The Pantry Dispatch
Guides to the foods, makers and techniques behind what we stock.
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History and CraftCocktail Bitters
How Cocktail Bitters Are Made
Two dashes can steer a drink built from two ounces of whiskey, and all of that work happens weeks before the bottle...
Regional GuideSpices
Sri Lanka in the Pantry: Cooking from the Island's Jars
Sri Lanka's export board calls the island a leading exporter of five spices: cinnamon, pepper, cloves, nutmeg and cardamom. Add the black...
Regional GuideVinegars
Emilia-Romagna in the Pantry: Its Jars and How to Cook Them
Emilia-Romagna holds more protected food names than any other Italian region by the region's 2023 count, and five of its foods keep...
History and CraftCandy & Other Sweets
Inside a Gummy Candy Factory
A sour gummy fish takes a few seconds to eat and a day or more to make. Most of that time it...
History and CraftNon-Alcoholic Beverages
Before Zero-Proof: A Short History of Non-Alcoholic Drinks
The grown-up drink without alcohol is usually told as a story of the last ten years. It is older than that by...
Buying GuideGifts
The Pantry Host Gift: What to Bring, by Host
Etiquette says a host never has to serve what a guest brings, and that one rule makes the case for a pantry...
Regional GuidePasta Sauces
Naples and Campania in the Pantry: How to Cook from the Jars
Around the Bay of Naples and the Gulf of Salerno, four pantry foods are protected by name. Dried pasta comes from the...
Kitchen Know-HowTinned Fish
Cooking with Tinned Squid and Octopus: Six Uses, One Rule
A tin of octopus or squid comes already cooked. One rule follows from that: heat touches only the outside or arrives at...
Kitchen Know-HowNon-Alcoholic Beverages
Cooking with Zero-Proof Drinks: Uses That Earn Their Place
Wine does not all cook off. USDA retention data show that alcohol stirred into a dish and simmered for 15 minutes keeps...
Complete GuideTinned Fish
Smoked fish in tins: The Complete Guide
A tin of smoked fish uses two methods of preservation. First the fish is brined and smoked, and then the tin is...
Kitchen Know-HowTinned Fish
Cooking with Smoked Trout and Sprats: Six Uses and Why They Work
A tin of smoked trout or sprats arrives already cooked. What is left is deciding what the fish meets. Every good use...
History and CraftMaple Syrups
A Short History of Maple Syrup
Maple syrup is a sweetener that began in North America rather than arriving from somewhere else. The Indigenous peoples of the northeast...
History and CraftMaple Syrups
How Maple Is Made
A gallon of maple syrup starts as roughly forty gallons of sap that tastes like faintly sweet water. Everything between the tree...
Kitchen Know-HowNut Butters
Cooking with nut butter: The Uses That Earn a Place in the Pantry
A jar of nut butter does three kitchen jobs at once: it thickens a liquid, carries fat and brings roasted flavor. This...
Complete GuideJams & Jellies
Jam and Preserves: The Complete Guide
Jam is fruit and sugar held in a gel, and nearly every question about it comes back to that sugar. It decides...
Complete GuidePickled / Brined / Oil Soaked Goods
Cornichons and Pickles: A Buyer's Guide to Every Style
A cornichon is a cucumber picked very small and put into sharp vinegar, and it belongs to a big family of pickles...
Complete GuideHot Sauces
Harissa: The Complete Guide
Harissa is sun-dried chili, garlic, coriander and salt made into a paste, and in 2022 UNESCO inscribed the Tunisian practice of making...
Complete GuideTea
Green Tea: The Complete Guide
Green tea is leaf that was heated before it could oxidize, and much of what matters about it follows from that one...
Regional GuideSpices
Andalusia in the Pantry: The Region's Jars and How to Cook Them
Among the foods Andalusia protects by name are four for the pantry: sherry vinegar, Gordal olives from Seville province, acorn-fed ham cured...
Kitchen Know-HowVinegars
Cooking with Cheese Accompaniments: Uses That Earn a Place
A cheese board leaves jars behind: half a pot of mostarda, a wedge of quince paste, the end of the honey, a...
History and CraftPasta Sauces
How the Tomato Became Italian
Dante never saw a tomato. Neither did Leonardo, and the fruit that now stands for Italy on every menu spent its first...
Kitchen Know-HowChips
The Chips-and-Ham Party
In Spain the aperitif comes before lunch, and nobody apologizes for the potato chips, because the chips are serious: thick cut, fried...
Kitchen Know-HowBar & Beverage
A Spritz Bar Runs Itself on the 3-2-1 Formula
The spritz is the rare party drink that improves when the host stops making it. Set out bottles, ice, a stack of...
Regional GuideDenver and Local
Cherry Creek Denver: What to Know While You Shop the District
Cherry Creek is named for cherries, just not the ones you are picturing. From chokecherries and Denver’s gold-rush beginnings to catastrophic floods,...
History and CraftTinned Fish
The Salting Houses: How Cantabrian Anchovies Are Cured
A Cantabrian anchovy fillet is closer to jamón than to fish sticks: a small silver fish that spends at least six months...
Complete GuideTea
Paris Breakfast Tea Guide: Mariage Frères' Citrus Black Tea with a Green-Tea Finish
Paris Breakfast looks like a citrus-scented black tea until the description reaches the finish: a hint of green tea. What is in...
