The Guardian

Jonathan Nunn writes: “Britain’s sentinels are most vigilant in the food domain, pointing out perceived culinary transgressions, and defining what, to pay homage to Nancy Mitford, might be called W foods (working class) and non-W. It’s a bizarrely childish view that assumes an interest in different or better foodstuffs as class treason and that places people into clearly defined boxes. Just as much as identity politics, which these commentators are supposed to rail against.

Do a restaurant’s good deeds absolve so-so food?

Gravy

John Kessler writes: “In the last few years, there has been a rise in a new type of restaurant that combines destination-worthy cuisine with a charitable calling.” “Jon Bon Jovi’s JBJ Soul Kitchens in New Jersey provide simple meals for paying customers as well as those in need. Someone who can’t afford to pay can exchange their family meal for a shift at work. Bon Appetit has named Staplehouse, in Atlanta… the best new restaurant of America. All profits are donated to a non-profit foundation that helps hospitality workers who are in need. JBJ Soul Kitchen would never be reviewed by a critic, but every critic in America is vying for a seat at Staplehouse. But…[a]t what stage do you decide to applaud the mission instead of criticizing the food?”

The food media’s culturally loaded ‘archive repair’ efforts

Columbia Journalism Review

Navneet Alang writes that “Last Summer, while the country was reeling from the murder of George Floyd, and the police killing Breonna Taylor, American Food Media went through its race-related upheaval.” “For some media outlets, accountability meant a confrontation with their own archives … Critics … seized on the idea of archival repair, suggesting that it threatened the sanctity of the historical record … But if permanence is the defining characteristic of an archive, then the very nature of the Web–expansive but also impermanent, subject to content drift and link rot and the sudden, widespread deletion of whole online communities–undercuts it.”

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African swine fever arrives on U.S.’s doorstep.

Wired

Maryn McKenna writes that African swine flu, detected in the Dominican Republic last July, is “not harmful to humans but it’s devastating to livestock.” It has killed millions of pigs – at least a quarter – and possibly half – of the world’s most giant pork producer herd in China. Animal health authorities in the United States are on high alert. The US Department of Agriculture pledged $500 million in emergency funding to increase surveillance and prevent the disease from spreading. African swine virus is so feared that pork exports would immediately be shut down if found in the US – worth more than $7 billion per year.

Why is Arkansas the driest state in America?

In Arkansas, 34 out of 75 counties have no alcohol. Alice Driver writes, “I am not sure what the morality is of a dry area when so many people drink and throw empty beer cans from cars as they drive along the road.” “I was curious why dry counties continue to exist and why Arkansas had the most. At the beginning of this essay, I hoped to explore alcohol in terms of geography, soil, culture, and poetic language. I wanted to write about things I didn’t learn growing up in an alcohol-free county. My research led me in a different direction. My research led me to the Ku Klux Klan, crystal collectors, and anti-vaxxers. “I was even more confused about the spirit of the place.”