Food & Drink
What people eat and drink, where it came from and the science behind it.
Featured in Food & Drink
Start with these, then follow the links inside each article wherever they lead.
Bread
Bread is a baked food product made from water, flour, and often yeast. It is a staple food across the world, particularly in Europe and the Middle East.
Rice
Rice is a cereal grain and, in its domesticated form, is the staple food of over half of the world's population, particularly in Africa and Asia. Rice is the seed of the grass species Oryza sativa, or, less commonly, Oryza glaberrima (African rice).
Wheat
Wheat is a group of wild and domesticated grasses of the genus Triticum. As cereals, they are cultivated for their grains, which are staple foods around the world.
Maize
Maize, also known as corn, is a tall stout grass that produces cereal grain. The leafy stalk of the plant gives rise to male inflorescences or tassels which produce pollen, and female inflorescences called ears.
Potato
The potato is a starchy tuberous vegetable native to the Americas that is consumed as a staple food in many parts of the world. Potatoes are underground stem tubers of the plant Solanum tuberosum, a perennial in the nightshade family Solanaceae.
Coffee
Coffee is a beverage brewed from roasted, ground coffee beans. Dark-colored and bitter, coffee has a stimulating effect on humans due to its caffeine content; however decaffeinated coffee is also commercially available.
Tea
Tea is an aromatic beverage prepared by infusion of hot or boiling fresh water with fresh or cured leaves of Camellia sinensis, an evergreen shrub native to East Asia that originated in the borderlands of southwestern China, northeast India and northern Myanmar. Tea has a stimulant effect in humans primarily due to its caffeine content.
Chocolate
Chocolate is a food made from roasted and ground cocoa beans. It can be a liquid, solid, or paste.
Cheese
Cheese is a type of dairy product produced in a range of flavors, textures, and forms by curdling of milk, usually from cows, goats or sheep, and sometimes of water buffalo. During production, milk is usually acidified and either the enzymes of rennet or bacterial enzymes with similar activity are added to cause the protein casein to coagulate.
Wine
Wine is an alcoholic drink made from fermented grape juice. It is produced and consumed in many regions around the world, in a wide variety of styles which are influenced by different varieties of grapes, growing environments, viticulture methods, and production techniques.
Beer
Beer is an alcoholic beverage produced by the brewing and fermentation of starches from cereal grain, most commonly malted barley, although wheat, maize, rice, and oats are also used. The grain is mashed to convert starch in the grain to sugars, which dissolve in water to form wort.
Olive oil
Olive oil is a vegetable oil obtained by pressing whole olives and extracting the oil. It is commonly used in cooking for frying foods, as a condiment, or as a salad dressing.
Spice trade
The spice trade involved historical civilizations in Asia, Northeast Africa and Europe. Spices, such as cinnamon, cassia, cardamom, ginger, pepper, nutmeg, star anise, clove, and turmeric, were known and used in antiquity and traded in the Eastern World.
Black pepper
Black pepper is a flowering vine in the family Piperaceae, cultivated for its fruit (the peppercorn), which is usually dried and used as a spice and seasoning. The fruit is a drupe (stonefruit) which is about 5 mm (1⁄4 in) in diameter (fresh and fully mature), dark red, and contains a stone which encloses a single pepper seed.
Sugar
Sugar is a class of sweet-tasting, soluble carbohydrates, many of which are used in food. Simple sugars, also called monosaccharides, include glucose, fructose and galactose.
Honey
Honey is a sweet and viscous substance made by several species of bees, the best-known of which are honey bees. Honey is made and stored to nourish bee colonies.
Fermentation in food processing
In food processing, fermentation is the conversion of carbohydrates to alcohol or organic acids using microorganisms, yeasts or bacteria, without an oxidizing agent being used in the reaction. Fermentation usually implies that the action of microorganisms is desired.
Maillard reaction
The Maillard reaction; French: [majaʁ]) is a chemical reaction between amino acids and reducing sugars to create melanoidins, the compounds that give browned food its distinctive flavor. Seared steaks, fried dumplings, cookies and other kinds of biscuits, breads, toasted marshmallows, falafel and many other foods undergo this reaction.
Sushi
Sushi is a traditional Japanese dish made with vinegared rice (鮨飯, sushi-meshi), typically seasoned with sugar and salt, and combined with a variety of ingredients (ねた, neta), such as seafood, vegetables, or meat; raw seafood is the most common, although some may be cooked. While sushi has numerous styles and presentations, the current defining component is the vinegared rice, also known as shari (しゃり), or sumeshi (酢飯).
