Most Popular
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Sauerkraut v. Kimchi:
A Tale of Two CabbagesKimchi and sauerkraut are two of the world's best known fermented cabbages. -
Eating, Not Eating, Downing Pills — On the Need for Ecstasy
Neurotransmitter serotonin brings us into the state of ecstasy. Its release is triggered by intoxica... -
Lemons and Limes
The relationship between limes and lemons is more complex than meets the eye. -
Mussolini, Oppressor of Pasta
Benito Mussolini is not known as a food-lover. But if he did not want food to be a big deal, perhaps... -
Marco Polo, Bringer of Pasta
Marco Polo is known for having introduced pasta to Italy. Myth or truth? -
Our daily excrement
In China, guests stay at the host’s for as long as it takes to relieve himself – a gesture of giving... -
White is the Warmest Color:
A History of Refined FlourMore often than not, we polish rice to make it white but nutritionally deficient, and we strip the g... -
Hieronymus Bosch’s Endless Fire and the discovery of LSD
The extremely psychedelic paintings of Hieronymus Bosch reveal a lot about the suffering of the medi... -
Food for the Gods
From time immemorial humans have sacrificed for the gods. We flatter them with presents and can ther... -
Sex and Food – Friends or Foes?
You really want to sleep but you can't. Something is missing. You think a piece of chocolate would h... -
The Art of the Meat
Interestingly, a good 500 years ago, meat and its representation were strongly linked in a moral deb... -
Curry and Paprika:
A German ObsessionSalad, scrambled eggs, pasta — there’s nothing these spices haven’t been tried on in Germany. How co... -
Banana Stalk Hair Extension
A start up company in Kenya is making human hair extensions from banana stalks, sating growing local... -
Charles Darwin:
The Mistaken Vegetarian HeroDarwin was not only a lifelong meat-eater, but his early eating habits would make him more villain t... -
When Food Falls from the Sky – On Miracles
Inspired by the Berlin Airlift of 1948, a group of engineers from Standford University started the S... -
Food Pairing
Did you know that tomato and green tea pair well? Food pairing as a molecular analysis of simil... -
The Magical Story of Psilocybin Mushrooms
Your take on them will stem from political attitudes, personal experience, spiritual narratives and ... -
Baumkuchen, the ‘King of Cakes’
One of Germany’s most revered pastries is Baumkuchen, or tree cake. -
Yes, We Have Bananas
Expensive Bananas in East Berlin after the Berlin Wall came down ‘Hold our hands and take us to B... -
The Unfair Trade of the Fairtrade Bananas
Bananas are considered the most popular fruit in the world, with over 100 billion units eaten every ... -
Art and Appetite:
American Painting, Culture, and CuisineThe Exhibition is at the Art Institute of Chicago until January 27, 2014. An exhibition review by Ja... -
What Workers ate in America. A Review.
Turner stitches together records of cramped urban kitchens, rural vegetable gardens, and bustling lo... -
The Horse-or-Cow Question
Why do we eat cows and cuddle horses? We went deep down into the horse-or-cow debate. -
Mega Bites – on Food in Video Games
In a world where the difference between virtual and physical space is increasingly hard to pin down ... -
The Mangalica Pig and its Savior
Cousin to the black-footed Iberian, the mangalica pig was once nearly extinct until Hungarian anima... -
Lupine – a discovery of the Beautiful Unknown
It is difficult not to become a fan of lupine once you get to know her. But not so many people do. I... -
In the Land of Milk and Honey with Sonja Alhäuser
What could be a better vehicle than food to create, celebrate, and make moments into something speci... -
The Poetry of Preserving
It is in the nature of food that it begins to spoil at the moment it is harvested. This process of d... -
The Sociology of the Common Meal
The meal is an active space of exchange that offers us a common language when we have none. It is wh... -
Rohvolution – Nutrition vs. Pleasure
The whole is more than the sum of its parts – a few thoughts after attending a serious food fair. -
Blade Runner Bees
Without more research into the bees and their dance, the world of food production is going to be ‘re... -
An Entire Nation of Vigorous and Beautiful Men
“Manly Health! Is there not a kind of charm—a fascinating magic in the words?” Walt Whitman’s health... -
Before Bulletproof Coffee, There Was Yak Butter Tea
Butter makes everything better, right? On this front, one Silicon Valley entrepreneur and some nomad... -
Hydroponics – What on earth is going on
As the world’s population grows, scientists and farmers are faced with the question of how to produc... -
More Condoms! But sustainable please.
More nature, less humans. Sustainable Condoms could safe the world in several ways. -
As American as Apple Pie, Apparently
On occasion of the first Trumpian Thanksgiving we are asking: Just how American is apple pie? -
Eat Insects to Save the Planet?
Insects are in vogue lately. As the 'food of the future' they appear in numerous publications and su... -
3D Food Printer
Lately, 3D printers are capable of printing not only plastic artworks, organs and replacement parts ... -
Finding the Erotic at LIDL:
Georges Bataille and the Natural WorldWhen author John Holten waits with his groceries in the checkout queue of Lidl it happens that he co... -
Narcissus at the Chef’s Table
The fetishization of cooking as art is, historically speaking, a very new phenomenon. Well, it's tre... -
A Small Greek Village in a Big Chestnut Forest
Kastanitsa, built at an altitude of 850 metres, is a traditional village of unique architectural bea... -
The Future of Food Waste
How does our food get to our plate, and to plates around the world? About the relation between a gro... -
Outsourcing the Homemade
Long before the age of the internets, there were “Aunty’s” we’d find through a friend, or a friend o... -
Followfish
Followfish is a network founded by fishermen standing for transparent and sustainable fish products. -
Orthorexia Nervosa
The one thing that should not be forgotten is that nutrition trends only make sense if they can live... -
Cooked Art
As usual, what seems like a new supertrend already has a definite history – a history linked to ques... -
Conversation with artist Thomas Rentmeister
At first I didn’t find Thomas Rentmeister at all, as I entered the old industrial space that the art... -
Aromat, the Taste of Switzerland
It’s everywhere, in the high mountains and in the green valleys. It’s a powdered condiment with a st... -
Hospital Food
It’s so fucking weird that people are still allowed to smoke at hospitals. What people don’t seem to... -
Virtual Food or The Future is Now
Instead of likes, we will soon be able to send New York cheesecakes with strawberry topping through ... -
White is the Warmest Colour:
Our Complicated Love Affair with FlourIt is no secret that we have fallen out of love with white flour. But a divorce now, after a century... -
A Conversation with Tomer Niv
Tomer Niv is musician, chef and synesthete. He sees dishes in music and tastes in chords. -
Aloe Vera, Blood of the Gods
The plant is popular, though sometimes people are not fully aware of its versatility. -
HUNGRY MIND:
Julian LechnerWhat becomes of all those coffee grounds is a question beginning to concern more and more people. Ju... -
Taina Guedes:
The Woman Behind Berlin Food Art WeekThe original plan was to create an intimate week of exchange and exhibitions. Currently the program ... -
As Green as it Gets:
Potato Starch Set to Challenge BioplasticSince the early 2000s, New Zealand company Earthpac has been manufacturing plates made of potato sta... -
Adventures in Indoor Farming
In the near future, fresh food could come straight from the living room to your plate. -
How Kenyan Prisoners invented the Pomato
Behind the unforgiving iron bars, metal grilled doors and limited freedom at Nairobi’s maximum corre... -
Permaculture:
Real Food, Real Farming and Real LifeIf you love watching stars in your sleeping bag while listening to croaking frogs, there is just one... -
Chido’s:
Growing Mushrooms Below BerlinA new food start-up in Berlin, Chido's, found a way to culture mushrooms in a cellar in Schöneberg. ... -
A Secret Love Letter to the Steinecke Ladies
The ladies from Steinecke seem to be from stone. But inside they are tender like a currant bun. -
Ghee, Liquid Love
Alchemy. From butter we have made gold. From spreadable fat a medicinal product in the Ayurvedic way... -
Wonder-full Miraculous Mushrooms
It is reported that a poisonous mushroom has killed the Buddha. Nonetheless, scientists believe tha... -
Hooked on a Feeling
Studies in recent years have shown that some of our favorite treats contain substances that create d... -
Dietary Supplements:
Vitamins and Colored Pills for Your AnxietyWe should more often come to the realisation that in many cases, less is more – even when it comes ... -
The Marrow of Life:
Bone BrothSimilar to Portuguese donkey penis soup, super food bone broth is enjoyed in the hope that what one ... -
Fusion in Berlin’s Nothaft and Seidel Café
Art meets music meets food. Vernissage meets tasting meets book release meets party. -
Lab-made meat is here. Are we going to eat it?
The product is not an imitation of an animal product made from plants. It is meat. It’s just produce... -
(Deutsch) PRAKTIKANT/IN GRAFIK DESIGN
(Deutsch) Stellenausschreibung Wir suchen ab sofort eine/n PRAKTIKANT/IN GRAFIK DESIGN Für ... -
German Food-Related Words in the English Language
These food-related German words secured their way in the English language. -
Thilo Bode:
A Conversation about Democracy and TTIPWe met up with Thilo Bode, founder of Food Watch and former Executive Director of Greenpeace, to dis... -
Shaquanda’s Hot Sauce:
Willing to Please Eager to Burn“It was food during the day and performance at night, I now have found a way to bring them together.... -
Qualia or the Inconceivability of Tasting
The attempt to explain the taste of a tomato is just as destined to fail as trying to explain the co... -
Flavour Thesaurus
Birds of a feather flock together. Flavour Thesaurus is a book about couples of a different kind. -
Oh Sauerkraut, Fellow Psychedelic German
Sauerkraut doesn't really evoke an image you could call sexy: potatoes, slippers, punctuality, sausa... -
Food Loop — Smartphones Take on Food Waste
Food Loop is an app that informs consumers of the availability of groceries with a short remaining s... -
The Kinfolk Table:
Recipes for Small GatheringsThe Kinfolk Table is a book that will inspire to gather good friends around a table filled with ... -
Forget Everything you know about Chocolate
At the last Kakao Akademy event, we understood that we need to wean our taste buds for cacao to reve... -
Brutally Regional – An Excursion
We picked the darkest day of the week to drive out to the Nazis in the countryside. The thought that... -
Cambodia’s Lost Gold Grows on Pepper Plantations
Germans season with salt and pepper. This seems rather boring at first, unless we're talking about t... -
Of the sea of endless possibilities and the yearning for meaning
