Our 10 Most-Read Food and Travel Stories of 2023

Every year, we take stock of which pieces resonated the most with readers to help us keep producing the kind of content you love. Without further ado, here are our most-clicked stories of 2023.

Though it grows wild in 26 states and tastes like a cross between a mango and a banana, the pawpaw is far from well-known. This deep dive examines the relationship between the ancestral fruit and Indigenous peoples, and makes a case for why everybody should be eating more of it.

When cookbook author Carla Capalbo inherited a garden plot teeming with waist-high weeds, she thought she was in over her head—until she discovered an approach called “no-dig” that gets rid of weeds while improving soil health. The best part? She brought in a bounty of produce without spending any significant time weeding. 

When the founder of Blue Bottle Coffee predicts an industry-disrupting trend, you listen—but even the coffee geeks on staff were surprised to learn that robusta was worth a second look. This bitter, high-caffeine coffee type was long regarded by professional tasters as innately inferior to arabica, but as James Freeman explains, that may be a huge mistake. 

When you think about being frugal in the kitchen, what comes to mind? Saving your parmesan rinds or using your carrot tops in stock? This opinion piece argues that thriftiness is a far more powerful tool when it’s applied communally, not just in one’s own home.

It’s not news to anyone that New Orleans is a formidable food city, but for visitors making reservations, it can be hard to know where to start. Enter this digestible list, which goes beyond the usual Creole and Cajun gastro-temples to include everything from an upscale Senegalese restaurant to an Indian hot spot centered on local seafood.

With a bit of gentle hand-holding, even beginner bakers can turn out a legit baguette at home, as this popular story resoundingly proves.

How many Roman dishes can you name off the top of your head? This pitch-perfect list by local food phenom Katie Parla tells you about the city’s best bites, from carbonara to oxtail—and where to find the most rave-worthy versions.

As much as we love a good cup o’ chowdah, we’d be selling Boston short if we didn’t talk about its gut-warming Brazilian stews, spicy Yunnan stir-frys, and cerebral “nouveau” New England creations. Bean Town is one of the country’s best food destinations—if you know where to book a table.

It’s on scant few menus in France (and none that we know of in the U.S.), but it’s beloved in French households the country over. We’re talking about “le cake,” a savory quickbread containing anything from lardons to mushrooms to Gruyère. This story not only explains the phenomenon, but also tells you how to whip up the dish at home.

The book our staffers couldn’t put down this year was Anya von Bremzen’s National Dish, which exposes the true history and state-sponsored “fakelore” of dishes like Mexican mole, borshch, and pizza Margherita. We sat down with the author about her feather-ruffling volume and got the inside scoop on her approach.