Skip to main content

Nerdery

It's not just a hot sauce: It's a tattoo, a beer cozy, a Valentine, and more. We've got visual evidence that the Rooster sauce is taking over America

Bon Appétit

icon
Gallery
It's not just a hot sauce: It's a tattoo, a beer cozy, a Valentine, and more. We've got visual evidence that the Rooster sauce is taking over America
Now that we've all gotten used to saying "Sriracha," what does the word itself actually mean?

Sam Dean

Why did we give our favorite citrus a name that rhymes with almost nothing? A look at the fruit's juicy linguistic origins

Sam Dean

From the towering feasts of Versailles to the natural foodscapes of Noma, a historical look at how we serve fancy food

Michael Y. Park

What were "cates" and who brought them into the house? A look at the origins of a very familiar term

Sam Dean

Popcorn was just the start: A history of movie-theater snacks, from the red-licorice war of the 1920s to "When Harry Met Salad"

Rachel Friedman

The term of endearment (and, okay, the sweetener) has a history that stretches back to the dawn of human civilization

Sam Dean

We like novels. We like food. And book publishers, aware of our appetites, are pushing this new genre. Alexander Chee devours 7 of the tastiest

Alexander Chee

Sub, hoagie, hero, grinder, spuckie, po' boy, wedge: here's why you call the footlong (or longer) sandwich whatever you do

Sam Dean

What do baths and brothels have to do with what we cook in a pot? More than you'd ever suspect

Sam Dean

How such a silly word became standard English for the slurpable starch

Sam Dean

Get ready for New Year's by learning how to say "hangover" in everything from French and German to Vietnamese and Finnish

Sam Dean

Tolkien's halflings love mid-century British comfort food. Don't scoff! Those mince pies and seed cakes can be tasty for humans, too

Bon Appétit

Ham? Eggnog? Fruitcake? Hardly. At Christmastime 2,000 years ago, Bethlehem partied with figs, roasted fish, and olives

Michael Y. Park

The delicious dessert's name has its roots in a familiar black bird

Sam Dean

How a typo and a train got mixed up with our favorite sauce

Sam Dean

A pictorial history of the presidential turkey pardon, from Truman to Obama

Bon Appétit

From Tex-Mex hexaflexagons to Busby Berkeley watermelons

Sam Dean

The Belle of Amherst's cookie recipe (plus bonus poem on distance and loss)

Sam Dean

How the coconut came to be named after a Spanish (and Portugese) Halloween terror

Sam Dean

This week's Eat Your Words looks at a fall favorite: cider

Sam Dean

The website Handwritten Recipes collects old recipes found in used books, and occasionally even tests them out

Sam Dean

One of the leading explanations for one the spookiest events in American history

Sam Dean