We are a generation on a quest for true significance; true encounters; inner peace and inspiration. ... -
The Cereal Killer Café and its Unlucky Charms
Tony the Tiger would be eligible for a state pension if he lived in UK and was real. There aren't ma... -
The Love of Pain
Spicy food hurts. Spicy food is addictive. In fact, it works like a drug... watch out! -
Powering our Future with Algae
Biomimicry draws inspiration from biological organisms. -
Like Hell:
The Hottest Work Place on EarthDesert explorer Wilfred Thesiger once called it a "land of death"; yet tens of thousands of families... -
The Future of an Ancient Grain – Orkney Bere
This is not the story of a lost food. Bere is very much alive and well in Orkney today. This is larg... -
Before MSG, There Was Garum
Fermented fish sauce is “in,” right? But MSG is bad for you, right? Read on to learn what the Romans... -
Conversation with Michael Kempf
Star chef Micheal Kempf is head chef in Berlin's Facil. He spoke with us about his most important in... -
Full of Love – Out for Blood
“You humans don’t have to care about where your next blood comes from.” Photographer Sima Ebrahimi m... -
Milk:
White Gold or White Poison?There are so many reasons not to drink milk.But viewed from the perspective of holistic medicine, th... -
Eating Earth:
GeophagiaThere is a phenomena that highlights the immense work still left to be done to eradicate hunger: Geo... -
A conversation with Chef Michael Hoffmann
The star chef, who became famous for his vegetable and herb cuisine. He recently surprised the publi... -
The Fatty Seven
The sun is shining through the window and in our beaming faces: the Fatty Seven. For a moment I star... -
Dimly Lit Meals for One:
Merry Lukewarm ChristmasRalph had spent his two weeks off over Christmas 2015 sitting in a lukewarm bath, drinking cream bas... -
Lisboa, City of old Fish
Whoever thought fish could only be good fresh, has something to learn at "Loja das Conservas". -
Lunchables:
A Love StoryIf you were born after the mid-eighties in the archetypical American suburb and your parents were le... -
Allergic Dating
The advice is often "be yourself" when going on a first date. For food-allergic singles "being yours... -
The Art of Take-Out
There are many online food websites in every city, but usually one beats the rest and becomes an epo... -
FareShare:
A New Model for Fighting Food WasteFareShare’s mission is simple: to rescue food that would otherwise be thrown away for people who nee... -
Dimly Lit Meals for One:
The PrawnAn ex-lover once cruelly compared Kevin's sex organ to a prawn. He ate them now only to feel a sense... -
Apple Meditation
It is the Time of the Apples: Apple pie, Apple sauce – and Awareness -
What Does Snow Mean to You?
Take five and imagine you are an Eskimo. When you look out the window of your wooden house on stilts... -
Dimly Lit Meals For One:
The SwingThe lifetime ban from his local takeaway was hitting Philip hard. He hadn't been allowed back since ... -
13 Ways of Looking at an Onion
For a fresh view on onions. Inspired by Wallace Stevens’ Thirteen Ways of looking at a Blackbird. -
Sweet Home Couscous
Morocco. Under pretext of wanting to learn how to make couscous comme il faut I searched for someone... -
The Art of Fermentation
Fermentation is one of the oldest forms of food preservation. Due to its energy saving aspect, this ... -
Hungry Mind:
Dr. Jan WurmNature is the highest form of technology – and Jan Wurms partner. 6 CFL questions for him. -
Wanna Grab a Bite? A Scientific Study of Lunch
Scientists discover the ins and outs of lunch: who what when where? -
Space Farming
For decades humans have dreamed of settling other planets. Now that it's approaching ever more palpa... -
Green Kitchen Stories
Der erfolgreiche Food Blog Green Kitchen Stories hat ein vegetarisches Kochbuch herausgebracht. Wir ... -
A conversation with Malin Elmlid from Bread Exchange
Malin Elmlid discovered her passion for baking and started the bread exchange. We met Malin and had ... -
The Potential of Food Envy
Eating alone, meals to-go, take-out, all of these make one thing impossible: food envy, something we... -
Look to the Cookie
On the Seinfeldian cuisine of a premillennial New York City. -
The CFL-Plantomobil…#gardening #urbangarden #spr…
The CFL-Plantomobil...#gardening #urbangarden #springtimeinthecity http://t.co/tJpiukxkYU -
Organic Oracles:
How to see(d) into the futureWe have lost 75% of our agricultural biodiversity worldwide since 1950. However, all is not lost, an... -
Sour Power
The alkaline diet sounds like a simple solution. But perhaps it is too simple for our complex human ... -
Oh Maple syrup, we praise thee!
Maples produce more and sweeter sap than any other tree, thanks to an intricate mechanism. -
Pommes and the Swimming Pool
Tropez is a space for art inside a public pool in Berlin and the place to be this summer. Novellist ... -
The Smelly King
Eating durian is like eating delicious baby feces. To many the fruit delicacy from southeast Asia sm... -
Mundraub or the Story of the Forbidden Fruit
Is stealing food wrong when you’re hungry? This is one of the oldest questions of moral relativism, ... -
The Electronic Nose
The human nose, without which we wouldn't taste anything, has a synthetic counterpart: the electroni... -
PLANT PRACTICE
Plants and humans are having some major relationship issues: neglect, avoidance behaviour, violence,... -
Spargel International
With a wild Asparagus feast, we were celebrating cultural diversity and immigration under Berlin’s s... -
On Detox, Smoothie and Gorilla Tales
Detox under the Microscope: Are Green Smoothies good for us or rather for Gorillas? -
Mushrooms:
A Challenge to Categorical ThinkingFull disclosure: mushrooms also have partnerships. They can be both sexual and asexual. -
Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Tomato
For a fresh view on tomatoes. -
Bake It Till You Make It
I had been smoking for twelve years. Then I stopped. Nothing managed to lesson this unsettling feeli... -
Family-Style:
Why We Should Really Care to ShareThese days it’s all about sharing at the restaurants, pop-ups and culinary temples around the world.... -
Significant Orange-Mint Jelly
The love we impose on dogs is unending. And the list of what dogs are to us is long, gathering a lot... -
The Robotical Farm
The modern farmer has less and less dirt under his finger nails. As part of the technological evolut... -
Street Food – Poor or Sexy?
While bánh mì in Vietnam fills the tummies of those who can't afford more, its Western version is mo... -
The Night of the Unagi
You can eat eel, or you can celebrate eating eel – a truly Japanese experience -
When the Zeitgeist gets hungry:
Drinkable MealsDrinking instead of eating - a notion ever increasing in popularity -
Eating Animals to Save them:
an Absurd Solution to our Meat Problem?It’s black. It’s hairy. Its slow. It’s an outcast. And if we don’t kill and eat it, it might disappe... -
Piggy in the Middle
Essentially, the fact that pork is not allowed in orthodox lives of Muslims and Jews, is clear. Howe... -
Culinary Time Travel in Retirement Homes
Google knows everything? You won't find your grandmother's favorite recipe there! -
Notes on Pop Pastoral
Does the pastoral still have a pulse? As the rise of celebrity shepherds, high-end rustic-natural fo... -
Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Carrot
For a fresh view on carrots. -
On Biscuits, Cookies and Crackers
20 years, 7 relocations. Cookie stuck to his guns, and he did just the right thing. -
You Are Not Alone
Summer is here! The first guests are approaching: fruit-flies, grain moths and mites. When I tell fr... -
I love you as much as I love salt
I love you as much as I love salt, said the Princess. Not knowing better, the king then expelled her... -
You’re a Gastro-What?
At the University of Gastronomic Sciences, learning about food involves much more than just, well, f... -
Top 5:
Christmas presents for foodies!Still no christmas presents? CFL recommends: Top 5 Foodie Christmas presents -
Eating on the Job
Picking potatoes made me want to eat potatoes. Picking stones made me just to eat ice cream. -
Home Made
Althergebrachte Küchentechniken sind die Themen im Kochbuch Home Made. Auf gelungene Art und Weise v... -
‘The taste of ice cream interests you more than co…
'The taste of ice cream interests you more than communism!' & more gems from Stalin's Cookbook s... -
Milpa, when Corn wasn’t golden yet
Corn in Mexico used to have hundreds of different colors. The farmers didn't even have a name for al... -
13 Ways of Looking at a Cup of Coffee
For a fresh view on coffee. -
Country Life Reloaded – On the Trail of August Strindberg
In 1886 the novelist went to the countryside to live amongst french farmers. Today the romantic drea... -
Dimly Lit Meals for One:
The BrexitLasagne. Would they end up taking that away too? No, no need to worry. Keith knew it was only a prot... -
My Bagel Tastes Funny
While things are largely improving for a lot of us food and its shortage becomes the enduring, every... -
The Magic Mill of Marzahn
Surreal: a historic windmill in East Berlin surrounded by prefabricated slab buildings of the GDR, t... -
The Digital Fantasy of Laborless Cooking
In reality, one minute is just enough time to peel an apple. On the Internet, one minute is enough t... -
13 Ways of Looking at a Cucumber
13 things you probably didn't know about cucumbers. -
Purslane, the Perfect Weed
Purslane is delicious and an effective remedy for insect and snake bites. -
To Milk or not to Milk
Milk. Yay? Nay? On the fence? A few thoughts about our milk consumption on the occasion of World Mil... -
Very Hip:
Neukölln’s Industry StandardOn Sonnenalle, Berlin's own Las Vegas Strip, casinos are lined up one after the other, and as of rec... -
Contemporary Food Market meets WineVibes at Berlin’s Ostbahnhof.
The creators of WineVibes proved once again that sometimes boundaries have to be crossed. They revea... -
Die 9 Geheimnisse großartiger Schokolade
Lyss shares some irrefutable truths about what makes a chocolate truly great. -
Kaffee Bankrott:
Food for those without a HomeKaffee Bankrott is a very warm establishment. It is open all day long for the homeless and other gue... -
Hamburger Labskous at Oberhafen-Kantine
You try and be a good visitor and appreciate the food when you reach a new place, only what you orde... -
Thirteen Ways of Looking at an Apple
For a fresh view on apples. -
Growing Space
In space nobody can hear you grow vegetables. That is probably because it is hard to grow vegetables... -
The Story of Timbaktu and its 19.000 Women
It started with nothing really. They began meeting for tea. Several friends of the same village, tal... -
The good, the bad, and the spicey:
how spices fell out of f(l)avourFor centuries, spices were extremely valuable items that drove global commerce and determined the fa... -
Squashing Beef and Breaking Teeth – Wrestling with Food
You can relax, this isn't about Donald Trump. It's about wrestling. And food. -
Coffee To Go, Coffee To Stay
Potentially, our caffeine dependence could help feed a growing world population.

