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You probably have the ingredients for sugar cream pie in your kitchen.

7 Historic Dishes Born From Tough Times That You Can Make at Home

Use every last crumb with these feats of culinary creativity.

BY Sam O'Brien
Insect farming could serve an important role in alleviating food insecurity in Madagascar, where almost half of all children under five are malnourished.

To Save Madagascar’s Wildlife, an Entomologist Is Helping Revive a Bug-Based Cuisine

Local insect farms could save lemurs, baobabs, and more.

BY Andy Isaacson

How 'Shoebox Lunches' Made Black Travel Possible During Jim Crow

The Chef Bringing Native American Flavors to Communities in Quarantine

The Gastro Obscura Newsletter

Updates from Gastro Obscura, delivered twice a week.

Food & More

A memela, made with a blue-corn tortilla, alongside salsas and a warm cup of atole.
Place

Itanoní

In a quiet residential neighborhood, one restaurant fights to preserve heirloom corn, one tortilla at a time.
Place

Under-the-Hill Saloon

A 200-year-old bar is all that remains of one Mississippi River town's rough-and-tumble past.
Prepared Foods

Long-Simmering Soup

At a Bangkok bistro, one pot of beef stew has been cooking non-stop for more than 45 years.
A bowl of chitlins.
Prepared Foods

Chitlins

These entrails identified safe venues for African-American performers during the Jim Crow era.
See All Food & Drink

Stories

Dirty Water is one of hundreds of distilleries across the United States in manufacturing hand sanitizer.

Inside One Distillery’s Pivot to Hand Sanitizer

The small Massachusetts outfit supplies local police, firefighters, and hospitals.
BY Luke Fater
Monroe Boston Strause would reinvent the cream pie.

The 'Pie Engineer' Who Designed a Dessert For the Jazz Age

With a new filling and a new crust, an American innovator changed pie forever.
BY Rossi Anastopoulo
Whisky writer Davin de Kergommeaux at the Highlander Pub in Ottawa.

Why the World Overlooked Canadian Whisky

A preference for blending put the Great White North on the wrong side of industry standards.
BY Dan Nosowitz
Ducks on the move.

A Parade of 2,000 Ducks Keeps a South African Vineyard Running

For pest control, this South African farm enlisted a fowl army.
BY Ulrike Lemmin-Woolfrey
Just when you thought cows could do it all.

The Oregon Creamery Making Vodka From Milk

“It's a tribute to the cows.”
BY Luke Fater
Common foods on St. Joseph altars include <em>cucidati</em>, or fig cookies, and <em>pignolata</em>, or "honey ball" cookies.

How New Orleans Made a Medieval Sicilian Tradition Its Own

St. Joseph protects communities during times of sickness and famine.
BY Reina Gattuso
Canoes are the traditional vehicles for gathering wild rice.
The Cross-Border Indigenous Battle for Wild Rice

In the Great Lakes region, what some consider a weed is actually a sacred seed.

BY Darcy Rhyno