Ask anyone with a passing interest in the history of Italian food about the origins of spaghetti alla carbonara and you'll likely get one of two answers. Coal miners (more properly, charcoal burners) or American GIs adding bacon and eggs to pasta in 1944. The very erudite might cite a mention for pasta with egg and cheese in an 1839 book by Ippolito Cavalcanti.¹ Heck, if you had asked me before breakfast this morning, I would probably have cited the charcoal burners. I now know better, thanks to a couple of fascinating pieces by Jeremy Parzen.

Last Friday night, walking the dog, the sight of oranges mouldering on the ground, mushed in puddles, abandoned in the mud, upset me. I filled my pockets with fruit from the trees that line one of the paths under the Villa Doria Pamphilij, finished the walk, and plunged headlong into a search for...

The US Congress is apparently trying again to allow low-income pregnant women and mothers to use their food aid to buy "white potatoes," which they are not currently allowed to do. And various people with mashed potatoes between their ears are against this. ¹ The argument seems at least partly to...

Just back from walking to dog and listening to Planet Money's latest podcast A Bet On The Future Of Humanity. In 1980 economist Julian Simon bet biologist Paul Ehrlich that the price of a basket of metals would go down over the next decade. Ehrlich lost, with repercussions still being felt in today's highly polarised discussions about what, if anything, we need to do to ensure a decent future. As it happens, I remember the bet clearly.

Cooking, they say, is a matter of transformation, and of all the transformations perhaps the most magical is that of quince. A hard, off-white, barely edible hunk of mouth-puckeringness turns deep blush, fragrant and flavoursome. Absolute magic. Take it a step further -- by straining off the juice and boiling briefly with some sugar, and the transformation is complete. I defy anyone who doesn't already know to connect quince jelly with the fruit from which it comes.