turkey (a beautiful find, as it was feasting on Zinfandel vines the...
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The fascists and their buffalo mozzarella
The Times of London reports that Italian Minister of Agriculture Luca Zaia has dissolved the mozzarella di bufala campana consortium after a series of inspections revealed that “25 per cent of the...
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Announcing “Blind Taste: A Defense of Fast Food and Cheap Beer”
I’m happy to announce that my new book, Blind Taste: A Defense of Fast Food and Cheap Beer, will be released in hardcover November 1, 2014, and is now available for pre-order on Amazon.com (the link is...
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The most beautiful island you’ve never heard of–until next week? Meet Kulangsu.
I can’t believe there’s been so little media coverage thus far of the incredible Kulangsu Island (Gulangyu Island), the tiny, pedestrian-only island off the coast of Xiamen that is currently under...
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What does “contaminated” mean?
One of the things i find most amazing in the world of overzealous food inspection schemes is cases like this one, involving a harmless substance called fipronil in the U.K., where hundreds of thousands...
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