food

A team of regional chefs and entrepreneurs is celebrating the cuisines of the African diaspora this month with a unique, boxed-lunch experience called Taste the Diaspora Detroit, which traces the foods' history and significant impact on American cooking and culture.

Today on Stateside, frustrated Michiganders try to navigate an unemployment system overwhelmed by pandemic job losses. Plus, a Detroit festival celebrates the food of the African diaspora.

Before the COVID-19 pandemic, a typical family’s food budget was pretty evenly split between home and places such as restaurants, convenience stores, or schools. Now, people are mostly eating at home. That sudden shift has disrupted the food distribution network in a way that sometimes leaves the supermarkets with some empty shelves.

Sprial cut hams with a sweet honey glaze are a staple of many Easter Sunday dining spreads. That now common method of slicing up a ham has its roots right here in Michigan. 

New York Times food correspondent Kim Severson joins Stateside to talk about tracing the origins of the spiral cut ham.

A lot of people assume a healthy diet is also good for the environment. A recently published study lends some credence to that conventional wisdom.

Today on Stateside, why President Trump's tweets are unlikely to change Ford's decision to move small car production abroad. Plus, why rocks in the U.P. are giving off an alien glow. (No, it does not involve extraterrestrials.)

Listen above for the full show, or find individual segments below. 

Ford won’t be moving production of Focus hatchback to the U.S. Here’s why.

Thirteen-year-old Kamryn Chasnis of Saginaw Township has been baking and cooking her whole life.

When she began watching cooking shows, there were only adult competitors. But then stations began to launch children's competitions, and Chasnis wanted to compete. 

From Yemeni lamb to Polish perogies, metro Detroit is home to a rich variety of international cuisines. But there's one cuisine that's a little harder to find here in Michigan: Filipino food.

Dorothy Hernandez is trying to change that with Sarap Detroit. The pop-up restaurant holds events all around metro Detroit, where diners can experience Filipino-inspired farm-to-table food.

Detroit has one of the largest populations of African-Americans among major US cities. But you might not know it based on what you see in the media, which often highlights the growth and development of white-owned businesses as signs of the city's comeback. 

There's a new journalism outlet looking to challenge that narrative. 

Tostada Magazine is a digital publication celebrating the range individuals who contribute to Detroit's food world. It aims to use food as a tool to discuss the issues facing communities of color and immigrants in the metro area. 

Just 20% of Americans are responsible for 46% of the food-related greenhouse gas emissions in the U.S. That’s one of the findings of a new study in the journal Environmental Research Letters.

Scientists have created a vegan burger that bleeds like beef. It’s called the Impossible Burger and its creators argue it’s better for the planet. But there are some questions about the substance the company uses.

Thanksgiving is now less than a day away. For all you last-minute bakers out there with nothing to make, Amanda Saab has you covered.

She’s a No Kid Hungry food blogger, founder of Dinner with Your Muslim Neighbor, and was the first Muslim woman featured on the TV show MasterChef.

The new America the Great Cookbook includes Saab’s Baklava Cheesecake recipe – it’s what she bakes for the people she loves, like her husband Hussein and their 3-month-old daughter Hannah.

Stateside recently visited Saab’s kitchen in New Boston where her baklava cheesecake was in the works. We brought back the audio postcard above. Take a listen. Step by step, you’ll learn how to make the dessert.

Typically, when you think of soul food you don’t think vegan. You think meat, cheese and butter. But, can BBQ soul food be vegan? Many might say that is only an oxymoron. 

Local Detroiters Kirsten Ussery and Erika Boyd are challenging the soul-food norm with their restaurant Detroit Vegan Soul. The pair opened doors three years ago in an effort to make a plant-based diet accessible to everyone. Just last month, they opened a second location across the city.

Is ketchup a vegetable? How about the tomato paste in pizza sauce? 

For decades, what we feed our children for lunch when they're at school has been as much about politics as it has been about health. 

The United States was once considered an agricultural nation, but these days, most people are two or three generations away from the farm. Fewer than two percent of Americans live on farms, and many don’t understand where their food comes from, how it’s grown, or how it’s processed.

A new effort at Michigan State University is trying to change that. The College of Agriculture and Natural Resources is leading an initiative called Food @ MSU.

The Crystal Café in Benzonia has been a popular breakfast spot for 20 years. The restaurant serves standard diner fare like corned beef hash, but also gets creative with dishes like Hawaiian omelets and bread pudding French toast.

Thomas Wright is the new owner of Crystal Café, but just a year ago, he was a server here. He moved north from Ann Arbor with his fiancé, and they were enjoying the Up North life and planning their wedding.

Then, last summer, out of the blue, the owners of the café said they wanted out of the business.

The Next Idea

The Incubator Kitchen at the Grand Rapids Downtown Market is helping people with an idea for a food product or business turn their dreams into reality without risking their life savings.

The Incubator Kitchen is a full-sized commercial kitchen where hopeful food entrepreneurs can get help with business planning and the licensing required to legally produce their products and sell to the public.

In Traverse City’s East Bay, on the busy hotel strip on U.S. 31, is Don’s Drive In. The pink and turquoise restaurant is known for its burgers and shakes and the fact that it’s kind of old school.

As you pull into Mancelona, the highway narrows. You drive alongside railroad tracks and past a couple of abandoned warehouses. And then, there it is: a red, white, and blue chicken — the unofficial mascot of the Iron Skillet.

At Cops and Doughnuts in Clare, classic tunes play on the stereo while customers line up at the glass display case, waiting to place their orders.

But Bill White isn’t here for the doughnuts.

“I never have a doughnut,” says White. “When you get old enough you can’t eat good stuff anymore. You have to go with fruits and vegetables.”

White has been coming in every Saturday morning, for years, even though he doesn’t partake in the doughnuts or coffee. In fact, White doesn’t order anything at all at Cops and Doughnuts.

Grocery store shelves, restaurant menus and cookbooks are a lot different in 2017 than they were 30 or 40 years ago.

Americans tend to pay a lot more attention to the food we eat and how it's prepared. We know more about fine wines. Many of us seek out organic fruits and vegetables, and are willing to try exotic foods our parents and grandparents couldn't even imagine.

But, at the same time, we've seen the income inequality gap widen. How has "good food" become conflated with high status?

As we ease our way into spring, gardeners might want to consider planting heirloom seeds.

That's Erica Kempter's advice to growers this year. She's co-owner of an organic seed farm called Nature and Nurture.

The result could be a chance to taste surprising and often forgotten foods that belong here in the Great Lakes region. 

What better way to bring people together than through food? That's the idea behind the gastrodiplomacy movement.

Mana Heshmati is bringing gastrodiplomacy to Southeast Michigan with her low-profit start-up Peace Meal Kitchen.

The Next Idea

Every year, the United States spends $218 billion growing, transporting, and processing food that no one ever eats. That's billion. The financial, resource, and environmental costs of all the wasted food in the United States is staggering.