Vesta's Table ~ A Food Blog

Sharing stories of how, why, and with whom we eat all around the world. In the ancient tradition of people gathered around warm hearths to prepare and share meals - with the goddess Vesta keeping watch. Though we live in a vastly different world from the ancients who worshiped Vesta, we continue to gather around our dining room tables, restaurant tables, living rooms, picnic benches, mountain sides, hiking trails, and even our kitchen sinks, with co-workers and friends, neighbors and family. This blog celebrates food and its diverse cultural contexts around the world, aggregating the best food culture and food history posts from around the world, and the web. Though there is some content overlap, make sure to explore the diversity of content across all our digital accounts.

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From Andalusia to the Americas, the inheritance of Andalusi sugar is a bitter one, playing an integral role in the Transatlantic slave trade

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6 Dos and Don'ts of Ordering Oysters, According to Pro Shuckers

Ordering oysters can be intimidating. Pro shuckers share tips on how to order oysters so they're delicious and safe.

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What did Genghis Khan eat?

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Alice Waters Wants to Transform the Way California Students Eat

Alice Waters' new restaurant Lulu, at L.A.'s Hammer Museum is just the beginning. The renowned chef wants to transform the way California college students eat.

The initiative will begin with The Alice Waters Institute at the University of California, Davis, which will soon operate as a resource and cultural center for both the university and surrounding Sacramento community. The project will soon expand to UCLA, and Waters hopes to help convert the entire UC system to regenerative sources by 2027.

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When the Michelin starred chef Andrew Wong was on a working tour of China, it ignited a burning curiosity in not just exploring the vast cul

A conversation with Chef Andrew Wong and Anthropologist/food historian Dr.Mukta Das.

Listen as they take a deep dive into Chinese culinary past and explore the history of Dim Sum.

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How This Oakland Fine Dining Restaurant Aims to Redefine Black Food Through a California Lens

Chef Geoff Davis draws from his fine dining experience at Burdell, a restaurant inspired by family history and the Great Migration

Given Oakland’s diversity and history as a migration hub for Black people in the 1930s and 1940s, he says the town is a perfect spot to forge a new interpretation of Black food, weaving in Vietnamese, Mexican, and Filipino ingredients. “Kind of in the same way Creole food got made by forcing all these people together, [with] respect for their techniques and ingredients — they all become one food that’s no longer fusion anymore,” he says.

click to read more

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Who needs cutlery? Why food is more delicious when eating with hands

I was anxious when my fiance met my family. Would he master the art of eating with his hands? Luckily, he’s a fast learner…

'In the west, what was once considered taboo or ill-mannered has now become run of the mill: “finger food” exists as an entire category of culinary delights, and it is considered normal to eat certain foods with hands.'

Click to read more

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The Mad Scientist of Pawpaws

Largely the domain of foragers, the biggest edible fruit in the South has mostly been forgotten. A quietly obsessed Quaker from West Virgini

Pawpaws are having something of a moment these days. Throughout the fruit’s native range—it grows wild in twenty-six states, including most of the South and as far north as Michigan—craft brewers are making pawpaw beer and ale. You can find pawpaw ice cream in high-end restaurants. 

Click to read more!

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A Brief History of Peanut Butter

A Brief History of Peanut Butter

The bizarre sanitarium staple that became a spreadable obsession

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I think so much about the food people ate pre-Columbian exchange. Huge parts of cuisine extremely important on both sides of the pond just didn't exist.

You've probably heard a little about what was brought over from the New World, corn, potatoes, cocoa, cassava, peanuts, chili peppers, avocadoes, cranberries, pumpkins, and the like. Imagine cooking without chili! Without potatoes! Modern Indian cuisine contains enormous amounts of potatoes and we just didn't have those for the vast majority of history. The best of the nightshades all on one contiguous hunk of land. Hell, tomatoes! Almost forgot about those.

But we don't often look at what the Old World had. Wheat! Barley! Rice! A profusion of incredible grains, really, the finest poaceae has to offer. Carrots! Tons of rosaceous plants like apples and cherries and pears and peaches and apricots! Grapes! Soy and Bamboo! Okra and watermelon! All these things were simply never found in the Americas. The grains one is the wildest for me, the variety of grains available across Eurasia and Africa was truly astounding.

You know what binds together the food of all cultures across the world? Onions. Onions are fucking everywhere. There's probably onions growing near you right now. Allium Gang Unite.

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Indigenous Ingredients Only | This is haute cuisine cooking in the U.S. using only indigenous ingredients. | By AJ+ | Facebook

This is haute cuisine cooking in the U.S. using only indigenous ingredients.

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Jon Jackson takes a boat ride with Tony Seichrist owner of the Wyld Dockbar in Savannah to locate abandoned Rice Fields planted by his Captive African Ancestors over 175 years ago. Follow his journey as he discovers his past through the seed trails. #africa #diaspora #skydio2 #gopro10