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U.S. National Library of Medicine The 'Poison Squad' That Shook America’s Faith in Preservatives
In the U.S., chemicals like borax were common in foods from bacon to margarine, until a shocking series of experiments revealed their toxic effects.
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DircinhaSW / Getty / Angela He / The ... How Jell-O Got Its Bounce
The dessert was once as high status as it is squishy.
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Tina Stallard / Getty How Pots and Pans Turned Us Into Creative Cooks
After harnessing fire, kitchenware is the most important invention to food as we know it.
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Bettmann / Getty How the Gas Oven Changed Humans’ Relationship With Fire
The ability to turn flames on and off at will was “one of the single greatest contributors to human happiness in the kitchen.”
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David J. Phillip / AP The Women Who Used Food to Fight Historical Stereotypes
Cooking has often been a tool for protest and resistance, even when it resulted in gross meals served at the White House.
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Brian Snyder / Reuters How Cranberries Went Out of Style
The sour little berries, once a year-round staple, have been relegated to a Thanksgiving side dish. Can they make a comeback?
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Rich Pedroncelli / AP How Cannibalism Became Taboo
A brief history of a surprisingly common tendency among animals, ancient humans included
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Alessandro Garofalo / Reuters A Glimpse Into the World's First Italian-Food Theme Park
Italy’s chain of grocery megastores might be the future of American supermarkets.
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Elise Amendola / AP How Fluff Became Famous
The history of marshmallow creme is wrapped up in the origins of egg beaters, radio, and Mad Men.
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Rick Wilking / Reuters What Difference Does a Healthy School Lunch Make?
Debates about the importance of school-provided lunches have raged across the world for more than a century.
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China Photos / Stringer / Getty How the Chicken Industry Got Hooked on Antibiotics
Now that drugs have transformed chicken farming, is there any way to escape their dangerous cost?
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Toby Melville / Reuters Britain's Great Tea Heist
In the 1848, the nation’s obsession with tea resulted in one of the biggest thefts of intellectual property in history.
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Mike Blake / Reuters The Peril and Promise of Peanut Butter
The spread that’s poisonous to a growing number of people also is the basis of a medical therapy that saves the lives of millions of children.
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Luke MacGregor / Reuters The Surprisingly Subtle Art of Food Fraud
The long history of faked foods includes horse-meat hamburgers, oil-and dust-peppercorns, and corn-syrup honey.
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Larry Crowe / AP The Creativity of Southern Cooking
The region’s cuisine has a complex history of violence, adaptability, and innovation.
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Seth Perlman / AP Butter Is Back
Its hundreds of varieties are earning it the same cachet as coffee or chocolate.
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Buddhika Weerasinghe / Getty The Transformative Fungus That Powers Japanese Cuisine
A single mold is behind many best-known flavors.
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Jason Reed / Reuters How Vitamins Enabled America’s Processed-Food Revolution
The concept that the human body needs minute amounts of invisible substances to survive is hardly more than a century old.
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Fred Ernst / AP The Joys and Disappointments of Being a Supertaster
Humans can all taste the same things, but things don’t taste the same to all people.
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Thomas Peter / Reuters The Sommeliers Who Lick Rocks to Train Their Palates
A history of wine obsessives
