Kerrygold's Reserve Cheddar boasts immediately eye-catching packaging - the black wrapping with gold accents screams sophistication. Texturally, I found this cheese to be a bit flakier than some of the rest, but it didn't sacrifice the creamy mouthfeel that's characteristic to nearly all of these cheeses.
The Cheesecake-Off 2026 will feature some of London's best restaurant and bakery teams, including Big Mamma Group and Cakes & Bubbles by Albert Adrià, competing for the ultimate cheesecake title.
Italian food products and cuisine have infiltrated just about every corner of the globe, but nothing compares to trying classic Italian dishes at their source-and there's so much more than pizza, pasta, and gelato. Don't expect to find the same dishes on menus all over the country. From carbonara in Rome to the best street food in Palermo, each Italian region has its own recipes.
Of the products I tested, 80% were made from reconstituted dried potato flakes, emulsifiers (mono- and diglycerides of fatty acids), stabilisers (diphosphates) and preservatives (sodium metabisulphate). Most came in non-recyclable packaging, too – that's simply not real food, and unnecessary when you consider that similar long-life products are made with real potato and few preservatives.
Quality chocolate delivers better flavor, texture, and overall experience. Higher-quality cacao has more complexity, with notes that can be fruity, nutty, floral, or earthy instead of simply sweet or bitter. It also melts more cleanly because it relies on cocoa butter rather than cheaper fats.
Gently warmed milk is separated into curds with rennet, then inoculated with Penicillium candidum (sometimes called P camemberti), which gives it that characteristic flavour and white mould rind. It's then transferred to moulds, salted and ripened for a month or longer.
If you're a coffee drinker, then you know how much fun it can be to venture to one of your favorite coffee shops to order a special coffee beverage you can't make at home. Unfortunately, that's an expensive habit to keep up every day, which is why it's nice to have the ingredients you need to make flavorful coffee at home.
Country of origin labeling became mandatory on all international products entering the United States in 2009. The goal was to ensure American consumers knew where the products they were buying came from, enabling shoppers to make informed buying decisions. These products include everything from Mexican avocados to French wine to pasta from Italy, with the latter thankfully safe from recent U.S. tariffs. However, does the location a product comes from actually matter?
Pecorino Romano is one of the oldest cheeses in the world, with roots going back to Ancient Rome. But today, most of it is no longer made near Rome at all. In this episode, we visit I Buonatavola, one of the very last producers still making Pecorino Romano in Lazio, the cheese's original territory, to understand how global demand, especially from the United States, reshaped where and how this cheese is made. We explore the differences between Pecorino Romano made in Rome and the versions
I love dessert as much as the next person. The existence of dessert is truly one of the best things to have happened to mankind, and I've always had immense respect for people who know how to make these sweet treats. Now, if you're curious like me, you've probably also tried whipping some stuff up in the kitchen (no one's going to ask if you failed. That's between you and your stand mixer).
In the United States, geography and location have a lot to do with the shape of local culture, like accents, architecture, and especially food. Costal environments like the Pacific Northwest and New England tend to lean heavily in to their abundance of oysters, crab, and lobster, while in landlocked areas like Colorado and Kansas, you're more likely to see meat-based cuisine focused on beef and even bison and elk. Knowing how much local foods are shaped by the proximity of ingredients, it's a surprise that some Americans don't translate this idea to other countries, especially ones famous for their cuisine.
But then there are the grocery stores that buck this trend. Whether they score a partnership with a beloved producer to make their private label finds - Deschutes Brewery makes Costco's popular helles lager, for example - or they take the time to develop their own methods that become associated with top quality, these chains sometimes sell items shoppers actually prefer over the name brands.
