Jeremy Cherfas

Currently reading: Civilisations by Laurent Binet and Sam Taylor, ISBN: 978-1473577091

Huge fun, recommended by a friend to whom I raved about Cahokia Jazz.

Eat This Newsletter 273

Number one question: In the 17th century, did the Dutch really brush their teeth with butter?

And a bunch of other morsels.

https://buttondown.com/jeremycherfas/archive/etn273-buttery/

Pellagra is a dietary deficiency disease that ends in madness and death. And at one time was responsible for half the inmates in Italian asylums and 100,000 deaths a year in the US. Now it is all but forgotten.

https://eatthispodcast.com/pellagra

“I never relinquished my desire to hop a train, I just stopped pursuing it.”

Very disappointed, in the end, by this article, which I had hoped might tell me about the reality of riding the rails today.

Instead, a bit like me, the writer just gave up on the dream.

https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2025/05/09/the-hobo-handbook/

Album artists to 12 June at last.fm https://www.last.fm/user/jeremycherfas

1 Paul Lewis 18
2 Spiro 17
3 Gigi 14
4 Junior Wells 14
5 Coleman Hawkins & Lester Young 13

Just put the finishing touches to tomorrow's Eat This Newsletter. There’s a common theme to the stories; how forces way beyond a person’s control influence what and how they eat.

If you're already subscribed, thank you.

If not, please do so at https://buttondown.com/jeremycherfas/

Little did I know when I booked a cycling holiday in the Po Valley that I would be staying at the heart of Italy’s first supply chain for certified organic quinoa grown in Italy.

Serendipity at its finest.

https://eatthispodcast.com/quinitalia

Many countries have strict rules about who is allowed to give advice on diet and nutrition. That doesn't stop even qualified people from selling all kinds of snake oil.

Tara Schmidt, lead dietitian for the Mayo Clinic Diet, told me about her work.

Listen at https://eatthispodcast.com/dietitian

Eat This Newsletter 270

Eggflation excuses, the sad saga of the British sliced loaf, what to grow in a nuclear winter, hot dance food science PhD, and a sober accounting of the US's food-related losses.

https://buttondown.com/jeremycherfas/archive/etn-270-concentrated-profits/