Portal:Food

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In international politics, food power is the use of agriculture as a means of political control whereby one nation or group of nations offers or withholds commodities from another nation or group of nations in order to manipulate behavior. Its potential use as a weapon was recognised after OPEC’s earlier use of oil as a political weapon. Food has a major influence on political actions of a nation. In response to acts of food power, a nation usually acts in the interest of its citizens to provide food.

Food power is an integral part of the politics of food. The idea of food power is used in embargoes, employment, and food politics. In order for a nation to utilize food power effectively, the nation must effectively apply and display scarcity, supply concentration, demand dispersion, and action independence. On the smaller scale, particularly in some African countries, food power has been used as a weapon by opposing sides in internal wars and conflicts against their own people. (Full article...)

The Paleolithic diet, Paleo diet, caveman diet, or Stone Age diet is a modern fad diet consisting of foods thought by its proponents to mirror those eaten by humans during the Paleolithic era.

The diet avoids food processing and typically includes vegetables, fruits, nuts, roots, and meat and excludes dairy products, grains, sugar, legumes, processed oils, salt, alcohol, and coffee. Historians can trace the ideas behind the diet to "primitive" diets advocated in the 19th century. In the 1970s, Walter L. Voegtlin popularized a meat-centric "Stone Age" diet; in the 21st century, the best-selling books of Loren Cordain popularized the Paleo diet. As of 2019^[update] the paleo-diet industry was worth approximately US$500 million. (Full article...)

Mexican cuisine consists of the cooking cuisines and traditions of the modern country of Mexico. Its earliest roots lie in Mesoamerican cuisine. Mexican cuisine ingredients and methods begin with the first agricultural communities such as the Olmec and Maya who domesticated maize, created the standard process of nixtamalization, and established their foodways. Successive waves of other Mesoamerican groups brought with them their cooking methods. These included: the Teotihuacanos, Toltec, Huastec, Zapotec, Mixtec, Otomi, Purépecha, Totonac, Mazatec, Mazahua, and Nahua. With the Mexica formation of the multi-ethnic Triple Alliance (Aztec Empire), culinary foodways became infused (Aztec cuisine).

Today's food staples native to the land include corn (maize), turkey, beans, squash, amaranth, chia, avocados, tomatoes, tomatillos, cacao, vanilla, agave, spirulina, sweet potato, cactus, and chili pepper. Its history over the centuries has resulted in regional cuisines based on local conditions, including Baja Med, Chiapas, Veracruz, Oaxacan, and the American cuisines of New Mexican and Tex-Mex. (Full article...)

Olive oil is a liquid fat obtained by pressing whole olives, the fruit of Olea europaea, a traditional tree crop of the Mediterranean Basin, and extracting the oil.

It is commonly used in cooking for frying foods or as a salad dressing. It can also be found in some cosmetics, pharmaceuticals, soaps, and fuels for traditional oil lamps. It also has additional uses in some religions. The olive is one of three core food plants in Mediterranean cuisine, together with wheat and grapes. Olive trees have been grown around the Mediterranean since the 8th millennium BC. (Full article...)

Vindaloo or Vindalho is an Indian curry dish, originally from Vasai and Goa.

It is based on the Portuguese dish carne de vinha d'alhos. It is known globally in its British Indian form as a staple of curry house and Indian restaurant menus and is often regarded as a fiery, spicy dish. The traditional recipe uses pork, but alternative versions have been prepared with beef, mutton, prawns, chicken, lamb, vegetables and tofu. (Full article...)

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Lettuce (Lactuca sativa) is an annual plant of the family Asteraceae. It is most often grown as a leaf vegetable, but sometimes for its stem and seeds. Lettuce is most often used for salads, although it is also seen in other kinds of food, such as soups, sandwiches and wraps; it can also be grilled. One variety, celtuce (asparagus lettuce), is grown for its stems, which are eaten either raw or cooked. In addition to its main use as a leafy green, it has also gathered religious and medicinal significance over centuries of human consumption. Europe and North America originally dominated the market for lettuce, but by the late 20th century the consumption of lettuce had spread throughout the world. , world production of lettuce and chicory was 27 million tonnes, 53 percent of which came from China.

Lettuce was originally farmed by the ancient Egyptians, who transformed it from a plant whose seeds were used to obtain oil into an important food crop raised for its succulent leaves and oil-rich seeds. Lettuce spread to the Greeks and Romans; the latter gave it the name lactuca, from which the English lettuce is derived. By 50 AD, many types were described, and lettuce appeared often in medieval writings, including several herbals. The 16th through 18th centuries saw the development of many varieties in Europe, and by the mid-18th century, cultivars were described that can still be found in modern gardens. (Full article...)

Haddon Norman Salt (born 18 October 1928) is a British–American businessman, best known for founding the fast food chain H. Salt Esq. Fish & Chips and for acting as that company's brand ambassador, spokesman, and symbol. Salt followed his father and grandfather's careers, becoming a master fish cook and purveyor of fish and chips.

"I came over not simply to start a restaurant, but to introduce America to fish and chips, as grandiose as that dream sounds now". When Salt arrived in America in 1964, Britons ate an average of 100 pounds of fish per year, while Americans ate only 10 pounds per year. Salt said, "The way some of it is handled, I can see why".

Salt opened his first fish and chips shop in California in 1965. His business was acquired by the Kentucky Fried Chicken corporation in 1969. The sale made Salt the third largest stockholder in KFC, at the time the world's largest fast-food company.

KFC was not successful in the large-scale expansion of the H. Salt Esq. chain and sold the brand and business in 1972. Salt explained the brand's failure, saying "They started lowering the standards of the quality of the fish, and so the [sales] volumes of the restaurants went down and people stopped buying franchises, so that was the end of it. And it didn't grow anymore."

Salt left the company in 1972. (Full article...)

• ... that Steven A. Shaw, one of the first food bloggers, decided to pursue the career that he loved after the early death of his father?
• ... that in November 2022, Leicester City Council used the Food Act 1984 in combination with a royal charter of 1199 to levy a charge on the organisers of two Christmas light switching-on events?
• ... that John Bunker was inspired to propagate old apple tree varieties after encountering Black Oxford apples while managing the food co-op in Belfast, Maine?
• ... that New Zealand editor and journalist Madeleine Chapman, known for fashion label exposés and snack food ranking lists, is a champion javelin thrower?
• ... that exercises in the fair division of food are often used to teach unit fractions?
• ... that the café C1 Espresso delivers food to customers using pneumatic tubes?

... that ghee was frequently used for libations in Vedic rituals (see Yajurveda), and there is even a hymn to ghee?

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