Cottage pie is made with beef, and shepherd’s pie is made with lamb. Or so they would have you believe. This division between mashed potato-topped meat pies is actually only about 50 years old. Before that, recipes for shepherd’s or cottage pie could cal...

Latkes as we know them today have a history that include a miracle, a woman saving a city under siege, the failure of crops in eastern Europe, and the migration of Ashkenazi Jews to the United States. With such a long history, latkes vary a lot, and this...

The original English toffee was made by slowly cooking the sugar and butter mixture until it reached the perfect caramelized consistency.

This lightly spiced baked custard is lightly spiced fall for dessert and great for Thanksgiving.

Biryani is a South Asian rice dish, a one-pot meal made by layering cooked meat (or vegetarian options) with rice, spices, and often vegetables. The dish is slow-cooked, allowing the flavors to infuse the rice and meat. Various regional and personal varia...

This pound cake is denser than modern versions because it contains no chemical leavener, but it’s not stodgy and is delicious. The nutmeg comes through and you get the flavor of the brandy without it being boozy.

This recipe for baby back ribs comes from the Papal Palace in Vatican City from the year 1570. These are one of the many foods served to the cardinals at the Papal Conclaves of the 16th century.

Mulligan stew is a free-for-all and easy to make delicious hearty soup crammed with meat and vegetables in a tasty beef broth.

Cornmeal cakes and the bacon in whose fat they were fried. This recipe hails from the Oregon Trailer in 1856.

Rich, flavorful, and deeply comforting, Hungarian goulash is more than just a stew—it’s a national treasure. This iconic dish, with its tender beef, aromatic paprika, and slow-simmered broth, has been a staple of Hungarian cuisine for centuries.

Vienna’s iconic chocolate cake with apricot jam, chocolate glaze, and whipped cream. This recipe hails from 1857 in one of Austria's first cookbooks.

A hearty, complex stew reconstructed from the ingredients and methods that were available to the ancient Celts in Gaul (modern day France).

Macaroni and cheese, a beloved comfort food today, has a long history that stretches back centuries. One of the earliest recorded recipes in English cookbooks appears in Modern Cookery for Private Families (1845) by Eliza Acton, a pioneering work that hel...

Pancit, also spelled pansít, is a general term referring to various traditional noodle dishes in Filipino cuisine. There are numerous types of pancit, often named based on the noodles used, method of cooking, place of origin or the ingredients.

During the early years of Girl Scout cookies, the girls would bake the cookies themselves. This recipe, from The American Girl, the magazine published by the Girl Scouts, is from the first year of the official cookie sales in 1922. The scouts would contin...