Pasta
Pasta is a type of food typically made from an unleavened dough of wheat flour mixed with water or eggs, and formed into sheets or other shapes, then cooked by boiling or baking. Pasta was originally only made with durum, although the definition has been expanded to include alternatives for a gluten-free diet, such as rice flour, or legumes such as beans or lentils.
Curry
Curry is a dish with a spicy sauce, initially in Indian cuisine, then modified by interchange with the Portuguese, followed by the British, and eventually thoroughly internationalised. Many curries are found in the cuisines of countries in Southeast Asia and East Asia.
Tomato
The tomato is a plant whose fruit is an edible berry that is eaten as a vegetable. The tomato is a member of the nightshade family that includes tobacco, potato, and chili peppers.
Banana
A banana is an elongated, edible fruit that is botanically a berry produced by several kinds of large treelike herbaceous flowering plants in the genus Musa. In some countries, cooking bananas are called plantains, distinguishing them from dessert bananas.
Salt
Salt is a mineral composed primarily of sodium chloride. When used in food, especially in granulated form, it is more formally called table salt.
Mediterranean diet
The Mediterranean diet is a dietary concept that was first proposed in 1975 by American biologist Ancel Keys and chemist Margaret Keys. It is inspired by the eating habits and traditional foods of Greece, Italy and the Mediterranean coasts of France and Spain, as observed in the late 1950s to early 1960s.
Veganism
Veganism is the practice of abstaining from the use of animal products and the consumption of animal source foods, and an associated philosophy that rejects the commodity status of animals. A person who practices veganism is known as a vegan; the word is also used to describe foods and materials that are compatible with veganism.
Food preservation
Food preservation includes processes that make food more resistant to microorganism growth and slow the oxidation of fats. This slows down the decomposition and rancidification process.
Umami
Umami, or savoriness, is one of the five basic tastes. It is characteristic of broths and cooked meats.
Yogurt
Yogurt is a food produced by bacterial fermentation of milk. The bacteria ferment the sugars in the milk and produce lactic acid, which acts on milk protein to give yogurt its texture and characteristic tart flavor.
Kimchi
Kimchi is a traditional Korean side dish (banchan) consisting of salted and fermented vegetables, most often napa cabbage or Korean radish. A wide selection of seasonings are used, including gochugaru (Korean chili powder), spring onions, garlic, ginger, and jeotgal (salted seafood).
Vanilla
Vanilla is a spice derived from orchids of the genus Vanilla, primarily obtained from the seed pods of the flat-leaved Mexican and Central American vanilla. Vanilla is not autogamous, so pollination is required to produce the pods.
Cinnamon
Cinnamon is a spice obtained from the inner bark of several tree species from the genus Cinnamomum. Cinnamon is used mainly as an aromatic condiment and flavouring additive in a wide variety of cuisines, in particular sweet and savoury dishes such as biscuits, breakfast cereals, snack foods, bagels, teas, hot chocolate, and traditional foods.
Chili pepper
Chili peppers, also spelled chile or chilli, are varieties of berry-fruit plants from the genus Capsicum, which are members of the nightshade family Solanaceae, cultivated for their pungency (spicy heat). They are used as a spice to add pungency in many cuisines.
Cooking
Cooking, also known as cookery, is the art, science and craft of using heat to make food more palatable, digestible, nutritious, or safe. Cooking techniques and ingredients vary widely, from grilling food over an open fire, to using electric stoves, to baking in various types of ovens, to boiling and blanching in water, reflecting local conditions, techniques and traditions.
Agriculture
Agriculture is the practice of cultivating the soil, planting, raising, and harvesting both food and non-food crops, as well as livestock production. Broader definitions also include forestry and aquaculture.
Columbian exchange
The Columbian exchange, also known as the Columbian interchange, was the widespread transfer of plants, animals, and diseases between the New World in the Western Hemisphere, and the Old World (Afro-Eurasia) in the Eastern Hemisphere, from the late 15th century on. It is named after the Italian explorer Christopher Columbus and is related to the European colonization and global trade following his 1492 voyage.
Guides in Food & Drink
The science of cooking
Why browning tastes good, how heat changes proteins and starches, and what salt, acid and fat really do.
Fermentation: bread, cheese, yogurt and more
How microbes have preserved and transformed food for thousands of years, from sourdough and kimchi to wine and miso.
The spice trade
How pepper, cinnamon, cloves and nutmeg drove trade networks, voyages of exploration and colonial wars.
The story of coffee and tea
How two plants from Ethiopia and China became the world's favourite drinks and reshaped trade, empires and social life.
The history of bread
From wild grains baked on hot stones to industrial loaves, how bread fed civilizations and sparked revolutions.