Blog | Nina Mukerjee Furstenau

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Food + Travel
Food History

Jul 15
1 min

The Common Ingredient--LOVE

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

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Mar 27
3 min

The Carolina Housewife in times of trouble

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

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Mar 1
3 min

The language of coconut shrimp curry

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

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Feb 5
2 min

Midwest foods cure the blues

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

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Aug 14, 2019
5 min

Yogurt: milk & mayhem

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

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Jul 14, 2019
4 min

Routes and roots

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

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Apr 28, 2019
3 min

What we bring to the table

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

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Feb 15, 2019
5 min

In hot water: tea in the mountains

By Nina Mukerjee Furstenau DARJEELING, India--In the land of noble Himalayan vistas, steep slopes, and delectable teas, indoor heat is no...

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Jan 11, 2019
5 min

An embarrassment of patishapta

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

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Dec 8, 2018
3 min

Chhana: milk's leap toward immortality

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

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Nov 19, 2018
5 min

Psst, may I speak confidentially?

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 ci...

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Oct 26, 2018
2 min

When a war lord craves melons...

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

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Oct 7, 2018
3 min

Tracing clues on a trail of crumbs

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...

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Sep 27, 2018
4 min

Satisfying our hungers

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

214 views5 comments

Sep 18, 2018
1 min

Giving a fig

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 patie...

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Sep 17, 2018
1 min

Welcome to"A Likely Story"

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

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