Complete GuideTea
French Breakfast Tea Guide: Mariage Frères' Chocolate & Malt Morning Cup
French Breakfast is not tea grown in France. It is Mariage Frères' take on the morning cup: black tea made round, chocolatey...
Complete GuideTea
English Breakfast Tea Guide: How Mariage Frères Makes the Morning Cup
English Breakfast is a style, not a fixed recipe. Mariage Frères builds its version from broken black-tea leaves for a strong, malty...
History and CraftCured Meats
Two Years in the Cellar: How Jamón Ibérico Is Cured
A jamón ibérico is a hind leg, salt, air and time, and Spanish law is precise about the last one: a full-size...
Complete GuideTea
Vanille des Îles Tea Guide: Mariage Frères' Vanilla Black Tea
Mariage Frères makes many vanilla teas, and Vanille des Îles has the clearest proposition of them: black tea, aroma and vanilla, sweet...
Complete GuideTea
Casablanca Tea Guide: Mariage Frères' Mint, Bergamot, Green & Black Tea
Casablanca is more interesting than "mint tea" suggests: Mariage Frères marries green tea and Moroccan mint with bergamot-flavored black tea, and makes...
Complete GuideTea
Black Orchid Tea Guide: Mariage Frères' Vanilla, Spice & Caramel Black Tea
Black Orchid sounds floral, but its label lists tea and aroma. The story is a round, silky black tea scented with vanilla,...
Complete GuideTea
Nil Rouge Tea Guide: Mariage Frères' Citrus & Spice Rooibos
Nil Rouge takes the citrus-and-spice idea behind Thé sur le Nil and moves it onto naturally caffeine-free South African rooibos. What changes,...
Complete GuideTea
Boléro Tea Guide: Mariage Frères' Peach, Apricot & Fig Black Tea
Boléro is easy to decode once you get past the name: black tea scented toward white peach, apricot and fig, with marigold...
Kitchen Know-HowChocolate Bars
Fine Food on the Trail: The Backpacking and Car-Camping Pantry
The foods that survive a pack without a cooler are the oldest ones in the fine-food pantry: fish sealed in tins, dark...
Complete GuideTinned Fish
Tinned tuna and ventresca: The Complete Guide
One word on the tin covers four different fish, and one fish carries two very different cuts. Skipjack is the light tuna...
Buying GuideHoney
Honey, Mostarda or Membrillo? Choosing What Goes Next to Cheese
The jars near the cheese counter all make the same offer, and they are six different theories of what a wedge of...
Complete GuideSpices
Pimentón and smoked paprika: The Complete Guide
One red powder covers more distance than almost anything else in the spice drawer: it colors chorizo, finishes pulpo, deepens a pot...
Complete GuideSpices
Cinnamon: The Complete Guide
Almost every kitchen keeps a jar marked cinnamon, and almost no jar says which cinnamon. The word covers the dried inner bark...
Complete GuideCandy & Other Sweets
Gummy candy: The Complete Guide
The gummy is the candy most people ate first and think about least. The bear that started it came out of a...
Complete GuideGrains
Chickpeas and Lentils, from Field to Pot: The Complete Guide
Chickpeas and lentils were in the first fields human beings ever planted, and they are still the two most useful seeds on...
Kitchen Know-HowSpices
Cooking with cinnamon: The Uses That Earn a Place in the Pantry
A jar of cinnamon arrives for one recipe, does its work on toast, and then sits. Most advice about cinnamon is a...
Complete GuideSweet Bakery
Biscotti, Cantucci and Butter Cookies: The Complete Guide
The cookie shelf is really two shelves. On one side sit the twice-baked: hard Tuscan cantucci full of whole almonds, built to...
Producer ProfileCandy & Other Sweets
Brontedolci: The Nougat Workshop from Bronte, Sicily
Three friends from Bronte, on the slopes of Etna, worked in other people's pastry shops and bars for years. In 1997 they...
Producer ProfileJams & Jellies
Marchesi di San Giuliano: Eight Centuries of Sicilian Citrus
Marchesi di San Giuliano grows its citrus and cooks its marmalade on the same Sicilian estate. The land has belonged to the...
Producer ProfileSweet Bakery
Filet Bleu: A Sailor's Biscuit Company in Brittany
According to its importer, a former sailor and his wife founded Filet Bleu's biscuit factory in Pont-l'Abbé in 1919, and he named...
Producer ProfileCandy & Other Sweets
François Doucet and the Half-Fruit Rule of Provençal Candy
In 1969 Maggy and François Doucet settled in Oraison, a small village in Haute-Provence, and by 1972 they were making glazed fruit...
Producer ProfileGrains
Moretti: A Century of Bramata from the Bergamo Plain
In 1922 Aristide Moretti and his wife Carolina took over a corn mill in the Campagnola quarter of Bergamo and built a...
Producer ProfileAsian Ingredients
La Tourangelle: A Loire Valley Mill Pressing in California
La Tourangelle dates itself to 1867 in Bourgueil, in the Loire Valley. The Kohlmeyer family bought the mill in the early 1990s,...
Producer ProfileMustards
Casa Forcello Guide: A Mantuan Pharmacist's Pear Mostarda
A pharmacist in Mantua gave up the counter for the stove, opened a cooking school, then a small laboratory making the sweet,...
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