Ancient Rome had an early version of macaroni and cheese

Ancient Romans helped develop modern cheese production techniques

The ancient Romans loved cheese and experimented with different processes to elevate its flavor, like aging. Some of their innovations, like Pecorino Romano, you can still find today. Others, like the smoked goat-milk Caseus, we only know about through historical records.

Pizza is believed to have been invented in Naples

Flatbreads were eaten by ancient Egyptians, Romans, and Greeks, but historians trace pizza—flatbread with toppings, including present-day staples like tomatoes, cheese, garlic, oregano, and oil—back to 18th-century Naples, where the food was loved by its working poor, who appreciated a cheap, tasty meal. Naples formally became a part of Italy in 1861.

A look at what was on the menu for ancient Romans

"Delicious Italy" is a website exploring the food culture of various Italian cities and regions, and in this article, the editors explore what is known about the diet of ancient Romans. Olives (and their oil) were a key daily essential, alongside grains like barley, millet, and spelt flour. Where meat was found it was most often ox, pork, deer, lamb, and even pigeons. Middle Eastern fruits like cherries and peaches could last long enough to travel to Roman cities around the Mediterranean, and candy-friendly dates were sourced from Africa. Explore this and much more at Delicious Italy.

James Hemings, Jefferson's cook, popularized mac and cheese in the US

The statesman sent Hemings to France to sharpen his culinary skills where he picked up recipes of baked pasta with cheese and butter. The recipe Hemings likely dictated to Jefferson was later used in an 1802 White House dinner, the first major public dinner in the US to include the dish.

Bake bread like a Roman, and honor Ceres, the goddess of wheat

Grains made up about 70% of the Roman diet, and the word "cereal" stems from the goddess Ceres—the Roman equivalent of Greece's Demeter—to whom they prayed for good harvests. Cato the Elder, a famous statesman, left behind a simple home recipe for a Roman loaf.

How to make an iconic Roman dish, with the help of a nonna

Searching for an eggplant parm recipe isn't hard, but finding one worth your time certainly is. Thankfully, this recipe puts you in the kitchen with an actual grandmother, who walks you through her signature dish in a short video explanation. Unlike other online recipes, there isn’t an onslaught of pop-up ads—you’ll just get what you need and the sweet instructions from a genuine nonna.

The history of the Caesar salad

Despite what you might guess from its name, the Caesar salad wasn't invented in ancient Rome. The popular dish was created in the 1920s by two Italian brothers who'd emigrated to the United States and opened a popular restaurant in Tijuana called Caesar's Palace. This history of the popular entrée digs into that history and unpacks how it became a restaurant staple.

19th-century Russian writer Leo Tolstoy made a mean macaroni and cheese

He may be best known as the author of classics like "War and Peace" and "Anna Karenina," but he was also an amateur chef, something that was revealed with the publication of "Leo Tolstoy's Family Recipe Book," which includes a rather open-ended recipe for macaroni and cheese.

Urban planning in ancient Rome

Ancient Rome represents one of the earliest examples of coordinated urban planning from a central government for which researchers have access to contemporary records. This review from MIT showcases ancient Roman cities built on various types of grids, from rectangular outlines to those shaped around two intersecting axes, with several examples and maps provided for each.

Thermopolia were ancient Roman snack bars

Although they weren't exactly restaurants, with sit-down service or extensive menus, thermopolia were modest food counters for Romans looking for quick bites—often bread with fish, cheese, and lentils.

Chemistry-informed advice for cooking pasta, including how to prevent clumping noodles

On a molecular level, pasta dough consists of protein structures that hold starch molecules, and the starches absorb water during cooking, forming a gel that softens the pasta. Pasta should not be rinsed after cooking. Instead, some of the pasta water should be added to the pasta sauce, as the gelatinous starch will help the sauce stick to the pasta.

NASA funded research into creating pizza with a 3D printer

The agency awarded a contract for the development of devices that can create edible structures from long-lasting dry powders when mixed with liquids or pastes. By delaying this integration until the time of consumption, food could last longer than the current six-month expiration of freeze-dried meals for Mars expeditions.

How Chef Boyardee fed America

Chef Boyardee wasn’t just a grocery store staple—it was once a key supplier for US troops in WWII. Founded by Italian immigrant Hector Boiardi, the company produced thousands of canned pasta rations daily.

