Our Favorite Food Stories From The Week

This week, we saw a lot of stories that revolved around place—homegrown food movements, city-specific identities and the spread and development of cuisines outside of their origin. We spent a lot of time down South, explored Oklahoma City through an immigrant food scene and remembered how far the cult(ure) of Brooklyn has spread.

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Take a virtual trip this weekend by catching up on nine of our favorite reads from the week.

The Washington Post's lengthy profile of food scholar Michael Twitty is worth every word. Twitty became a sensation with an open letter to Paula Deen in 2013 when instead of condemning Deen, he spoke about the "the near universal erasure of the black presence from American culinary memory." René Redzepi called him "the voice of our generation," so listen up. His story is a great one, and the work he does extends well beyond his viral fame.

In The Bitter Southerner, food writer Kathleen Purvis explains why everyone "should give a damn" that a "barbecue-entranced, bourbon-preoccupied and pork belly-obsessed horde of mostly testosterone-fueled scribes from outside [the south]" has taken over Southern food writing from the predominantly female writer base of yore.

Alan Benton, America's unofficial king of bacon and a self-described hillbilly, tells the history of Benton's country ham in Lucky Peach.

The magazine also perfectly captures why "Boston Chinese Food Is So Boston." If you're from the city or "just outside of Boston," the story, which describes lobster sauce and Peking ravioli, will undoubtedly resonate. If you're not a Masshole, you'll be left hungry to visit Beantown for a whole new reason.

Food Republic highlights the best food scenes in Broad City in honor of the show's third season, and in the process, highlights New York, the third great character in the show. Laugh out loud at the Whole Foods scene in Brooklyn's Gowanus. "Damn. This neighborhood is changing."

Eater surveys "How Five Small New York Bakeries Got into the Wholesale Business" and managed to maintain quality while scaling up.

Bon Appeétit reminds us just how far the Brooklyn stamp of artisan pickles and pour-over coffee has spread in "How Every City Became Brooklyn," by John Birdsall. In a trip to Indianapolis, the food writer explores what "authenticity" really means and what we're all actually seeking.

Elsewhere in the Midwest, Smithsonian Magazine takes us to Oklahoma City, which is becoming a hot spot for Vietnamese food, and now we want to go to Oklahoma City.

Finally, while it wasn't published this week, or even this year, NPR's "What Ever Happened to the Boozy Cake in 'To Kill A Mockingbird'?" is a comforting read in light of the great Harper Lee's passing today. Author Meredith Bethune went in search of the roots of and a recipe for the Lane Cake, which appears in Lee's classic To Kill a Mockingbird. Read, eat cake and have a great weekend.