Dimly Lit Meals for One:
Merry Lukewarm Christmas
Ralph had spent his two weeks off over Christmas 2015 sitting in a lukewarm bath, drinking cream based cocktails, chain-eating cheese and crisp sandwiches…

The good, the bad, and the spicey:
how spices fell out of f(l)avour
For centuries, spices were extremely valuable items that drove global commerce and determined the fate of millions. Now they sit on our shelves, largely anonymous, for months or even years. How did spices fall so far?

Fish:
Our Forgotten Friends
Aquaculture started in good faith but it’s unintended development has led to arguably even worse consequences…

Shaquanda’s Hot Sauce:
Willing to Please Eager to Burn
“It was food during the day and performance at night, I now have found a way to bring them together.”

Organic Oracles:
How to see(d) into the future
We have lost 75% of our agricultural biodiversity worldwide since 1950. However, all is not lost, and some people are optimistic and enthusiastic about a better future. They are fighting extinction with seed banks. Heros.

Eating Animals to Save them:
an Absurd Solution to our Meat Problem?
It’s black. It’s hairy. Its slow. It’s an outcast. And if we don’t kill and eat it, it might disappear forever. It’s Georgia’s ancient Kakhetian pig.

The Magic Mill of Marzahn
Surreal: a historic windmill in East Berlin surrounded by prefabricated slab buildings of the GDR, that give one the mild impression of socialist ocean liners… We met the miller and talked history, politics and flour with him.

13 Ways of Looking at a Prawn
For a fresh view on shrimps. Or prawns. Or… what’s the real name again?

The Horse-or-Cow Question
Why do we eat cows and cuddle horses? We went deep down into the horse-or-cow debate.

13 Ways of Looking at an Olive
Shaken, not stirred. Nobody knows for sure why olives became the quintessential garnish for a martini.

