Food & Drink
A staple of Russia and the Slavic world, borscht has inspired films and novels – and has even reached outer space.
The world’s most popular fast food has ancient roots, but it was a royal seal of approval that set it on the path to global domination.
Volunteer rationing in the First World War depended on patriotism, but that could only go so far.
Medieval understanding of the soul and the body meant that a saintly life was a life of physical restrictions. Katherine Harvey explores the extreme suffering bishops put themselves through, from weeping and celibacy to starvation and, sometimes, death.
As politicians consider the introduction of a sugar tax to improve the nation’s health, Harry Cunningham recalls a tragic incident from 1858, which forced the British government to rethink its regulation of pharmacists.
There was no period in the past when people did not try to manipulate nature in order to provide a more varied and nutritious diet, argues Annie Gray. We will need similarly ingenious methods in the future.