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It’s creamy, it’s spicy, it’s British, it’s Indian, it’s fusion…it’s delicious! While everyone agrees that chicken tikka masala is one of the best-loved foods in England today, its origin is much-debated. What’s not up for debate is the fact that this dish spawned an entire culinary movement, helping to popularize Indian cuisine throughout Britain.
 
Chicken tikka masala is a dish of boneless chicken chunks in a creamy, tomato-coriander sauce. The chicken used in the dish is chicken tikka, which is made by marinating chicken in a mixture of yogurt and garam masala, a ground spice blend that often includes cinnamon, cumin, cardamom, and peppercorns. Other spices, like turmeric and paprika, are added to the sauce, which is orange thanks to its mixture of red tomatoes and yellowish coriander. Chicken tikka masala can be extremely spicy or very mild, depending on which spices are added. In many restaurants, it can even be ordered to taste.
 
While chicken tikka masala undoubtedly has Indian origins (many food historians believe it evolved from butter chicken, a similar Indian dish) it wasn’t actually created in India, but in Europe. The question is where exactly in Europe. Some believe that, in the early 1970s, an unnamed chef in London created the dish, which quickly spread amongst the city’s many Indian restaurants until its original creator was unclear. The most popular origin story, though, involves British Pakistani chef Ali Ahmed Aslam and his restaurant in Glasgow, Scotland. Supposedly, Aslam used spices and condensed tomato soup to make a sauce for a customer’s chicken tikka after they’d complained that it was too dry. However, when Glasgow petitioned for the city to be named the dish’s official home, they were denied, since many different places in the U.K. claimed to have invented it.
 
Today, chicken tikka masala is considered an unofficial national dish of the U.K., even if no one can agree exactly where in the U.K. it came from. Many also consider it to be one of the first examples of fusion cuisine. In 2001, U.K. foreign secretary Robin Cook even said that the dish was proof of “multiculturalism as a positive force for our economy and society.” There’s no arguing with that.

 
[Image description: A white plate of chicken tikka masala, rice, and a triangular piece of naan on a yellow-and-white table. The dish’s sauce is a brownish-orange color.] Credit & copyright: Andy Li, Wikimedia Commons. This file is made available under the Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication.

This rice dish is no side dish. Korean bibimbap is a colorful, savory main course featuring vegetables, meat, eggs, and, of course, rice. It’s popular enough to be found at Korean restaurants all over the world, yet the origins of this famous staple are fairly mysterious.
 
Bibimbap gets its name from the Korean word “bibim” which means “to mix” and “bap”, which means “cooked rice” or “meal.” It’s often served in a stone bowl, on a foundation of fluffy, white rice. Atop the rice is a colorful assortment of vegetables, which vary by region but can include: beansprouts, shiitake mushrooms, cucumbers, carrots, bell peppers, spicy radish salad (called mu saengchae), sautéd onions, fiddlehead ferns (called gosari), seaweed, and, of course, kimchi (made from fermented cabbage). Thinly sliced beef is often included too, and the whole thing is topped with an egg yolk in the middle (either fried or raw), a spicy sauce made from Korean chili paste (gochujang), and a sprinkling of sesame seeds. Since bibimbap is traditionally served in a heated stone bowl (or dolsot), the ingredients (including the egg) cook further when the dish is stirred up just before eating.
 
No one knows exactly when bibimbap was invented, but there are a few theories. In traditional Korean ancestral rites (jesa), people often leave food at the memorial shrines of loved ones. The food is usually mixed together before it is offered, so some food historians believe that bibimbap might have originated from such rites. Others think that bibimbap grew out of goldongban, a mixed rice and vegetable dish that comes from a ritual of the same name. In Korea, people often clean out their homes in the days before Lunar New Year, in order to rid themselves of bad luck and staleness from the previous year. For many people, that includes clearing out pantries of various condiments, vegetables, and other ingredients, usually by mixing it into rice. Thus, the dish goldongban was born, and bibimbop might be a more modern, curated version of it.
 