Lab-made meat is here. Are we going to eat it?
The product is not an imitation of an animal product made from plants. It is meat. It’s just produced in a way we’re not used to.
A Secret Love Letter to the Steinecke Ladies
The ladies from Steinecke seem to be from stone. But inside they are tender like a currant bun.
The Magical Story of Psilocybin Mushrooms
Your take on them will stem from political attitudes, personal experience, spiritual narratives and mythological, mycological and medical knowledge. Let’s tell their story. Again.
Sweet Home Couscous
Morocco. Under pretext of wanting to learn how to make couscous comme il faut I searched for someone who would be willing to let me into their home and around their dining table.
FareShare:
A New Model for Fighting Food Waste
FareShare’s mission is simple: to rescue food that would otherwise be thrown away for people who need it. However, the scale on which they do this makes them quite exceptional.
The Sociology of the Common Meal
The meal is an active space of exchange that offers us a common language when we have none. It is where we are most human, and most similar.
The Poetry of Preserving
It is in the nature of food that it begins to spoil at the moment it is harvested. This process of decay is both the beauty and the diffculty of our daily nutrition.
COCOA COZY DARKNESS
The Dutch processing almost transforms the cocoa into a shadow, a soft shaped colourful shadow inviting through its roasted delicious smell to snuggle into its surrounding.
Food Bloggers and the Ourboros of Engagement
Posting up recipes for vegan fudge and sharing pictures of pumpkin spice cupcakes used to a purely hobbyist pursuit particularly enjoyed by people with an abundance of spare time and cats. Times have changed.
The Unfair Trade of the Fairtrade Bananas
Bananas are considered the most popular fruit in the world, with over 100 billion units eaten every year. Five billions of them are consumed in the UK, where one in three bananas sold carries the Fairtrade mark, according to the Fairtrade Association.
Mushrooms:
A Challenge to Categorical Thinking
Full disclosure: mushrooms also have partnerships. They can be both sexual and asexual.
Blade Runner Bees
Without more research into the bees and their dance, the world of food production is going to be ‘retired’ soon.
Kaffee Bankrott:
Food for those without a Home
Kaffee Bankrott is a very warm establishment. It is open all day long for the homeless and other guests. The food is highly affordable and the place is a crucial meeting point.
As Green as it Gets:
Potato Starch Set to Challenge Bioplastic
Since the early 2000s, New Zealand company Earthpac has been manufacturing plates made of potato starch, a leftover waste product from potato chip factories
Dimly Lit Meals for One:
The Message
You swore it was an accident. That the letters arranged themselves, that they had just appeared that way, that you had no idea what you were spelling out.
Endless Hunger
When you’re alone, the refrigerator can get extremely loud. This story is about what longing and hunger have in common.
You Shall Dance Before You Die
Curiously dancing, life shows itself beautiful in all its amplitudes. This article invests the thrill of eating deadly food.
Bake It Till You Make It
I had been smoking for twelve years. Then I stopped. Nothing managed to lesson this unsettling feeling of starvation. Until I started baking.
13 Ways of Looking at a Chicken
For a fresh view on chicken. Inspired by Wallace Stevens’ Thirteen Ways of looking at a Blackbird.
Can Artificial Intelligence Secure Global Nutrition Sustainability?
In many parts of the world, millions of children go to bed hungry. Yet in advanced countries, inconceivable amounts of edible food are thrown away.
Aliya or The Ingathering of Exiles
The diversity of foods is in fact one of Israel’s strongest cultural symbols. Little restaurants express the human mosaic of flavors and homes brought by Jews from all over the world.
Killing Lobsters
John Holten finds himself killing an animal for the first time in order to eat it. He gets to taste the inevitable questions that come with it.
The Future of an Ancient Grain – Orkney Bere
This is not the story of a lost food. Bere is very much alive and well in Orkney today. This is largely thanks to the Barony Mill in Birsay, a water-powered, totally self-sufficient and sustainable Victorian-era mill.
Lazy Chase – Am I after an object or a subject?
My mind was caught in-between the simple tendency of buying my meat of the day and the sudden realization of being a hungry omnivore catching his prey in rather strange laziness.
Harvest Festival at Roof Water Farm
When it comes to water in our cities we mostly think of clear and dirty water. But we tend to forget all the tones of grey water in between that are very precious.
Squashing Beef and Breaking Teeth – Wrestling with Food
You can relax, this isn’t about Donald Trump. It’s about wrestling. And food.
13 Ways of Looking at a Bean
At the heart of French cassoulet and Mexican fajitas, Ethiopian ful medames and Tuscan bean stew, yet it struggles to find a taxonomic home.
Dimly Lit Meals for One:
The Wrinkles
Phil’s cheese had a wrinkle problem. Everything he loved that he touched withered away: his dear old nan, his cheese, his balls.
This Is Not A Political Party Endorsement
John Holten finds himself cooking filled peppers with a wooden spoon as a result of the German election campaign.
13 Ways of Looking at an Onion
For a fresh view on onions. Inspired by Wallace Stevens’ Thirteen Ways of looking at a Blackbird.
Shrimp Cocktail Challenge
We all know the creamy pink trashy shrimp rings offered during suburban summer parties. And we wondered: What could other versions of a considered shrimp cocktail actually look like?
Lampedusa, a Mediterranean Hotspot
The sea was beautiful. It was calm and ambiguous. As if the island had no other owner but the sea.
CFL Academy:
The Sweet World of Sugars
Akis Liokatis is a professional biochemist. He works in a scientific institute developing compounds for the treatment of human diseases. At the CFL Academy, though, he was talking about food.
Hamburger Labskous at Oberhafen-Kantine
You try and be a good visitor and appreciate the food when you reach a new place, only what you order, as we all know, is not always what we get. Here John Holten recounts a personal experience of displacement on a recent day trip that branches out into the nature of travel, Netflix shows and unexpected doublings.
Hand me a Spoon
Gracefully eating with the fingers is an art. Often overlooked, the outwardly raw-looking act comes with its own etiquette in cultures that are home to it. In this article, the Indian designer Sarmishta Pantham discusses cutlery.
Like Hell:
The Hottest Work Place on Earth
Desert explorer Wilfred Thesiger once called it a “land of death”; yet tens of thousands of families have earned their income and livelihoods from mining salt in the Danakil Depression in Ethiopia.
Pommes and the Swimming Pool
Tropez is a space for art inside a public pool in Berlin and the place to be this summer. Novellist John Holten tells us of his first experiences in making Pommes there, the German version of french fries.
Brutally Regional – An Excursion
We picked the darkest day of the week to drive out to the Nazis in the countryside. The thought that Nazis had become foodies, that they transmit their ideologies to their fellow citizens with regional eats, excited me.
Proust, Madeleine, Pain au Chocolat, etc…
A wave of warmth took over my body. I didn’t know what it was or where it came from but this bite of warm, buttery and flaky pain au chocolat was bringing me a joy so immense that nothing at this moment could’ve disturbed this feeling.
How Kenyan Prisoners invented the Pomato
Behind the unforgiving iron bars, metal grilled doors and limited freedom at Nairobi’s maximum correctional facility, Kamiti Maximum Prison, is the heartwarming story of a group of prisoners who are not only reforming their characters but Kenya’s food security situation with a new transformatory innovation.
Paradise Lost:
Coconuts, Purity, and Immortal Germans
More than 100 years ago August Engelhardt decided to live only from coconuts and sunshine. He died with 44. But he initiated quite a big movement.
Eating on the Job
Picking potatoes made me want to eat potatoes. Picking stones made me just to eat ice cream.
Copenhagen or the Emotions of Eating Out
The ocean blue sky and warm rays of spring sun try to caress me after a few, what now feels like too few days of emotional eating.
Your Brand’s Social Media Is A Graveyard Of Bad Ideas
Top brands can afford to be good at social media. But where’s the humanity in this? Where’s the realness?
Milpa, when Corn wasn’t golden yet
Corn in Mexico used to have hundreds of different colors. The farmers didn’t even have a name for all of the varieties.
Narcissus at the Chef’s Table
The fetishization of cooking as art is, historically speaking, a very new phenomenon. Well, it’s trending.
Natural Wines or How to Win the Tour de France Drug-Free
“Natural wine is very in right now. A lot of people are talking about it, few people understand it and even less drink it.” What is it, actually?
A Female Fat Reform Please
Fat is energy and energy means power and the subject of fat and feminism is most definitely a juicy one.
Regarding The Hunger of Others
Why would one want to seek out images of their fellow human going hungry? What will we gain from regarding the starvation of others? What indeed, does hunger look like?
What Has Milking Cows Become?
As of late, hardly a product has come under fire more than milk. Good old milk.
The Sweet Side of Sourdough
There are so many sides to sourdough. Berlin-based fermentation fiend Kathe Kaczmarzyk delved into many of them during her workshop at the CFL Academy.
An Entire Nation of Vigorous and Beautiful Men
“Manly Health! Is there not a kind of charm—a fascinating magic in the words?” Walt Whitman’s health guide is absolutely bonkers and unabashedly American.
Friends with Superfoods
There is a creature amongst us, which has the name of a friendly animal, but which truly is a monster once it enters the personal circles of one’s life. Moreover, it seems to be an epidemic infestation whose only goal is to rot away humanity.
Growing Space
In space nobody can hear you grow vegetables. That is probably because it is hard to grow vegetables in space. But that hasn’t stopped anyone from trying, either in real life or in their imagination.
Food for the Gods
From time immemorial humans have sacrificed for the gods. We flatter them with presents and can thereby influence them to our benefit. And anyway, who can resist good food?
The Digital Fantasy of Laborless Cooking
In reality, one minute is just enough time to peel an apple. On the Internet, one minute is enough time to watch a video of someone making an apple pie from start to finish.
Gardens in the Sky
Buildings would take on the feel of hills, knolls, skyscrapers become mountains, the city itself breathe and produce the food and energy that currently is resigned to the faraway nowhere of the non-city…
As American as Apple Pie, Apparently
On occasion of the first Trumpian Thanksgiving we are asking: Just how American is apple pie?
Stichelton:
A Glitchelton in the Systelton
When I first saw Stichelton cheese I was weary of being punked. It was like seeing a bottle of sparkling wine labelled ‘Shampayne’. Quite the opposite. Not only is Stichelton Stilton, it’s the best Stilton I’ve ever tasted.
A Small Greek Village in a Big Chestnut Forest
Kastanitsa, built at an altitude of 850 metres, is a traditional village of unique architectural beauty. The women of Kastanista know many secrets, make exceptional dishes and share these with tourists and travelers. A dream.
Hospital Food
It’s so fucking weird that people are still allowed to smoke at hospitals. What people don’t seem to look at with the same irony, though, is hospital food.
Terra do Bacalhau:
Part 2 (Portugal)
The Portuguese love cod. They also love to eat out in restaurants and cafes and do so with a waited-upon, daily-menu élan that frankly eludes their counterparts in many other countries.
Mega Bites – on Food in Video Games
In a world where the difference between virtual and physical space is increasingly hard to pin down it makes sense that our food will soon be coming served in binary.
THE FREEZING FRONTIERS OF FERTILITY
The Svalbard Global Seed Vault is often mystified as the Noah’s Ark of a doomed world agriculture. But do we really need a new Ark already? Or should we rather invest in the practices that have fed the world for millennia?
Terra do Bacalhau:
Part 1 (Iceland)
There is a fish that connects a large part of the world, an acquired taste for some, a delicacy and national cuisine to others – salted codfish connects two seemingly unrelated trips to Iceland and Portugal.
Dimly Lit Meals For One:
The Vegan Fish
All that remained were pictures of Clint’s dinner. A vegan fish, bought to impress the nice young woman with the nose ring who worked in the health food shop and who sometimes smiled absently at Clint.
Aromat, the Taste of Switzerland
It’s everywhere, in the high mountains and in the green valleys. It’s a powdered condiment with a strange mix of vegetarian flavours, a little bit too flat and aggressively salty to be called umami.
“SISTER ACT” FOR THE GOOD
A group of Catholic nuns in Uganda are growing grapes and making their own wine, a forte they have perfected since missionaries first planted the vines at their compound in the 1970s.
Cambodia’s Lost Gold Grows on Pepper Plantations
Germans season with salt and pepper. This seems rather boring at first, unless we’re talking about the best pepper in the world: Kampot pepper from Cambodia.
