Nina Mukerjee Furstenau

By Nina Mukerjee Furstenau They say mushrooms capture the sun, but they also make what is tethered in the earth available to humans. To...

COLUMBIA, Missouri-- The website, www.thecommoningredient (psst: it's love!), was formed to help our neighbors with good food, comfort...

The mysterious Lady of Charleston who penned the Carolina Housewife cookbook in 1847, fell in with the idea that a lady's name

By Nina Mukerjee Furstenau ORLANDO, Florida—We are eating a favorite lunch of rice with coconut shrimp curry when I ask my father about...

By Nina Mukerjee Furstenau FAYETTE, Missouri-- In not-so-breaking news from the Midwest: casseroles cure the blues. I see this happen in...

As Robin Sloan says in his delightful book, Sourdough, "I have come to believe that food is history of the deepest kind...

By Nina Mukerjee Furstenau FAYETTE, Missouri--My route home twisted through clouds. It was easy to imagine this as something customary on...

By Nina Mukerjee Furstenau KOLKATA, India-- How long does it take for a food from another land to become your comfort food, your...

By Nina Mukerjee Furstenau DARJEELING, India--In the land of noble Himalayan vistas, steep slopes, and delectable teas, indoor heat is...

By Nina Mukerjee Furstenau KOLKATA, India—On Sunday, I was making patishapta, an Indian crepe, not quite as I was taught. Okay, not at...

Nina Mukerjee Furstenau KOLKATA, India -- Clifton Fadiman famously said, "A cheese may disappoint. It may be dull, it may be naive, it...

KOLKATA, India-- I feel, as Lilian Boxfish did in the novel Lilian Boxfish Takes a Walk, that there’s a low-grade lunacy to life in a...

KOLKATA, India--What would a war lord, like Barbur, do for the taste of melon? Apparently, the 16th century central Asian prince, Zahir...

KOLKATA, India—I’ve been reading a lot lately about what makes a food your own. At home in Missouri before leaving for Bengal to research...

Nina Mukerjee Furstenau FAYETTE, Missouri -- In August, clear-yellow cloudless sulfur butterflies coast past my kitchen window heading...

My fig tree is nearly ready to give up its fruit. Every time I look at the green, slowly thickening bulbs, I know I have to be both...

I write food and heritage stories that connect experiencing locales, people, and flavor. Follow this blog for short snippets of wonder...