Deena Prichep

Like a lot of kids in Moscow, Svetlana Shmulyian loved New Year's Eve.

"If there was once a year that a Soviet kid got to eat red caviar, it was on the night of the New Year!" she says. And one of her favorite traditions (besides the caviar) was the ...

Food does much more than feed us — it tells the story of who we are. And in the former USSR, that story is full of shortages, public cafeterias, party leader feasts and herring. And quite a bit of mayonnaise.

In The CCCP Cookbook: True Stories of Soviet Cuisine, Moscow-based ...

Setting out to cook a meal from Felicia Campbell's new book, The Food of Oman, can take you to a range of places: Middle Eastern grocers (black limes, rosewater), Asian markets (powdered coconut milk), and even the hardware store (a paint chipper, the closest hack for the tool used to ...

Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, begins at sunset Sunday night, and in symbolic hope for a sweet year to come, many American Jews will eat a slice of honey cake. But while honey cake is sentimental, it's not always beloved.

Marcy Goldman is the author of several baking ...

More Americans are using mizuko kuyo to grieve the loss of a child, whether it be from a miscarriage or an abortion. Those who participate say it helps them learn to balance love and loss.

This summer, NPR is getting crafty in the kitchen. As part of Weekend Edition's Do Try This At Home series, chefs are sharing their cleverest hacks and tips — taking expensive, exhausting or intimidating recipes and tweaking them to work in any home kitchen.

This week: We learn how to ...

We're coming up on the final week of the month of Ramadan. It's the time of year when observant Muslims avoid all food and drink during the holy month's daylight hours — if they're able.

When Ramadan falls during the height of summer — as it does this year — ...

Friday night marked the start of Passover, when Jews around the world tell the story of Exodus. That story, with its radical message of freedom, has resonated with African-Americans since the days of slavery.

More than 40 years ago, these two communities wove their stories together for a new Passover ...

As scholarly buzzkills have long told us, corned beef isn't really Irish. So what to do if you want a taste of the Emerald Isle on St. Patrick's Day? Instead of green, maybe look for yellow — a pat of Irish butter. Although most Americans are familiar with images ...

You may be among the millions of Americans who brought home a heart-shaped box of chocolates (or are planning to do so, before it's too late) for Valentine's Day.

But white chocolate, a relative newcomer to the chocolate family, seldom plays a starring role in the sampler pack. Which got ...

The United Nations has 193 member states. And United Noshes aims to recreate meals from every last one of them, alphabetically, as a series of dinner parties.

The project was started by Jesse Friedman and his wife, Laura Hadden, three years ago, as a way to ...

For the indigenous people of Northern Africa, Jan. 14 is a day to celebrate their culture and religion. It reminds Berbers living in the U.S. of the struggle to preserve their identity far from home.

There are some Christmas foods you make far in advance that just get better and better with age and anticipation. Like British fruitcakes that age into their boozy ripeness, and German gingerbread cookies called lebkuchen that get softer and spicier as they mature.

In Guyana, a small South American ...

For many Norwegian-American families, the biggest Christmas treat isn't foil-wrapped chocolate or sugar-dusted cookies. It's lefse, a simple flatbread.

Lefse are sort of like soft tortillas, made mostly out of mashed potatoes (with a little fat and flour mixed in to form a tender dough). They're usually spread with butter ...

Hanukkah, the Jewish festival of lights, starts on Tuesday night. But the flickering candles won't be the only things shining on the table. Many families celebrate with gelt, chocolate coins covered in gold and silver foil. But while this treat is beloved, it's not all that delicious.

"It snaps. It's ...

These days, Americans are all about eating local foods. But one important local crop drops to the ground mostly unnoticed every fall. Well, unless you're a squirrel. Yes, we're talking about acorns.

Although acorns don't get the love that hazelnuts and walnuts enjoy, this wasn't always the case. Bill ...

Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, is a day when everything tastes like dessert. In symbolic hope of a sweet year to come, the table is positively sticky — honey marinades, honey cakes, raisin-studded challah bread. And, depending on where your family is from, sweet gefilte fish.

Gefilte fish, those ...

Sunset marks the start of the Jewish New Year as well as the 10 Days of Awe, when observant Jews reflect on the past year. Some are taking this reflection out of the temple and onto their tablets.

Editor's Note: This post was originally published on Sept. 15, 2012.

Challah is a rich, eggy bread baked every week for the Jewish sabbath, or shabbat. But for Rosh Hashana, the Jewish New Year that starts tomorrow at sundown, it gets a few tweaks. There's a little extra honey ...