Lunchables:
A Love Story
If you were born after the mid-eighties in the archetypical American suburb and your parents were less than tyrannical, chances are you’ve tried at least one glorious yellow box of Lunchables.
Mr. Wu Conjures Up Noodles
The process of hand-pulled noodles is easy, as long as you listen carefully and watch closely – but just because an illusionist explains his tricks doesn’t mean you’re able to perform them.
Late Irish Summer Dinner:
Snapchat and Food Amnesia
I wanted to put some recent thoughts to a kind of random test and decided to have a dinner and try and record the recipe by way of Snapchat and create a ‘story’ out of it. My Story, as the app would have it.
Dimly Lit Meals For One:
The Swing
The lifetime ban from his local takeaway was hitting Philip hard. He hadn’t been allowed back since he had drunkenly taken a swing at his best friend Gary while queuing for a post pub kebab.
Ama, the Women of the Sea
The time underwater is called “the 50 minute battle” during which they perform a persistent search for their catch; sea urchin, octopus, spiny lobster… In an ideal world their methods would be one of the only permitted forms of fishing.
WASTEFUL ENERGY
What plastics are recyclable and which aren’t? Is it ok to collect my food waste in a plastic bag and then put the plastic bag into the bio bin? But also, Germany. My choice to live here: did it have to do with recycling?
Heavenly Waves / Song to the Cephalopod
Octopuses have three hearts and eight arms. We accompanied an octopus through his last hours of life.
Mundraub or the Story of the Forbidden Fruit
Is stealing food wrong when you’re hungry? This is one of the oldest questions of moral relativism, which in turn is one of the oldest critiques of the law.
Thirteen ways of looking at a Potato
Thirteen things you didn’t know about potatoes. For sure.
Eat Insects to Save the Planet?
Insects are in vogue lately. As the ‘food of the future’ they appear in numerous publications and summits. Having a closer look, the narrative of insects as our saviors is more complex and problematic than what it seems.
Dimly Lit Meals for One:
The Brexit
Lasagne. Would they end up taking that away too? No, no need to worry. Keith knew it was only a protest vote. Nothing ever came of voting, no real harm done.
The Potential of Food Envy
Eating alone, meals to-go, take-out, all of these make one thing impossible: food envy, something we need in order to be nice to one another.
Yes, We Have Bananas
Expensive Bananas in East Berlin after the Berlin Wall came down ‘Hold our hands and take us to Banana Land!’…
When Food Falls from the Sky – On Miracles
Inspired by the Berlin Airlift of 1948, a group of engineers from Standford University started the Syria Airlift Project in 2015. The mobility of food, it seems, is much higher than the mobility of people.
This Is Not A Travel Article
This article is about hospitality and getting lost. Or rather, it’s about these things but also about forgetting where you’ve been and where you want to go.
Dimly Lit Meals for One:
The Attic
Jermaine hadn’t been able to face real cooking for weeks. He had been too busy using Spotify to make playlists for imaginary women. It felt safer and happier than falling for a real person only to discover they did not share his fondness for Dire Straits.
Does Nature Have a Moral Compass?
The disease of Kuru is transmitted from human to human, by the practice of cannibalism. Might there be a connection to BSE, the “mad cow disease”?
INTERGENERATIONAL CHOCOLATE
We can love the ever present choice of chocolate bars, bunnies, ice cream and cake all we want – the industrialisation process took more than it gave us in the last 100 years of chocolate. Will we suffer from a chocolate bottleneck soon?
The Fatty Seven
The sun is shining through the window and in our beaming faces: the Fatty Seven. For a moment I stare at my plate of spreadable fat and try to reconstruct what in God’s name brought me here.
Dimly Lit Meals for One:
The Prawn
An ex-lover once cruelly compared Kevin’s sex organ to a prawn. He ate them now only to feel a sense of superiority over the damnable crustacean.
The Cereal Killer Café and its Unlucky Charms
Tony the Tiger would be eligible for a state pension if he lived in UK and was real. There aren’t many famous pensioners left in circulation that parents would trust alone with their kids nowadays. Tony, however, is a safe pair of paws.
PLANT PRACTICE
Plants and humans are having some major relationship issues: neglect, avoidance behaviour, violence, general misunderstanding and miscommunication, all tell-tale signs of crisis.
Outsourcing the Homemade
Long before the age of the internets, there were “Aunty’s” we’d find through a friend, or a friend of a friend. We’d call Aunty and negotiate a lunch or dinner deal. Not a thing amiss. An everyday home-cooked meal, business as usual. The tiffin service.
Thilo Bode:
A Conversation about Democracy and TTIP
We met up with Thilo Bode, founder of Food Watch and former Executive Director of Greenpeace, to discuss his main criticism: endangering democratic processes.
New Orleans:
The After Taste of Hurricane
If you look it up at a map it would appear to be one of the most southern cities of the US. In fact, it is the most northern Caribbean city. Its aura and its colours match more an exotic central-American temperament.
Significant Orange-Mint Jelly
The love we impose on dogs is unending. And the list of what dogs are to us is long, gathering a lot of attributes – of us. Following certain theories dogs didn’t even exist without us. Like ghosts. Or poetry.
Refugee Street Food
Refugee Street Food is homegrown – the effort of ordinary, hard working volunteers all with their own daytime jobs and full time lives. They will have their fourth event soon!
A Conversation of Conservation
Adopting western agribusiness practices in India harmed much more than just income. Since 1995 to the current day more than 38,000 farmers have committed suicide due to crop failure and bankruptcy.
Eating Earth:
Geophagia
There is a phenomena that highlights the immense work still left to be done to eradicate hunger: Geophagia refers to the practice of eating earth, soil, or clay based substances.
Life To Go
When did it all begin? When did we humans first have the strange idea that you can eat and drink while walking?
Finding the Erotic at LIDL:
Georges Bataille and the Natural World
When author John Holten waits with his groceries in the checkout queue of Lidl it happens that he contemplates about his fellow shoppers’ sex lives.
Kivalina Crumbling Away
I went to Kivalina with the intent of making a climate change film. But it ended up all being about food.
Banana Stalk Hair Extension
A start up company in Kenya is making human hair extensions from banana stalks, sating growing local demand and giving banana farmers an avenue to dispose their stalks.
The Story of Timbaktu and its 19.000 Women
It started with nothing really. They began meeting for tea. Several friends of the same village, talking, and sharing life’s difficulties.
Notes on Pop Pastoral
Does the pastoral still have a pulse? As the rise of celebrity shepherds, high-end rustic-natural food cultures and Cabin Porn suggest the pastoral mode is alive and kicking.
The Real Hot Dog Kings
As of this week they’re not only a must at the baseball game or Ikea, nope, Burger King has the best hot dogs! But their story is much more exciting than anything Snoop Dogg dressed as a Burger King employee says in the commercial.
Berlinale – The Grand Finale
Take a look behind the scenes of Berlinale in this last entry of our festival diary.
My Culinary Berlinale III
When suddenly some pigs appeared on screen I was attentive. Was this an instinctive connection to these animals, or perhaps a desire to eat them?
My Culinary Berlinale II
I hadn’t realised just how central to the action the food stalls were until I heard the screams. George Clooney had arrived.
My Culinary Berlinale
Under the banner of its idealistic motto, ‘Make Food Not War,’ Berlinale’s Culinary Cinema celebrates its 10th anniversary! David McKenzie guides us through the festival.
“You’ve Got to Meet Hammoud”
Who are these people, Germany’s newcomers? I went to the LaGeSo to find some answers. Since then, I’ve found myself sharing stories and breaking bread in three different newcomer kitchens all over Berlin.
Hieronymus Bosch’s Endless Fire and the discovery of LSD
The extremely psychedelic paintings of Hieronymus Bosch reveal a lot about the suffering of the medieval ergotism, which became an important factor for the invention of LSD.
Hypnotherapy:
The Brain Food Diet
Hypnosis is culturally known as a form of entertainment. Its lesser-known, more serious sister is hypnotherapy and this has much bigger ambitions than making an audience laugh.
What Does Snow Mean to You?
Take five and imagine you are an Eskimo. When you look out the window of your wooden house on stilts you see a seemingly endless white landscape, permafrost.
The Art of Take-Out
There are many online food websites in every city, but usually one beats the rest and becomes an eponym for the action. In New York, one doesn’t order food out, one gets seamless.
From Conquer to Conquest – The Story of Vietnamese Coffee
It was all a bit surreal – as every first time should be. Later, an iced coffee with two teaspoons of this white sticky stuff, that I had never before took pleasure in consuming, became my summer addiction.
Piggy in the Middle
Essentially, the fact that pork is not allowed in orthodox lives of Muslims and Jews, is clear. However, both the Jewish and the Islamic explanations for why exactly the pig is not allowed are a bit unsatisfying.
Eating in India
At the International Conference on Ayurveda in India people have many questions: Why do people skip meals? Why? Do people over in Europe earn so little?
To Eat and Live Together – A Greek Tale
“Social Kitchen – The Other Human” is an initiative for collective cooking in the street. Homeless, immigrants, and the “new poor” accept with mixed feelings of timidity and gratitude.
Water Wars
Crop production and feed conversion efficiency are the keys to understanding water usage in meat production.
Understanding Fish
Things usually aren’t about fish but about the system. The thought of being able to take the fishes’ side for once was thrilling, libertarian.
The Fast
Just before I left for NYC this September I was visiting some Berlin friends as they were preparing to go on a fast together, a deep cleanse is what they called it.
The King of the Mediterranean
Something about the sturdiness of its form, the nobility of its ways, always remind me of an old fashioned gentleman, one that gracefully hides all his pain in times of distress.
Sex and Food – Friends or Foes?
You really want to sleep but you can’t. Something is missing. You think a piece of chocolate would hit the spot. Or cheese. Or watching some porn?
Private :
Piraeus Port
“So many tons of food circulating close to you and you spend entire days without any food at all.”
(How) Can We Hack Food Waste?
Gadgets may sound sexy, but behavioral changes have to come first.
Full of Love – Out for Blood
“You humans don’t have to care about where your next blood comes from.” Photographer Sima Ebrahimi met Lilith Bernstein, a vampire in Berlin.
Ghee, Liquid Love
Alchemy. From butter we have made gold. From spreadable fat a medicinal product in the Ayurvedic way. Medicating ghee.
You’re a Gastro-What?
At the University of Gastronomic Sciences, learning about food involves much more than just, well, food.
Heno Heno, a Dream of Japan
Yesterday we ate at Heno Heno, a small Japanese diner in Charlottenburg that reopened after e few years of break as a restaurant.
White is the Warmest Colour:
Our Complicated Love Affair with Flour
It is no secret that we have fallen out of love with white flour. But a divorce now, after a century and a half together, would be a very messy affair.
My Bagel Tastes Funny
While things are largely improving for a lot of us food and its shortage becomes the enduring, everyday consequence for general populations afflicted by conflict.
White is the Warmest Color:
A History of Refined Flour
More often than not, we polish rice to make it white but nutritionally deficient, and we strip the goodness out of wheat to produce white flour. What is it about whiteness?
Culinary Time Travel in Retirement Homes
Google knows everything? You won’t find your grandmother’s favorite recipe there!
Before MSG, There Was Garum
Fermented fish sauce is “in,” right? But MSG is bad for you, right? Read on to learn what the Romans have to do with Chinese takeout.
Oh Sauerkraut, Fellow Psychedelic German
Sauerkraut doesn’t really evoke an image you could call sexy: potatoes, slippers, punctuality, sausage. But there is something quite hot about it we tend to ignore.
The Marrow of Life:
Bone Broth
Similar to Portuguese donkey penis soup, super food bone broth is enjoyed in the hope that what one eats will find its way to the right spot. We had a closer look.
Before Bulletproof Coffee, There Was Yak Butter Tea
Butter makes everything better, right? On this front, one Silicon Valley entrepreneur and some nomadic Tibetans tend to agree. The end goal, however, is quite different.
Iridescent Edible Summer Cocktails
These mineral-shaped edible sculptures by Enea Palmeto are made of solid cocktail liquors.
Feed the Artist and Get Your Portrait Made.
Sergey Balovin lives from exchanging his artworks, in particular portraits in black and white watercolour, of food.
Raya, The Feast of Breaking the Fast of Ramadan
During Raya time stands still for one week and life circles around the kitchen and the dining table.
Before Beer, There Was Gruit
