Tag Results for 'seasonal foods'

Editor’s note: This is the fourth installment of “Spring (Food) Break 2013,” featuring our favorite foods of the spring season in each city Culinary Backstreets covers.

This year’s Nevruz celebration, an ancient welcoming of spring, may be remembered for its political significance in which a peace deal was struck between Turkish leaders and Kurdish rebels. But once the shoulder-shrugging, line-dancing, fire-jumping and ululating are over, the real bounty of the season will continue to be celebrated all over Turkey and in many Istanbul restaurants, from the chic to the shabby. Continue »

Editor’s note: This is the third installment of “Spring (Food) Break 2013,” a look at our favorite springtime foods in the cities Culinary Backstreets covers.

In Shanghai, wet markets hold the telltale signs that spring is finally upon us. Stalks of asparagus as thick as a thumb spring up first, alongside brown and white bamboo shoots so freshly pulled from the earth that dirt still clings to their fibrous shells. Continue »

Editor’s note: This is the second installment of “Spring (Food) Break 2013,” our weeklong celebration of spring’s culinary bounty. This guest post is by Lesley Téllez, a freelance writer and the author of the blog The Mija Chronicles, who recently moved to New York after four years in Mexico City.

The first time it happened to me, I didn’t blame the mango.  Continue »

Editor’s note: Here at Culinary Backstreets, we eagerly await the coming of spring each year, not just for the nicer weather but also because some of our favorite foods and dishes are at their best – or indeed, are only available – for a short period during this season. This post from Athens is the first installment of “Spring (Food) Break 2013,” a weeklong celebration of our favorite springtime eats. Stay tuned for dispatches from all of the Culinary Backstreets cities.

Athens is probably at its prettiest in springtime, especially in April and May. Continue »

As the legend goes, a 19th-century Catalan farmer was out experimenting in his fields when he came up with a new kind of longer, juicier green onion, the calçot. In creating the onion, the farmer produced much more than a new vegetable; he also paved the way for the rise of an idiosyncratic, and distinctly Catalan, cultural event. Continue »

Dear Culinary Backstreets,
I’ve heard that Traditional Chinese Medicine dictates that you should alter your diet according to the season to stay healthy. What are some of the foods that Chinese doctors recommend when the temperature drops?  Continue »

We are unabashedly fanatical in our love of hamsi, or anchovies, a late fall/wintertime specialty whose arrival we eagerly await each year in Istanbul, where the tiny fish are most commonly served pan-fried, grilled or in pilaf. But as any hamsi aficionado knows, for the best anchovy-eating in Turkey one must go directly to their source: the country’s Black Sea coastline, where the catch is brought in. Continue »

Dear Culinary Backstreets,
I’ll be in Spain during the December holidays and I’m wondering if Barcelonans eat any special meal on Christmas? If so, what is it and where in the city could I try it? Continue »

Mushroom hunting has an irresistible, magical pull. Composer John Cage, an avid mushroom collector, found them an integral part of his creative process, once writing: “Much can be learned about music by devoting oneself to the mushroom.” Every fall, thousands of Catalans likewise find themselves under the mushroom’s spell, following the elusive fungus’s silent melody into the woods, a rustic wicker basket in one hand and – more and more these days – a GPS-enabled smartphone in the other. Continue »

The arrival of fall in Istanbul usually means one thing for us: hamsi season is about to begin. Hamsi, of course, are the minuscule fish (Black Sea anchovies) that Istanbulites are mad about, and the coming of fall and the cooling of the waters of the Black Sea mark the beginning of the best time of the year to eat the little suckers. In honor of hamsi season, we offer a list of six of our favorite places to try these tiny fish. Continue »