Colonial New England was awash in ales, beers, wines, cider and spirits. Everyone from teenage farmworkers to our founding fathers imbibed heartily and often. Tipples at breakfast, lunch, teatime and dinner were the norm, and low-alcohol hard cider was sometimes even a part of children's lives. This burgeoning cocktail culture reflected the New World's abundance of raw materials: apples, sugar and molasses, wild berries and hops. This plentiful drinking sustained a slew of smoky taverns and inns--watering holes that became vital meeting places and the nexuses of unrest as the Revolution brewed. New England food and drinks writer Corin Hirsch explores the origins and taste of the favorite potations of early Americans and offers some modern-day recipes to revive them today.

Once upon a time, salad was iceberg lettuce with a few shredded carrots and a cucumber slice, if you were lucky. A vegetable side was potatoes--would you like those baked, mashed, or au gratin? A nice anniversary dinner? Would you rather visit the Holiday Inn or the Regency Inn? In Grand Forks, North Dakota, a small town where professors moonlight as farmers, farmers moonlight as football coaches, and everyone loves hockey, one woman has had the answers for more than twenty-five years: Marilyn Hagerty. In her weekly Eatbeat column in the local paper, Marilyn gives the denizens of Grand Forks the straight scoop on everything from the best blue plate specials--beef stroganoff at the Pantry--to the choicest truck stops--the Big Sioux (and its lutefisk lunch special)--to the ambience of the town's first Taco Bell. Her verdict? A cool pastel oasis on a hot day.No-nonsense but wry, earnest but self-aware, Eatbeat also encourages the best in its readers--reminding them to tip well and why--and serves as its own kind of down-home social register, peopled with stories of ex-postal workers turned cafe owners and prom queen waitresses. Filled with reviews of the mom-and-pop diners that eventually gave way to fast-food joints and the Norwegian specialties that finally faded away in the face of the Olive Garden's endless breadsticks, Grand Forks is more than just a loving look at the shifts in American dining in the last years of the twentieth century--it is also a surprisingly moving and hilarious portrait of the quintessential American town, one we all recognize in our hearts regardless of where we're from.

Finally, the secret sauce of Noma is revealed-the long-anticipated follow-up to the bestselling The Noma Guide to Fermentation offers more than 150 recipes for infused oils, vinaigrettes, fudges, spice mixes, rubs, sauces, and other flavour-boosting condiments that professional and home cooks can use to elevate every part of their cooking.

The Noma Guide to Flavor is a cookbook offering recipes for 150 significant seasonings, condiments, sauces, and other flavour compounds developed over two decades by Rene Redzepi and the Noma test kitchen. These are the components that define the inimitable taste of Noma, including iconic preparations such as roasted kelp salt, smoked egg yolk sauce, Nordic pesto, and lacto-koji beurre blanc. Most of the recipes are illustrated with step-by-step photo sequences detailing the techniques needed to transform surprisingly familiar ingredients into elements of Noma's distinctive cuisine. Noma uses these recipes to create elevated preparations for the restaurant (a selection of gorgeous plated-dish photos are included), but readers-whether professionals or avid home cooks-will find plenty of inspiration for their own kitchens, aided by do-able suggestions from Noma chefs.

In conversational essays and anecdotes woven throughout the book, Redzepi shares how staff members from around the globe have influenced Noma's flavour palette, and how Noma chefs take pristine seasonal ingredients and blend, grind, dry, smoke, macerate, reduce and otherwise elicit the most potent and desirable flavours that make up the sensory language of Noma. Between the narrative portions and the meticulous recipes, readers will become equipped to create their own Noma-inspired meals.