Good Food

Food historian Christina Ward documents the practical and spiritual ways that religion shapes what we eat. From toilet to tap, John and Sommer Decker fight off the Arizona heat with beer brewed from treated wastewater. Gustavo Arellano reveals the Fuerte Four in the 2023 Tortilla Tournament. Drawing on her Karuk heritage, Native Californian Sara Calvosa Olson helps people decolonize their diets, one cup of manzanita flour at a time. Harvesting Indigenous ingredients on Navajo Nation land, Zachariah and Mary Ben make and sell non-GMO, heritage-style baby food. Pomologist David Karp puts the squeeze on citron, an ancient fruit often seen in panettone and fruitcake.

Memo Torres hops on Metro's 33 bus line to seek out tacos from Santa Monica to downtown. The field narrows for the 2023 Tortilla Tournament as Gustavo Arellano reveals the Eso Eight, who are still in the running for the Golden Tortilla. Writer and chef Klancy Miller shines a light on the Black women and femmes at the top of their game in food, wine, and hospitality. Recipe developer Susan Simon teams up with Rabbi Zoe Zak to celebrate the Jewish high holidays. Uli Nasibova heads to the farmer's market to buy quince for a chicken dish.

Journalist Laura Tillman phoned Máximo Bistrot, a restaurant riding the wave of Mexico City's popularity as a fine dining destination, in hopes of interviewing its chef, Eduardo "Lalo" García Guzmán. Tillman had covered immigration for the past 10 years and she was interested in speaking with dishwashers, cooks, waiters, and purveyors working in high-end restaurants, where economic inequalities are pronounced. It was 2016, and as the US presidential election made pawns of Mexican immigrants, the chef was eager to share his story. 

Tillman spent the next five years speaking with García, his family, and those who worked with him, following his journey from the fields as a young migrant farm worker to the kitchens of the American South then back to Mexico, where along with his wife, he has built a restaurant group that employs hundreds of people. Tillman tells his story in the book The Migrant Chef: The Life and Times of Lalo García — but ultimately, this is Lalo's journey. It's a singular epic, complete with a cruel twist that reveals so much about the relationship between Mexico and the United States, the two countries that shaped García. 

With temperatures dipping below 80 degrees, it must be pasta weather in Southern California. This week, Good Food heads to Italy. Rachel Roddy combines 50 pasta shapes with sauces, creating iconic dishes of everyone's favorite carb. When Saghar Setareh landed in Rome from Tehran, she uncovered a Venn diagram of overlapping flavors. Silivia Nacamulli looks back at Jewish influences on Italy's culinary history, which stretch back 2,000 years. Clifford Wright hones in on the culinary traditions of Emilia-Romana. At the farmer's market, Melissa Lopez finds eggplant to top one of her must-have pies

It's that time of year. Summer is officially over and kids are back in school. And sending kids to school means figuring out what they're going to eat for lunch… unless your child eats the lunch provided by their school. Then you're done and dusted. A team of experts has figured all of that out for you, right?

On the James Beard award-winning podcast Pressure Cooker, hosts Jane Black and Elizabeth Dunn explore the Herculean task of providing nutritious food that children will actually want to eat. If you've never thought about the inner workings of the school lunch program, you're about to get a crash course.

This week on Good Food, we're rebroadcasting two episodes from Pressure Cooker. In "The Twisted History of School Lunch in America," Black and Dunn dig into the origins of the school lunch program to figure out how we got to where we are today. It's a surprising tale involving desperate farmers, skittish military generals, shortsighted bean counters, pizza lobbyists, and a network of underground caves filled with cheese. 

Who owns Taco Tuesday? Gustavo Arellano weighs in on the legal skirmish around the phrase. Using slices, pieces, and crumbs, baker Rick Easton treats bread as an ingredient. Sisters Margaret and Irene Li crack the code for using wilted, nearly expired, and only-needed-a-tablespoon ingredients. Krista Burton makes a cross-country pilgrimage to visit the last lesbian bars in the US. LA Times restaurant critic Bill Addison sets his sights on a newish spot that brings Korean fine dining to Los Angeles. Meredith Pangrace delves into Midwest pies and their origins in a new cookbook.

Meliz Berg praises the overlapping cultures of the slow-cooked meats and herby salads of a Cypriot diet. Third-generation Alaskan Julia O'Malley reports on salmon fishermen trying to keep their head above water amid a lawsuit and starving orcas. Maunika Gowardhan reconfigures tandoori cooking for the home oven, replicating the flavors of the traditional clay pot. LA Times restaurant critic Bill Addison heads to Beverly Grove for a union between the Goat Mafia and Saucy Chick. Food historian Judith Tschann breaks down the often farcical etymology of food words. Finally, Chef Matthew Schaler at Birdie G’s celebrates tomato season with a sandwich layering the nightshade in every component.

Sophie Donelson looks at modern kitchens, leaving plenty of wiggle room for comfort and realistic living. Anya von Bremzen travels to six food capitals in search of the connection between cuisine and identity. Learning the tricks of the trade, journalist Jaya Saxena discovers that performing at a Benihana teppanyaki grill isn't as easy as it looks. Daniel Gritzer lays out the tenets of marinades and discusses whether they're worth the effort. Chef Justin Pichetrungsi of Anajak Thai shops for market mangos for a traditional Thai dessert.

Memo Torres shares three under-the-radar dining destinations on his monthly Apple Maps list. Gloria Swanson is ready for her close-up as a health food advocate (with a little help from LA historian Hadley Meares). Forget meat alternatives. Lukas Volger develops veggie burger recipes using whole foods. TikTok Jell-O revivalist Otto Markel is documenting every recipe from a 1963 cookbook. "Jiggle Daddy" Ken Albala showcases gelatin cuisine using some eyebrow-raising ingredients. Erika Chan visits the farmers market to find melons for a gelatin dessert at Dunsmoor.

Terrified of the ocean in her youth, Valentine Thomas is now a champion spearfisherwoman. An obsession with a bluefin tuna named Amelia led journalist Karen Pinchin on a deep dive into the future of fish. Saltie Girl owner Kathy Sidell recommends her favorite tinned fish among an ocean of possibilites. Gilberto Centina keeps racking up accolades at Holbox, a top-shelf seafood counter located in Mercado La Paloma. From a five-acre shellfish lease to a legendary Northern California seafood business, Hog Island Oyster Company is the pearl of the Bay Area.