While bibimbap has been eaten in Korea for over a century, it only got popular in the U.S. in the late 20th century, when Asian food in general became more mainstream. Flights to and from South Korea began to serve it, as did American Korean restaurants, and it spread like wildfire due to its simple, inexpensive ingredients. You just can’t go wrong with rice, veggies, and meat!

 
[Image description: A black bowl of bibimbap, featuring colorful vegetables, beef, and an egg yolk in the center.] Credit & copyright: Andy Li, Wikimedia Commons. This file is made available under the Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication.

Would you eat a goose neck? Would you eat a barnacle? What about a gooseneck barnacle? Gooseneck barnacles are one of Lisbon’s most treasured culinary delicacies, and the unusual sea creatures command a premium price. Gooseneck barnacles, also called percebes, get their name from their elongated bodies, which resemble the necks of geese. At least, that’s one version of the story. Another story goes that in the 12th century, Europeans couldn’t figure out where geese flew off to lay their eggs. Seeing these barnacles that were reminiscent of a goose appendage, they decided that the barnacles must actually be goose eggs. Regardless of how they got their name, today, they’re a popular delicacy in Portugal, where they’re often steamed or boiled and served with butter for dipping. To eat a barnacle, the tough, leathery outer skin must be removed, and those who’ve tried it say that the meat is sweet with a chewy texture.
 
While the barnacles’ meat goes down easy, the bill might not. At around $112 U.S. dollars, it’s a pricey dish to order. There are a few reasons for this, the first being that gooseneck barnacles don’t exactly grow on trees. No, they grow on rocks in the ocean, for which harvesters must traverse perilously sharp rocks or dive underwater. Despite their tough exterior, the barnacles also need to be removed with care and precision, lest their prized meat be damaged. Those who harvest barnacles must be licensed and they’re only allowed to take around 44 pounds a day from the ocean, so there is a limited supply. And yes, harvesting is extremely dangerous. Between the crashing waves and the jagged rocks that the barnacles favor as their home, it’s not uncommon for barnacle harvesters to die on the job. In neighboring Spain, where gooseneck barnacles are also popular, some fisherman risk their lives in the Costa de la Muerte, which translates to the “Coast of Death” to gather them. That price on the menu is looking a bit more reasonable, isn’t it?

 
[Image description: Gooseneck barnacles covering a log on a beach. Each barnacle has a black “stem”, a white “shell” and orange “lips”. ] Credit & copyright: Tom Page, Aurevilly, Wikimedia Commons. The copyright holder of this work, has released it into the public domain. This applies worldwide.

The cure for baldness might be sugar! But don’t go stocking up on candy bars just yet. Millions of men around the world experience male pattern baldness, the treatments for which can have mixed results. Now, though, a group of researchers may have unlocked an actual cure for baldness by utilizing a common, naturally occurring sugar. While hair loss has never killed anyone, it’s certainly a bummer to deal with. In men, a balding head is most commonly a hormonal issue and completely natural. Some products like minoxidil can help grow back some of the lost hair, but it can cause side effects like scalp irritation (which can worsen hair loss) and is very toxic to cats (so cat lovers beware). Drugs like finasteride can also halt or reverse male pattern baldness to some degree, but it can cause undesirable side effects like gynecomastia (the development of breast tissue in men). Other remedies like hair plugs or transplants can be costly, and not everyone wants to have surgery just to have a brushable coif. But scientists at the University of Sheffield and COMSATS University Islamabad have discovered a simpler and more effective way to grow back lost hair using 2-deoxy-D-ribose (2dDR). 2dDR is a sugar that is naturally occurring in the human body and inexpensive to produce. Researchers were originally conducting a study on wound healing when they found that sites with the sugar present also had increased hair growth. When they followed up with an experiment using a gel containing the sugar, they found it to be 80 to 90 percent as effective as minoxidil. The sugar seems to promote hair growth by increasing blood flow to the affected area, bringing back dormant hair follicles and even encouraging new growth. Not only does this apparently work on male pattern baldness, researchers believe it may be able to help cancer patients experiencing chemotherapy-induced hair loss. It seems like it may be all over for the comb-over.

