With all due respect to Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel, we know -- thanks to ESPN, the New York Yankees and our fathers -- exactly what happened to Joe DiMaggio. The baseball hero hung up his cleats after the 1951 season and retired from the sport. A few...

The industrial pioneer Henry Ford actively monitored his employees' social lives and eagerly battled the United Auto Workers, but he was no match for granulated sugar. Ford worried about eating it, fearing the sharp crystals would tear his stomach lining and cause internal bleeding.

For the vast majority of Americans,...

As the year 2010 dawned, SlashFood's Hanna Raskin made a perplexing observation. "If there was one trend that defined the first breaths of this millennium," she wrote, "it was a general resistance to trendiness." Are you kidding me?

Over the past decade, it seems that every high-end, big-city...

Last week, halfway through National Ice Cream Month, the Baskin-Robbins chain launched a dairy drama by announcing it was discontinuing five of its original 31 flavors. Both the news media and the blogosphere lit up like a Christmas tree, reacting to the company's decision.

Both France and the United States celebrate their national holidays in the month of July. Yet that's where the similarities end. As the French prepare to celebrate Bastille Day on July 14, it's hard to think of another nation where food and freedom are so equally cherished.

"I eat with...

Celebrities can be hot dogs, especially when they're famous for being the former champion of a frankfurter-eating contest. Japanese eating champ Takeru "The Tsunami" Kobayashi was arrested Sunday for charging the stage at this year's Coney Island Fourth of July hot dog contest while Joey "Jaws" Chestnut was...

Writing recently for a New York Times dining blog, Eric Asimov didn't mince words. "Chinese is one of the world's great cuisines," he wrote, "yet in New York, and I daresay in much of the country, it remains for the most part consigned either to great expressions of...

The people who prepared meals for the British crown during the 14th century were not following precise instructions. The Forme of Cury, a collection of recipes for dishes served to King Richard II and his barons, offered crude directions. One of its recipes gave cooks these instructions: "Take...

A few weeks ago, I was examining the racks of wine at a liquor store when I came across a bottle from the Australian vintner Marquis Philips. The label on back of the bottle informed me that this wine was "made especially for you." Especially for me? Is this just...

Those of us who love strawberries and live on the East Coast recognize that California must produce a lot of wonderful, juicy strawberries. Unfortunately, we never see them. The only California varieties we see are the ones shipped eastward by rail -- the ones that have been picked too soon...

Republicans will employ a variety of strategies this fall as they campaign to regain control of Congress. If history is any guide, they may find themselves using the language of lunch and the dialect of dinner. Indeed, for more than a century, food has provided candidates with a handy prop...