Brews without hops once reigned supreme over the bitter IPAs of today.
The Smelly King
Eating durian is like eating delicious baby feces. To many the fruit delicacy from southeast Asia smells like old tennis socks or bad breath.
Qualia or the Inconceivability of Tasting
The attempt to explain the taste of a tomato is just as destined to fail as trying to explain the color “red” to a born blind person.
Spargel International
With a wild Asparagus feast, we were celebrating cultural diversity and immigration under Berlin’s sky. It was delicious.
You Are Not Alone
Summer is here! The first guests are approaching: fruit-flies, grain moths and mites. When I tell friends in Berlin about this, they nod knowingly, somewhat embarrassed.
I love you as much as I love salt
I love you as much as I love salt, said the Princess. Not knowing better, the king then expelled her.
Kombucha, the Living Elixir
To some, the idea of sipping a fizzy, fermented drink with bits of yeast straggling at the bottom of the jar just seems downright weird.
Lisboa, City of old Fish
Whoever thought fish could only be good fresh, has something to learn at “Loja das Conservas”.
Cooked Art
As usual, what seems like a new supertrend already has a definite history – a history linked to questions regarding the relationship of art and food, aesthetic and sensual pleasure, exclusivity and the attempt at a convergence of art and life.
Very Hip:
Neukölln’s Industry Standard
On Sonnenalle, Berlin’s own Las Vegas Strip, casinos are lined up one after the other, and as of recently, the Industry Standard. We tried pork tongue, grey mullet and balsamic strawberries with mascarpone – and were partially persuaded.
Taina Guedes:
The Woman Behind Berlin Food Art Week
The original plan was to create an intimate week of exchange and exhibitions. Currently the program of the Berlin Food Art Week includes over 60 events at 30 sites.
Hooked on a Feeling
Studies in recent years have shown that some of our favorite treats contain substances that create dependencies similar to cocaine and other drugs.
To Milk or not to Milk
Milk. Yay? Nay? On the fence? A few thoughts about our milk consumption on the occasion of World Milk Day.
Agroecology and Party Politics
What can a sustainable food supply look like in the Berlin of the future? We joined the professional discussion in the Berlin House of Representatives. After hearing many positions and we learned that it’s on us to set change in motion.
Expo? No Expo! The World’s Fair Mirrors a Bizarre Reality
When we talk about the 2015 Expo “Feeding the Planet, Energy for Life,” it would appear we don’t actually need to discuss the issues of global food supply and sustainability. Nevertheless there is still a lot to discover.
Zen to the People:
The Macha Macha Tea Parlor in Berlin
Green tea is a magic potion for the health conscious. It’s no surprise that it’s a current food trend. The first tea parlor in Berlin has officially opened!
The Love of Pain
Spicy food hurts. Spicy food is addictive. In fact, it works like a drug… watch out!
republica 2015:
Foodblogs 2.0
How big is the influence of food bloggers on the food industry? We were at the re:publica 15 to discuss this and other topics.
Chilling — Thoughts on Refrigerators
The refrigerator has changed us and our eating habits. It’s time that we approach it more consciously, with more love.
The Worldly Field:
What’s Growing on Your 2000 m²?
A half acre is the amount of land every person would be entitled to when you divided the earth’s arable land evenly. On a field with a lake view in Berlin – Spandau, a group of people have devoted themselves to an experiment.
Forget Everything you know about Chocolate
At the last Kakao Akademy event, we understood that we need to wean our taste buds for cacao to reveal its true flavour to us.
Street Food – Poor or Sexy?
While bánh mì in Vietnam fills the tummies of those who can’t afford more, its Western version is more on par with pricey gourmet burgers promising good taste and a clean conscience.
Climate Change and Chocolate Bunnies
Temperatures rose by almost 4% in recent years. This is not only a danger for chocolate bunnies.
Eating, Not Eating, Downing Pills — On the Need for Ecstasy
Neurotransmitter serotonin brings us into the state of ecstasy. Its release is triggered by intoxicants such as LSD or MDMA – or by fasting.
Permaculture:
Real Food, Real Farming and Real Life
If you love watching stars in your sleeping bag while listening to croaking frogs, there is just one place to go to: the Narköy farm in Kandıra. We spoke with founder Nardane Kuscu.
Dietary Supplements:
Vitamins and Colored Pills for Your Anxiety
We should more often come to the realisation that in many cases, less is more – even when it comes to vitamins.
Wonder-full Miraculous Mushrooms
It is reported that a poisonous mushroom has killed the Buddha. Nonetheless, scientists believe that mushrooms can save the world.
Virtual Food or The Future is Now
Instead of likes, we will soon be able to send New York cheesecakes with strawberry topping through the web: Scientists are currently working on digitalizing taste.
Country Life Reloaded – On the Trail of August Strindberg
In 1886 the novelist went to the countryside to live amongst french farmers. Today the romantic dream of the countryside is bigger than ever before. Is the motivation still the same?
Berlinale:
The Story of the Sturgeon Queens
Julie Cohen tells the story of the fish store Russ & Daughters in Manhattan. A magical place, loaded with stories, history and carried on by tradition. Nowadays visited by the hippest New Yorkers in town. An Interview.
Berlinale:
Good Things Await
The opening film of the Culinary Cinema at this year’s Berlinale Good Things Await, takes the audience on a journey to the Thor Højgård farm north of Copenhagen. An interview with director Phie Ambo.
The Robotical Farm
The modern farmer has less and less dirt under his finger nails. As part of the technological evolution of agriculture, en route to the fully automatized farm, his fields are being tilled by swarms of little autonomous robots.
Eating like Jazzy #4:
Parson’s Chicken and Fish
I’d never had a Po’boy, but visions of New Orleans and the sounds of Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess danced in my head.
Our daily excrement
In China, guests stay at the host’s for as long as it takes to relieve himself – a gesture of giving and receiving. It is also time for us to take a deep look at shit.
Sour Power
The alkaline diet sounds like a simple solution. But perhaps it is too simple for our complex human system.
Charles Darwin:
The Mistaken Vegetarian Hero
Darwin was not only a lifelong meat-eater, but his early eating habits would make him more villain than hero for animal conservationists today.
The Art of the Meat
Interestingly, a good 500 years ago, meat and its representation were strongly linked in a moral debate – and it still is.
Food Loop — Smartphones Take on Food Waste
Food Loop is an app that informs consumers of the availability of groceries with a short remaining shelf-life.
The Electronic Nose
The human nose, without which we wouldn’t taste anything, has a synthetic counterpart: the electronic nose.
Mussolini, Oppressor of Pasta
Benito Mussolini is not known as a food-lover. But if he did not want food to be a big deal, perhaps he should have picked a different country of which to be a dictator than pasta-loving Italy.
The Foods of Loss
It is often through the foods we choose to eat (or not) that our pain of loss manifests itself.
Marco Polo, Bringer of Pasta
Marco Polo is known for having introduced pasta to Italy. Myth or truth?
Taste rarely comes alone
Think about crème brûlée. Now. What happened first? Did you see the flambéed crème or rather taste it on your tongue? The question of separating taste from its visual representation is almost as tricky as the question of the chicken and the egg.
The Electronic Tongue
When a king in the Middle Ages feared falling prey to a competing heir to the throne he would have a taster taste his food before eating to be sure it wasn’t poisoned. Nowadays an electrical tongue can take care of such dirty work.
Of the sea of endless possibilities and the yearning for meaning
We are a generation on a quest for true significance; true encounters; inner peace and inspiration. Permaculture seems to be one answer.
Eating like Jazzy #3:
For the love of lamb
I have been a lover of lamb ever since my father roasted one on a spit for my 12th birthday. Reading about food before my trip to Morocco, I learned that there is a Marrakech alley where lamb is slow-roasted daily. I couldn’t wait to try it.
Coffee To Go, Coffee To Stay
Potentially, our caffeine dependence could help feed a growing world population.
HUNGRY MIND:
Julian Lechner
What becomes of all those coffee grounds is a question beginning to concern more and more people. Julian Lechner’s idea is simple, well-meaning and tasteful: coffee cups made of coffee grounds and sugar.
Top 5:
Christmas presents for foodies!
Still no christmas presents? CFL recommends: Top 5 Foodie Christmas presents
More Condoms! But sustainable please.
More nature, less humans. Sustainable Condoms could safe the world in several ways.
More transparency for peanut butter & co:
Food Scores.
With the new app “Food Scores” you can scan your groceries and be informed before getting to the till.
Hungry Mind:
Dr. Jan Wurm
Nature is the highest form of technology – and Jan Wurms partner. 6 CFL questions for him.
How we Helped a Head of Lettuce to Fulfill its Destiny
Saving food welds us together: During the European Week of Waste Reduction, we show solidarity with a lettuce leaf.
Bite me! When the bugs are missing…
During the dry season we were working on the weed problem. As the wet season starts raining on our cacao parade, we have ‘a bug to bear’. Bugs are literally everywhere. We love them!
Fancy some Fat?
Whenever possible, we avoid fat. Fat makes us fat. And yet, we need fats! Manuela Heider de Jahnsen fills us in.
Eating like Jazzy #2:
Balikci Ergün
I had heard that it was a bit of a hole-in-the-wall place, but was still surprised to see that it was actually more of a hole-under-the-S-Bahn-tracks.
Allergic Dating
The advice is often “be yourself” when going on a first date. For food-allergic singles “being yourself” isn’t always the easiest option.
On Biscuits, Cookies and Crackers
20 years, 7 relocations. Cookie stuck to his guns, and he did just the right thing.
Grüne Köpfe on food as a status symbol
Being ‘chained’ to the kitchen was a duty for our grandmothers and something to rebel against for our mothers. For us, it has become more like an honour, a way to celebrate our free time.
Orthorexia Nervosa
The one thing that should not be forgotten is that nutrition trends only make sense if they can live up to their names and actually provide nutrition.
Hungry Minds:
Hendrik Haase
The food world of today is colourful. Hendrick Haase is even more colourful. He is a designer, an activist and a guerrilla chef. Online he is simply called “Wurstsack”. His message: “Food is wicked.”
Adventures in Indoor Farming
In the near future, fresh food could come straight from the living room to your plate.
Eating like Jazzy #1:
4 Leoni
On this most charming of Florentine squares, South of the Arno, awaits a meal to be remembered.
Domo Arigato, Mr. Roboto
In many parts of Asia, humanoid robots serve you, converse with you and even cook for you in restaurants
Charged Vacancy
Nikou’s work with cutlery and tableware often suggests the indigestible or the impossible with regard to function and purpose. The occasion of her exhibition Vacancy signals Contemporary Food Lab’s first publication.
The Future of Food Waste
How does our food get to our plate, and to plates around the world? About the relation between a growing middle class, booming cities and a lack of research funds.
From Nose to Tale
The fewest meat lovers will see the pig in its original form before their mind’s eye whilst enjoying their meal. At the Berlin Food Week, spectators are told a true story.
Food Court
From Syria to Tibet, from Iraq to Sudan: Our Food Court event allowed guests to get a taste of those cultures, which are often overshadowed by conflict.
The Cornelian Cherry
Hungry for discovery, Berliners blindly walk past wild delicacies on a daily basis.
Taste of Data
Contemporary Food Lab at the Stadt Land Food Festival: The Urban Farming carrot turned out as the star of the show.
Zeitgeist:
Quality of Life. A Supper Club.
Indulgence and Responsibility. A Contradiction?
Video:
Little Wood, our Pop-up Garden in Berlin
In August, we turned an empty lot in Berlin Mitte into a Garden. An experiment in the sensory experience of urban nature. Get some impressions from the video.
Space Farming
For decades humans have dreamed of settling other planets. Now that it’s approaching ever more palpably, the focus has turned to the basics, such as how Mars inhabitants are to eat.
Opening Michelle Nikou:
Vacancy
It is with great pleasure that the Contemporary Food Lab presents the exhibition Vacancy by Michelle Nikou until the end of October.
Milk:
White Gold or White Poison?
There are so many reasons not to drink milk.But viewed from the perspective of holistic medicine, there are also reasons to enjoy it.
A Conversation With Star Chef Joachim Wissler
From the age of 10 he had to help his parents every Sunday in the kitchen instead of going to play soccer. What luck!
Curry and Paprika:
A German Obsession
Salad, scrambled eggs, pasta — there’s nothing these spices haven’t been tried on in Germany. How comes?
Cooking. And what it means to us.
This just in from Siemens: A great kitchen is more important than a nice car.
Purslane, the Perfect Weed
Purslane is delicious and an effective remedy for insect and snake bites.

