What My Italian Neighbors Taught Me About Gluttony

If a Long, Extravagant Meal in the Tuscan Countryside Is Wrong, I Don't Want to Be Right

As a so-called “international gypsy,” a child raised by journalist parents around the globe (mostly the Mediterranean), I suppose it’s natural for me to be drawn to food. I have cooked professionally in many parts of the world, and eventually opened my own restaurant in New York City. But for me the turning point came in 1971 when my parents bought a tumble-down farmhouse in a small town in Tuscany. The villagers still lived as they had for centuries, raising what they needed to live on and bartering for anything …

Why Aren’t People Eating in Medieval Depictions of Feasts?

It’s an Expression of the Era’s Ambivalence Towards Food

When most people think of a medieval feast, they envision a room filled with boisterous guests and the lusty consumption of hunks of meat and goblets filled with wine. Feasts …

I’ll Have What She’s Having

Jewish Delis Are Noisy, Crude Eating Places That Turned the Idea of the Restaurant on Its Head

My maternal grandparents, Jean and Lou Kaplan, did not keep kosher. That was their ancestors’ way, the path of slavish adherence to the stringencies of Jewish law. But old habits …

Henry VIII Wasn’t a Glutton—He Was Just an Injured King

Then Why Is the English Monarch Portrayed as a ‘Fatso’ Who Tossed Chicken Bones?

Henry VIII is the most famous king in English history. Like all fame, Henry’s is a mix of fact and myth. He is most famous for having six wives, which …