Food

NPR

How soaring inflation forces stark choices on low-income Americans : NPR

From rising rent to higher heating bills, surging inflation impacts everybody, but it poses a particular hardship for people with little extra money to spare.

On Tuesday, the Labor Department reported that consumer prices in March were 8.5% higher than a year ago — the sharpest increase since December of 1981.

While no one likes paying more for haircuts or hamburgers, high inflation is especially painful for low-income families, whose spending is heavily weighted toward necessities such as gasoline and groceries, which have seen some of the largest price hikes.

Gasoline prices have jumped 48% in the last year while grocery prices are up 10%.

What Is Wagyu Beef? Here’s Everything You Need to Know – Robb Report

What Is Wagyu Beef? Here’s Everything You Need to Know – Robb Report

Simply put, Wagyu means Japanese cow, But the straightforward definition belies a subject riddled with misinformation.

For starters, it’s pronounced wah-gyoo, not wah-goo, a mispronunciation that’s common even among American Wagyu farms (and that admittedly tripped up even this intrepid reporter), says Heitzeberg.

And Wagyu isn’t an umbrella term for just any Japanese cow. The luxury version of Wagyu we all want on our plates refers to a specific breed of Japanese cattle with special genetic qualities. “There are four breeds native to Japan. Of those four breeds, one of the breeds is genetically unique,” Heitzeberg says. “It has a genetic predisposition to create this crazy marbling of fat on inside of muscle tissue. No other livestock does that.” Think of your average piece of steak. Chances are, it’ll have a fat cap on its outside. With Wagyu, the cow metabolizes the fat internally, so it’s integrated within the muscle.

The Forgotten Nazi History of ‘One-Pot Meals’ – Gastro Obscura

The Forgotten Nazi History of ‘One-Pot Meals’ – Gastro Obscura

ON OCTOBER 1, 1933, GERMANS sat down to an unusually frugal Sunday lunch. For decades, even centuries, the norm had been a roast dinner, usually characterized by a great, bronzed hunk of animal, flanked by potatoes. This was the crowning glory of the week—a meal to be savored and celebrated. But that day, nine months after the Nazis first came to power, Germans ate simple, inexpensive food. Some ate Irish stew; others steaming pots of pea soup, made with Speck and dried beans. Another common dish was macaroni Milanese, a stodgy predecessor to mac and cheese flecked with a confetti of rosy ham. All these dishes had three important things in common: They were inexpensive; they were made in a single pot; and they had been officially sanctioned by the Nazis.

Small farms are producing less and becoming more financially risky | STLPR

Small farms are producing less and becoming more financially risky | STLPR

A new report from the U.S. Department of Agriculture shows the percentage of farms that are small and family owned is staying steady, but they produce less and are more financially risky.

The USDA Economic Research Service last week released its latest America's Diverse Family Farms report, which provides current statistics on U.S. farms, including production, financial performance, size and ownership.

Among the findings in the report is that the percentage of farms that are small and family owned remained unchanged from 2011 to 2020, holding steady at 89% of all farms.