FOIE PAS
Traditionally enriched with chicken livers or gizzards, this Cajun staple gets its name from the speckled appearance created by finely chopped meat mixed into rice.
This CNN series, launched after No Reservations, used food as an entry point into geopolitics, conflict, memory, and identity, earning Anthony Bourdain multiple posthumous Emmys.
Parts Unknown
Originally developed as a shelf-stable canned meat during the Great Depression, this product became synonymous with Allied military rations throughout World War II and later embedded itself deeply into Hawaiian and Pacific cuisine.
Spam
This East Village restaurant, celebrated for its Caribbean-inflected tasting menu and sibling to the acclaimed Musket Room, earned a spot on the New York Times’ latest top restaurant ranking.
Kabawa
Prized in classical French cuisine for their delicate texture and high collagen content, these glands — most commonly the thymus and pancreas of young animals — are traditionally soaked, blanched, and pressed before cooking.
SWEETBREADS
Essentially a frenched bone-in ribeye fabricated from the rib primal and prized for containing the spinalis dorsi, derives its name from the elongated rib bone left attached to resemble this weapon.
Tomahawk
Developed for Napoleon’s armies after the French government offered a prize for food preservation technology, this invention revolutionized military logistics...
Canning
This two-Michelin-starred Korean fine dining destination presents each course with detailed printed cards explaining ingredients, technique, and cultural context, helping cement its place atop multiple recent global restaurant rankings.
Atomix
In Chinese tea culture, tapping two fingers lightly against the table while tea is poured is traditionally understood as this nonverbal social gesture, said to date back to the Qianlong Emperor traveling in disguise.
Gratitude
Named for the Japanese onomatopoeia mimicking the sound of swishing thin slices of meat through simmering broth, this communal hot pot dish is traditionally served with sesame and ponzu sauces.
Shabu Shabu
Traditionally rendered from beef or mutton fat and prized for its shelf stability, this cooking fat became essential in everything from pemmican production to wartime frying and candle-making.
Tallow
This West Village restaurant from Vijay Kumar helped redefine the visibility of regional South Indian cuisine in American fine dining, earning repeated national acclaim for dishes like gunpowder dosa and banana leaf–wrapped fish.
Semma
The Latin root ficatum, later giving rise to the word “foie,” referred to the liver of geese fattened in ancient Rome on a diet rich in this fruit.
Fig
Before becoming the sharp-tongued host of multiple global television franchises, this chef earned three Michelin stars by age 34, tying a record previously held by Marco Pierre White.
Gordon Ramsay
During wartime shortages and trade blockades, roasted roots of this bitter plant were commonly blended into or substituted for coffee across Europe.
Chicory
Before building a global hospitality empire including a flagship overlooking Central Park Columbus Circle, this Alsatian-born chef trained under Louis Outhier and Paul Bocuse and became known for integrating French technique with Southeast Asian acid and spice.
Jean-Georges Vongerichten?
In a traditional Georgian supra, this ceremonial toastmaster doesn’t just introduce speakers — they control the philosophical flow of the evening, lead thematic toasts, guide conversation, and essentially shape the emotional and social structure of the meal.
Tamada
At a supra, the tamada guides the evening through a sequence of thematic toasts — to peace, ancestors, friendship, love, the dead, the future, etc. Guests are expected to participate thoughtfully, not just drink.
Although now a staple of French cuisine, this raw beef preparation takes its name from the Central Asian nomadic horsemen once rumored to tenderize meat beneath their saddles while riding.
What is beef tartare?
[Tatars/Tartars, nomadic groups from Central Asia and the Mongol Empire]
Developed in response to Napoleon III’s demand for a butter substitute suitable for the navy and lower classes, this wartime-adjacent invention was originally made from beef fat before becoming a global industrial staple.
Margarine
This Bensonhurst restaurant, named for the family matriarch behind its Shanghainese repertoire, became one of the most critically celebrated examples of NYC’s outer-borough Chinese dining renaissance, particularly for dishes like lion’s head meatballs and drunken chicken.