Die Roof Water Farm bei Little Wood
How can one close water circulation systems in buildings? And how can urban water infrastructure be more flexibly designed?

When the Zeitgeist gets hungry:
Drinkable Meals
Drinking instead of eating – a notion ever increasing in popularity

Wild and Root, Wild und Wurzelig, ein Supper Club.
Glamorous Summer Herbs: The main stars of the evening proved to be peppergrass, starflower, fennel, parsley, and lavender.


Christiane Löhr Vernissage – Impressionen
Christiane Löhr on show at the CFL Exhibition Space until September
Monday, 4 August:
News from the Holy Land – A War Time Chef’s Diary
The world is witnessing a seemingly never-ending cycle of violence. Still, Chef Tomer Niv continues with his everyday life in his Restaurant.

Solarkiosk
The Solarkiosk was developed for people in rural, off-grid regions. GRAFT has provided us with one kiosk for our Little Wood Project.

Die 9 Geheimnisse großartiger Schokolade
Lyss shares some irrefutable truths about what makes a chocolate truly great.

Vernissage Christiane Löhr Contemporary Food Lab
We are delighted to show the exhibition “Verdrängen” of Christiane Löhr until September in the Contemporary Food Lab Exhibition Space.
Tuesday, 22. July:
News from the Holy Land – A War Time Chef’s Diary
The guests in Rama’s Kitchen near Jerusalem see the explosions above the hills from the terrace of the restaurant. Still, Chef Tomer Niv and his crew have to continue with their work. In his kitchen, Muslim, Christian and Jewish cooks work together. They try to make the best out of the changes in the everyday life.
Stone Brewing Co.:
an American-German Beer Affair
Steve Wagner and Greg Koch must be crazy. They are about to open a brewery in Berlin and introduce the American brewing arts to Germany.
Aloe Vera, Blood of the Gods
The plant is popular, though sometimes people are not fully aware of its versatility.

3D Food Printer
Lately, 3D printers are capable of printing not only plastic artworks, organs and replacement parts for quasi-automatic weapons, but real, edible food as well.
Part I – V:
News from the Holy Land – A War Time Chef’s Diary
While a new wave of violence has taken over Israel, Tomer Niv, head chef at the distinguished Restaurant Rama’s Kitchen in the Jerusalem hills, has to continue with his daily business. In his kitchen, Muslim, Christian and Jewish cooks work together, trying their best, not to let the craziness around them impact the spirit among them.
The Taste of Data, a Love Story
What is essential is invisible to the eye, that is why Vesela and Veronika developed a new kind of data visualization, which works through the stomach.

A Conversation with Tomer Niv
Tomer Niv is musician, chef and synesthete. He sees dishes in music and tastes in chords.
The Princess and the Pea or How to store Chocolate
Chocolate is more sensitive than your most moody of friends. She doesn’t like light, humidity or heat.
On Detox, Smoothie and Gorilla Tales
Detox under the Microscope: Are Green Smoothies good for us or rather for Gorillas?
Music & Food:
Tomer Niv @ CFL
First Supper Club at CFL! Tomer Niv combines music and food on the highest level.
Wanna Grab a Bite? A Scientific Study of Lunch
Scientists discover the ins and outs of lunch: who what when where?
Meat Tasting or The Fox That Stole Hearts
It was supposed to be a wine tasting but it turned to out to be a meat tasting.

