Feast your eyes on these mesmerizing geometric cakes

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Gastro Obscura

Kaleidoscopic Cakes

To make kek lapis Sarawak, bakers cut up their cakes and reassemble them using jam or condensed milk as glue, resulting in a complex pattern that appears upon slicing. On The Great British Baking Show, judge Paul Hollywood describes it as one of the hardest cake designs to make, adding, “There’s nowhere to hide. We will see the problems.”

Now Online: 5,000 Historic Cookbooks

In July 2020, Barbara Wheaton and a team of scholars launched The Sifter—part Wikipedia-style crowd-sourced database, part meticulous bibliography. The catalogue spans more than a thousand years of cookbooks, from the medieval Latin De Re Culinaria, published in 800, to The Romance of Candy, a 1938 treatise on British sweets.

A Legendary Haunt, Haunted By Legends

Everyone from tinsel-town icons to rock stars—including Alice Cooper’s elite men’s drinking club—rendezvoused at the Rainbow Bar & Grill. The Italian restaurant managed to survive it all, and continues to dish up some of the best plates of ravioli in Los Angeles every night.

Finish Your Horseshoe

Sometimes there is a dish so iconic, so legendary, that unearthing its history becomes a journey into local lore, forgotten recipes, and thrice-cut potato wedges. In Springfield, Illinois, that dish is the Horseshoe. This cheese-smothered, horseshoe-shaped ham dish was born out of a lunch item invented at Springfield’s Leland Hotel in 1928.

Making Happy Hour Plague-Safe Again

Several historic “wine windows” have reopened for socially distanced wine service. Rather than step inside an osteria, or a bar, patrons simply grab their glass from a window built for the efficient dispersal of wine. It’s a testament to the lasting savvy of the city’s Renaissance residents, who refused to let the Bubonic Plague get in the way of a nice glass of red.

The Fried Chicken Capital of the World

You can only try Pohovana Piletina in two places. One is Vojvodina, Serbia, where the unique style of fried chicken was born. The other is Ohio, where “Barberton-style fried chicken,” as it’s known there, became one town’s claim to fame. The meal started as comfort food for an immigrant family, but it came to define the community.

The Dutch call Indonesian lapis legit “bacon cake.” In English, the sweet goes by “thousand-layer cake.” Though both names are hyperbolic, they are a testament to this treat’s decadence. The Indonesian-Dutch fusion dessert features 18 to 30 individually baked layers of spiced butter, sugar, and egg yolk.

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