 
[Image description: Sugar cubes against a pink background.] Credit & copyright: Polina Tankilevitch, Pexels

This is one succulent sandwich. In fact, the Vietnamese bánh mì is positively loaded with savory meat and crunchy veggies, all on a thick-yet-crispy baguette. Eating a bánh mì is practically a prerequisite for anyone visiting Vietnam, and the country takes great pride in all the sandwich’s regional variations. Yet, the bánh mì has a surprisingly tragic and violent history.
 
A bánh mì is a fusion of Vietnamese and French cuisine. The baguette is distinctly French, as are some commonly-used condiments, like pâté. Yet, the star ingredients are Vietnamese meats, such as xíu mại, a type of minced pork, chả lụa, a kind of sausage. Pork belly is also popular, as is a combination of all three. A good bánh mì practically overflows with veggies, which can include pickled daikon, pickled carrots, and grilled onions, along with herbs like cilantro.
 
The story of the bánh mì is, unfortunately, a story of war and conquest. The Cochinchina Campaign, also known as the French Invasion of Vietnam, took place between 1858 and 1862. France was eager to spread Catholicism via missionaries, expand their empire in order to seize control of Vietnamese resources, and create secure trade routes to China. Stating that Vietnamese emperor Gia Long should submit to French rule since France had provided him with military aid years prior, the French invaded Vietnam 1858 and eventually seized control of the country. Until 1954, Vietnam remained under French rule as part of a colony called French Indochina. In this system, the people of Vietnam and their resources were exploited and poverty was widespread. After a costly war against Vietnamese revolutionaries, which ended in a four-month siege of a French garrison in the northwestern city of Điện Biên Phủ, the French finally withdrew from the country.
 
What does this have to do with bánh mì? Well, when the French abandoned Vietnam, they left their culinary footprint behind. Bread had never been a large part of Vietnamese cuisine before French occupation, while during the occupation it was only considered acceptable for Vietnamese people to eat bread (when they could afford the expensive wheat to make it) in French ways, mainly with butter or cold cuts. But when the French left, it was suddenly safe to combine baguettes with all sorts of Vietnamese ingredients. In Saigon, as migrants fled south during the 1954 Partition of Vietnam, people began selling street food and opening restaurants. While bánh mì can be found all over the world today, the first place to sell it was a small bakery in Saigon called Hòa Mã, run by migrants Lê Minh Ngọc and Nguyễn Thị Tịnh. The rest is cross-cultural culinary history.

 
[Image description: A close-up photo of a Bánh mì sandwich with meat and cooked onions.] Credit & copyright: Phương Huy, Wikimedia Commons. This file is made available under the Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication.

This is some sweet health news. It sounds almost too good to be true, but researchers at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign have found that adding a tablespoon of honey to yogurt actually makes it healthier. That’s because the probiotics in the yogurt survive better when honey is present, which means they can do their jobs better once they reach the intestines. It’s long been known that the probiotics in yogurt have health benefits. Some probiotics are necessary for the production of yogurt itself, but others, like Bifidobacterium animalis are added just simply because they aid in digestion. But probiotics have a harrowing journey ahead of them once they’re consumed. Between the mouth, the stomach, and intestines, probiotics have to survive a veritable gauntlet of enzymes, acids, and other digestive bombardments before they can settle down where it’s safe for them to get to work. Many don’t survive long enough to reach the intestines. That’s why researchers were looking at ways to increase the viability of probiotics in yogurt, and the answer, it turns out, has been there all along. The combination of honey and yogurt—common in the Mediterranean diet—delivers a much more potent probiotic punch than yogurt alone. For their experiment, researchers took a commonly available brand of yogurt and had one group add a little honey to it while telling the control group not to. After a few weeks, the groups switched their diets to see what their gut microbiome would look like, and they found that honey really did help. In particular, the researchers found that B. animalis was much more viable with honey than without. And it has to be honey too, not just sugar—when they repeated the same experiment with plain sugar, it didn’t have the same benefits as honey. You could say this golden sweet treat is the gold standard when it comes to gut health.