Travelogue II – Two Gardens
We all were in a small village in the south of Italy, all asking ourselves one question: How do we want to live?
Sunday Brunch @ CFL
Dinner Exchange Berlin is hosting a Sunday brunch at the Contemporary Food Lab on Sunday, June 8.
Asparagus Zeit
Asparagus “transforms my chamber pot into a flask of perfume,” said Proust.
Travelogue I – A Park
A friend had invited me to take part in a program for artists. A program where artists would work in fields.
Conversation with Michael Kempf
Star chef Micheal Kempf is head chef in Berlin’s Facil. He spoke with us about his most important ingredient.
The Night of the Unagi
You can eat eel, or you can celebrate eating eel – a truly Japanese experience
What Workers ate in America. A Review.
Turner stitches together records of cramped urban kitchens, rural vegetable gardens, and bustling local delicatessens.
Baumkuchen, the ‘King of Cakes’
One of Germany’s most revered pastries is Baumkuchen, or tree cake.
Impressions:
Alicja Kwade Opening
We are delighted to show two works of Alicja Kwade in our Contemporary Food Lab Exhibition Space until June. The opening was on Wednesday.

Pleasure – Epicure, Tiger Nuts and Experiments when eating
Can one learn to enjoy? Nutritionist Eva Derndorfer thinks yes.
Rohvolution – Nutrition vs. Pleasure
The whole is more than the sum of its parts – a few thoughts after attending a serious food fair.
Lupine – a discovery of the Beautiful Unknown
It is difficult not to become a fan of lupine once you get to know her. But not so many people do. I met her recently in Italy.
German Food-Related Words in the English Language
These food-related German words secured their way in the English language.
Fusion in Berlin’s Nothaft and Seidel Café
Art meets music meets food. Vernissage meets tasting meets book release meets party.
Sauerkraut v. Kimchi:
A Tale of Two Cabbages
Kimchi and sauerkraut are two of the world’s best known fermented cabbages.
Book Review:
Edible Insects
Most people would rather eat low doses of poison than low doses of bugs.

Hydroponics – What on earth is going on
As the world’s population grows, scientists and farmers are faced with the question of how to produce as much as possible in small spaces on little time.
Contemporary Food Market meets WineVibes at Berlin’s Ostbahnhof.
The creators of WineVibes proved once again that sometimes boundaries have to be crossed. They revealed that excellent quality does not always occur conventionally.
Oh Maple syrup, we praise thee!
Maples produce more and sweeter sap than any other tree, thanks to an intricate mechanism.
In the Land of Milk and Honey with Sonja Alhäuser
What could be a better vehicle than food to create, celebrate, and make moments into something special?
Lemons and Limes
The relationship between limes and lemons is more complex than meets the eye.
The Forgotten Skills of Cooking
Darina Allen, Ireland’s most famous TV chef and proponent of local and seasonal products, has created a comprehensive book called…
Cheese and Chocolate, Good and Evil, a Tasting
At Vom Einfachen das Gute (From the Simple the Good) an extraordinary tasting took place. It was a chocolate tasting, which emerged to be less sweet than expected.
Going MAD – a Danish Initiative for Food Discussion
What is Cooking?“ will be the simple motto of this year’s MAD Symposium.
Berlin Film Festival:
Le Semeur
The message of the movie goes far beyond marking the importance and the beauty of protecting nature’s diversity in times of wide spread mono-cultures.
Until the last Crumb
In her cookbook, author Camille Antoine treats the subject of food waste from a culinary perspective.
The Mangalica Pig and its Savior
Cousin to the black-footed Iberian, the mangalica pig was once nearly extinct until Hungarian animal geneticist Peter Toth came to the rescue. Since then, mangalica is enjoying a renaissance.
Berlin Film Festival:
The Knights of the Lagoon
“Fishing means to bring to the people a product and at the same time to tell them the story behind the product.”
Berlin Film Festival:
El Somni
The three of us left the cinema in three different, almost dreamlike, states of mind, which made it difficult to speak.
The Art of Fermentation
Fermentation is one of the oldest forms of food preservation. Due to its energy saving aspect, this ancient technique is now coming back into our modern society.
Review:
The Secret Financial Life of Food by Kara Newman
Kara Newman’s book paints the first strokes of a broader portrait of food. It portrays commodities in their most abstract form.
Contemporary Food Lab @ Fruit Logistica 2014
(Deutsch) Kaum hatten wir die riesigen Messehallen betreten, waren wir in einer anderen Welt. Alles was hier eine Rolle spielte, war Obst und Gemüse.
Culinary Cinema at the Berlin Film Festival
Food lovers: Berlin Film Festival has a very special menu for you on offer.
German Food Additives Museum
Flavor enhancers, stabilizers, emulsifier, dyestuffs – any questions about these substances will be answered
The Kinfolk Table:
Recipes for Small Gatherings
The Kinfolk Table is a book that will inspire to gather good friends around a table filled with kimchi couscous,…
FoodXchange
foodXchange is a Berlin based initiative for the barter exchange of homemade culinary creations.
Art and Appetite:
American Painting, Culture, and Cuisine
The Exhibition is at the Art Institute of Chicago until January 27, 2014. An exhibition review by Jasmina Knezovic.
Chido’s:
Growing Mushrooms Below Berlin
A new food start-up in Berlin, Chido’s, found a way to culture mushrooms in a cellar in Schöneberg. The particularity:…
Conversation with the founders of Markthalle Neun
Markthalle Neun demonstrates that “Different-Eating” and “Different-Shopping” is possible in a city like Berlin. We talked with the three initiators.
Review:
Season to Taste
It was fresh-baked cake or freshly brewed coffee yielding a mouth-watering aroma – especially for Molly Birnbaum, passionate about food. It was!
Conversation with artist Thomas Rentmeister
At first I didn’t find Thomas Rentmeister at all, as I entered the old industrial space that the artist uses as a studio in Berlin-Weißensee on a warm summer day
Sironi
Standing in front of Sironi’s vitreous manufacture at Markthalle Neun in Berlin-Kreuzeberg will instantly leave your eyes and mouth wide-open
A conversation with Malin Elmlid from Bread Exchange
Malin Elmlid discovered her passion for baking and started the bread exchange. We met Malin and had her tell us her story.
Food Pairing
Did you know that tomato and green tea pair well? Food pairing as a molecular analysis of similarities is a…
Taste the Waste
A film about the reality behind waste, expiration dates and imperfect food.
Flavour Thesaurus
Birds of a feather flock together. Flavour Thesaurus is a book about couples of a different kind.
Slow Food
“Who sews utopia, shall reap reality.“ This is the motto according to which the Italian sociologist Carlo Petrini founded the Slow Food movement in 1986.
Conversation with the founders of Vom Einfachen das Gute
“Eat nothing of which you don’t know the story”: Manuela Dehn and Jörg Reuter of an eco strategy consultancy are making a dream come true.


Followfish
Followfish is a network founded by fishermen standing for transparent and sustainable fish products.
Review:
Food Rules
Food Rules“ by bestselling author Michael Pollan, is a manual that teaches us easy to follow guidelines regarding daily eating habits.
A conversation with Chef Michael Hoffmann
The star chef, who became famous for his vegetable and herb cuisine. He recently surprised the public with the announcement to close his restaurant and give back all awards. We spoke to him about the reasons.
Goldhahn & Sampson
This shop in Prenzlauer Berg is a little paradise for lovers of good food…
Olive
Did you know the word oil comes from olive? For an enlightening history of olives and their oil, read this…
BioBoy
Von der Frage inspiriert, wie die Zukunft unserer Lebensmittelerzeugung aussehen könnte, hat die Produkt Designerin Suzanne van Beest ein innovatives Spielzeug für Kinder entwickelt, …
OLTU
Von natürlichen Organismen inspiriert, nutzt OLTU Wasserverdunstung und Wärmeabstrahlung des Kühlschranks für die Aufbewahrung von Obst und Gemüse.
Food Storage
Valentina Raffaelli und Luca Boscardin rufen mit ihrer Modulküche “Food Storage” die Lebensmittelpyramide zurück ins Gedächtnis und regen dazu an, sich wieder ausgewogen zu ernähren.
Glut und Späne
Von Montags bis Samstags werden bei Glut und Späne in der Markthalle Neun Lachs und Forelle und je nach Saison auch Makrele und Hering geräuchert.

Home Made
Althergebrachte Küchentechniken sind die Themen im Kochbuch Home Made. Auf gelungene Art und Weise verbindet die Autorin Tradition mit Innovation und macht Lust sich in die Küche zu stellen und zu experimentieren.
Thomas Rentmeister:
E-Mail-Austausch mit besorgter Schülerin
In einer vergangenen Ausstellung des Wilhelm Hack Museums „I Love ALDI“ 2011 verwirklichte der Künstler Thomas Rentmeister die Installation „Aufschnitt“. Die Aufhäufung von Wurstpackungen hat eine besorgte Schülerin zum Anlass genommen, eine kritische E-Mail an den Künstler zu adressieren…
The Farmery:
Supermarkt im Gewächshaus
The Farmery in North Carolina, USA, ist Supermarkt und Gewächshaus in Einem.
Green Kitchen Stories
Der erfolgreiche Food Blog Green Kitchen Stories hat ein vegetarisches Kochbuch herausgebracht. Wir haben es ausprobiert und sind begeistert.
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