Food & Cooking

Novelist Kate Christensen makes a plot line of her own life in a memoir that describes her struggles to come to terms with her family, her relationships and her sometimes violent father. A passionate lover of food, Christensen weaves recipes into a story of survival.

Bridget Lancaster and Jack Bishop advise using ripe fruit, extra-firm tofu and poking your hamburgers so they don't puff up like tennis balls.

Jack Bishop and Bridget Lancaster of the public TV series share tips for buying, seasoning and cooking a turkey (hint: bigger isn't necessarily better, keep lots of salt around, and give the bird a break before carving). They also give advice on how to make some of their favorite side dishes.

America's Test Kitchen knows how to make gluten-free food taste just as good as the regular stuff. The ATK team tells Fresh Air about the best packaged pasta, and the secrets of gluten-free baking.

One-third of the seafood Americans catch is sold abroad, but most of the seafood we eat here is imported and often of lower quality. Why? Author Paul Greenberg says it has to do with American tastes.

Author Adam Rogers says there are lots of myths about what causes hangovers. His new book, Proof: The Science of Booze, explores these and other scientific mysteries of alcohol's effect on the body.

Some of the nation's restaurants are using technology to make diners commit before their night out. It's convenient for the restaurant an customer -- and it may pry people away from old habits.

The Cook's Illustrated Meat Book gives tips on how to shop for, store, season and cook meat. Why shouldn't you pack your burgers too tight? Two America's Test Kitchen editors explain.

Cooking with plant foods naturally high in compounds called glutamates can stimulate the same taste receptors that meat does. America's Test Kitchen explains in The Complete Vegetarian Cookbook.

Journalist Barry Estabrook wanted to know more about the animal and its journey from the farm to his plate. In a new book, he explores the dichotomies of the industry that's raising our pork chops.

Food writer Bee Wilson has a message of hope for parents struggling to get their children to eat their veggies: "As parents we have a far greater power than we think we have to form children's tastes," Wilson tells Fresh Air's Terry Gross.

In her new book, First Bite, Wilson examines how genetics, culture, memory and early feeding patterns contribute to our food preferences. She says that a child's palate can be formed even before birth. And this insight can be helpful for parents who want their children to eat well and healthfully.

The Food Network draws more viewers than any of the cable news channels, but Americans are actually cooking less than ever. Food-culture writer Michael Pollan (The Omnivore's Dilemma) ponders the phenomenon.

The Great Depression, and a time when cheap, bland and filling foods altered the American diet.

The TV star and educator talks about her early days in food, her training and teaching in France, and how anyone can learn to cook and eat well.

V Street, the new cookbook by married chefs Rich Landau and Kate Jacoby, features recipes inspired by global street food. Jacoby says the right techniques can coax "amazing flavor" out of vegetables.

Enter Me

Maureen Corrigan reviews a new collection of the most celebrated essays of Food and travel writer Betty Fussel.

Cookbook author Julia Turshen says cooking should be flexible: "[Recipes] are kind of sold to people as prescriptions, these really precise things, ... but I think there's very rarely a wrong answer.