 
[Image description: Yogurt with honey and nuts in a black bowl.] Credit & copyright: Amnah Mohammad, Pexels

Say adieu to baby blues. The state of Oregon just rolled out a new program called Family Connects, and its purpose is simple: help parents with the specialized care that newborns often need. While everyone knows that babies are a handful at the best of times, it’s even worse with brand new babies. In the U.S., new parents have little in the way of medical support once a baby is delivered. Some experts believe that this lack of accessible care after birth has led to the country’s high infant and maternal mortality rates compared to other wealthy nations. Oregon’s new, statewide program aims to address the problem. It allows parents to receive at-home visits from nurses who can help them better care for their newborns—and even themselves. For example, a visiting nurse from this program can show parents how to properly hold their infants while feeding or deal with issues like colic. Aside from practical advice, the nurses can also bring basic supplies if necessary, and even connect parents with local resources if they’re experiencing food insecurity or financial hardship in general. Finally, the nurses can check on the parents’ well-being, particularly when it comes to things like postpartum depression. This is especially important since many forms of depression can be worsened by the uncertainties and anxieties that come with parenthood. Of course, sending nurses to help out new parents at their home isn’t a new idea. Dr. Elizabeth Steiner, the State Senator who advocated for the program, actually got the idea from a similar one already helping parents in Durham, North Carolina. Unlike the one in Durham, though, Oregon’ version covers the entire state. It sounds expensive, but it’s likely to pay dividends in the future. Parents who receive these visits are less likely to suffer from postpartum depression and Child Protective Services are less likely to have to intervene due to neglect or abuse. They say it takes a village—in this case, the village is an entire state.

 
[Image description: A white crib decorated with an elephant-patterned blanket and a stuffed elephant.] Credit & copyright: Karolina Kaboompics, Pexels

This dish is so nice, it’s only fitting that Nice is where it’s from! Ratatouille, a bright, seasonal dish of stewed vegetables, originated in the French city of Nice, on the country’s southeastern coast. Despite its prominence as one of France’s most famous foods (thanks in part to the Disney/Pixar movie named after it) ratatouille hasn’t been around all that long. However, it draws on a long history of vegetable dishes native to the Mediterranean coast.
 
Ratatouille gets its unusual name from Occitan, a romance language spoken in southern France, among other places. The Occitan word ratatolha means chunky stew, while the French word tatouiller means “to stir up.” Simply put, it’s a dish of stewed vegetables with ingredients that can vary depending on who’s making it. Ratatouille almost always contains eggplants and tomatoes, though. Other common vegetables used in the dish include zucchini, bell peppers, and onions. Garlic and chives are often used for seasoning.
 
Ratatouille can look very different depending on who’s serving it. Sometimes, it looks like a chunky stew and is served in a bowl. Sometimes the vegetables are cooked together, though there are some who insist that each type of vegetable be cooked separately, in olive oil, before being combined. Others serve ratatouille’s cooked vegetables sliced, usually on top of a flavorful sauce, in order to show off their color.
 
Although various kinds of vegetable stew have always existed in France, ratatouille as we know it today was invented in the 18th century. French farmers, unable to afford meat, chopped and stewed vegetables instead. For a long time, ratatouille was thought of as a peasant dish due to its origins, but it didn’t take long for the simple dish to spread throughout France. In 1903, one of the first written references to ratatouille appeared in La Cuisine à la Nice by French chef Henri Heyraud. A few decades later, in 1950, ratatouille grew popular in England thanks to A Book of Mediterranean Food by British cookbook author Elizabeth David. The dish’s momentum couldn’t be stopped, and by the 1980s it was popular everywhere that French food was served, including American French restaurants. You could say these veggies have a certain Je ne sais quoi.

 
[Image description: Ratatouille, a dish made of sliced vegetables, with orange sauce on a white plate.] Credit & copyright: El Nuevo Doge, Wikimedia Commons, El Nuevo Doge. This file is made available under the Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication.