humanity

Humanity topics include pieces on the real lives of chefs, professionals, amateurs, inspiring youth, influencers, and general feel good human stories in the Feast food sphere.

The Cinnamon Spaghetti Incident
The Cinnamon Spaghetti Incident You were eleven the year your mother went back to school. Suddenly, your evenings were rearranged around her classes, her textbooks, and her highlighters, scattered across the kitchen table like confetti. Dinner became a rotating responsibility among you, your older sister, and whichever neighbor wandered in at the right time. Some nights it was grilled cheese. Some nights it was cereal. Some nights it was nothing but a bowl of popcorn and the promise that tomorrow would be more organized.
By Christina Pozzie2 days ago in Feast
Fish-Head Drinking Isn’t a Shandong Rule. I Lived There 40 Years and Never Saw It.
Last winter, in a small restaurant in Jinan, a fish stew in an iron pot had just arrived. A Shandong man turned the fish head toward me and asked, “Is fish-head drinking really that fierce in Henan?”
By Jin3 days ago in Feast
I Cooked 16 Flowers in One Spring. One Numbed My Tongue.
Eating Flowers The first time someone told me daylilies could be eaten, I put my chopsticks down. The plate was already on the table: green-yellow buds, thin and straight, mixed with pork slices. I asked, “This is a flower?” Nobody answered. My aunt took a piece and put it in my bowl. I ate it. It tasted like a mushroom that had learned to be tender. I ate three bowls of rice.
By Jin3 days ago in Feast
I Ate My Way Through China’s Ethnic Minority Cities. Here’s What You Should Order.
Chinese ethnic minority food is not on a menu. It is by the fire pit, in the night market, in the morning wet market, outside a tent on the grassland, between a mother’s palms. You have to go to the city, walk into the alley, sit down, and accept a bowl of steaming food to understand it. Flavor is how a people live with a piece of land.
By Jin3 days ago in Feast
Something to Think About
One of the most unusual things I've ever eaten was prepared by the same person that taught me to fix smoked oyster stew. I'm sure that sounds awful enough to some of you, but I assure you, its rich, buttery, smoky flavor will tickle your taste buds like you can't imagine. For those readers that aren't fans of oysters, you should know that the smoked ones you can buy in the rectangular tins with the peel-back top are solid, slime-free, and savory.
By Dana Crandell4 days ago in Feast
Closing the Emotional Buffet.
The word mistress implies a secret. It suggests a woman hidden away in the dark, kept under lock and key, brought out only when it is convenient, and tucked back into the shadows when the real world demands attention. But an emotional mistress doesn’t hide her body; she hides her soul. She is the woman who leaves the door to her mind wide open, allowing broken, fragile, hollow men to walk inside, dust their boots off, dump their heavy baggage on her rug, and drink until they are full.
By Syl De'Vil5 days ago in Feast
The Taste of Home
I haven't been back to that market in a long time. The market began at six every morning. People arrived early to prepare for business, arranging fresh vegetables, fish, and meat, putting price tags on everything, and waiting for customers to come. They bargained, negotiated, and eventually settled on what felt like a fair exchange.
By Alix8 days ago in Feast
Sugar-Free Mooncakes Are Not a Free Pass
A week before the Mid-Autumn Festival, the supermarket shelves were packed with mooncakes. Tin boxes, paper boxes, lava-filled, snow-skin. One row said “sugar-free,” and the price was about thirty percent higher than ordinary mooncakes.
By Jin9 days ago in Feast
Why Zongzi Start Fights and Mooncakes Do Not
Meal or snack: why zongzi fight over sweet and savory, and mooncakes do not A week before the Dragon Boat Festival, a pressure cooker appears at the door of breakfast shops in southern cities. When the lid lifts, the oily aroma of pork zongzi and reed leaves rises. Pork-and-egg-yolk zongzi, chestnut pork zongzi, sausage zongzi sit within reach. Buyers do not wait for the festival. They treat them as breakfast. One zongzi with soy milk, or with a small bowl of wontons. Glutinous rice is the staple, pork is the dish, salted egg yolk helps the rice go down. The reed leaves are packaging.
By Jin9 days ago in Feast
My Mom Mails Me Five-Kernel Mooncakes Every Year. The Rest of China Eats Something Else.
I When my mother’s package arrived, Mid-Autumn had already passed by three days. The box was from China Post, wrapped in three layers of green tape. I cut it open. Inside was old newspaper. Inside the newspaper was a tin box. The box said “Five-Kernel Mooncake” in gold characters on a red background. One corner had chipped, exposing bare metal. I opened it. Ten cakes, each wrapped in oil paper. The paper was soaked through with oil, translucent. Through it I could see bits of green and red candied strips.
By Jin9 days ago in Feast
The Orange Peel Waterfall: A Lesson in Being Seen
One photo shows orange peels pouring down from a stall. From a distance, it looks like a bowl of noodles overflowing onto the street. Another shows a huge skeleton propped up in front of a barbecue stand. A third reveals a supermarket owner who used dried chilies and garlic cloves to arrange faces on cabbages. The vegetables look alive.
By Jin10 days ago in Feast
The Night I Sold My Soul to a Hot Glue Gun
The parent chat group buzzed at four in the afternoon. "Please use the weekend to create a handmade Mid-Autumn lantern with your child. Bring it to school on Monday morning."
By Jin10 days ago in Feast