Why some people say the moon is made of cheese

Mental Floss digs into the history behind the fable, which dates back as far as the 1500s, when it was mentioned in "The Proverbs of John Heywood." Even NASA has gotten in on the joke, tweeting a (supposedly) doctored photograph showing the moon's expiration date.

Cookies were originally used as low-stakes ways to test the temperature of an oven

In 7th century Persia, bakers used small mounds of dough to test the heat in ovens before baking larger cakes. Afterward, they'd add honey, nuts, and other items to the small mounds, creating early cookies.

Mardi Gras blends pagan celebrations with Christian traditions

The holiday has its roots in pagan celebrations, like ancient Rome's Saturnalian and Lupercalian festivals, which celebrated spring and fertility. Rather than abandoning these traditions, Catholic leaders in Rome incorporated their spirit into a celebration that would expel citizens' debauchery in preparation for the sacrifices they'd endure during the Lenten season. Around the world, this holiday season is called Carnival, though the New Orleans version is usually called Mardi Gras.

The bizarre 1920 proposal to form a pizza-shaped central European state

In light of the challenges of the Treaty of Versailles, which concluded the Great War, a mostly unknown author, and son of the map's printer, PA Maas suggested central Europe be integrated into a single state. With a central capital in Vienna, 24 Kantons, or regions, would radiate outward in pie-slice shapes.

Disco fries are New Jersey's answer to poutine

The dish—french fries topped with mozzarella cheese and brown gravy—is a staple for New Jersey diners, where the dish was served to inebriated patrons who'd just left the disco club. There's no clear inventor responsible for the delicacy, though most people assume it's a variation of poutine, the similar dish that's popular in Canada.

The chemistry of ancient tacos

This 16-minute podcast explores the chemistry of Mesoamerica's corn tortillas, which involve a 3,500-year-old chemical process called nixtamalization that releases vitamins, including niacin, one of the essential B vitamins. This process also makes the tortillas softer and more delicious. Corn tortillas were a staple in Mesoamerica, and the archaeologist interviewed in this podcast argues cultures like the Aztecs and Maya wouldn't have thrived without nixtamalization.

Graffiti dates back to at least ancient Pompeii, where citizens scrawled messages to one another on public walls

The first Thanksgiving meal likely featured a venison stew called sobaheg

Agricultural knowledge was vital to the Pilgrims’ survival in a new, unknown land. Explore how to make sobaheg, a Wampanoag venison stew that would likely have been served at the first meal between the Wampanoag and the Pilgrims.

TikTok is obsessed with weird cottage cheese recipes

Cottage cheese “cookie dough.” Pizza cottage cheese bowl. Cottage cheese queso dip. TikTok influencers are suddenly posting nonstop cottage cheese recipes. It might be echoes of the 1990s weight-loss obsession, when diet culture encouraged the consumption of questionably tasty low-fat foods and not much else. Now, cottage cheese’s high protein content has made it an intriguing prospect for online fitness gurus who say that it’s the key to building muscle.

Ancient Egyptians developed the first pregnancy test—and scientists tested it in the 1960s

A papyrus from about 1350 B.C.E. discusses a test in which a woman would urinate on wheat and barley seeds over the course of several days. If the barley grows, she's having a male child; if the wheat grows, it's a female child; and if nothing grows, she's not pregnant. Scientists went on to test this theory in 1963 and found that about 70% of the time, the urine of pregnant women did promote growth whereas the urine of nonpregnant women didn't—perhaps due to estrogen levels in the urine.

A look inside neutron stars, which are thought to contain nuclear pasta

Simulations show that beneath the outer crust of these objects, the gravitational force is so extreme that atomic nuclei link together into chains of primarily neutrons and some protons called nuclear spaghetti. Deeper in the star, these links combine to form sheets—nuclear lasagna—a quintillion times stronger than steel, making it the strongest material in the universe.

Woman sues Kraft over mac and cheese instructions

A woman in Florida has sued Kraft Heinz over its Velveeta Macaroni and Cheese microwaveable products, saying the marketed cooking time is incorrect.

Stanford built a Google Maps for the Roman Empire, revealing how much it cost to travel in the ancient world

Martin Luther is often cited as the first to decorate the Christmas tree—though the practice began decades earlier

Luther lore claims he may have been the first to link tree decorations to Jesus, as he used candles to symbolize the Nativity star. However, German bakers had adorned evergreens with apples and sweets as early as 1419 for Christmas Eve displays.

At the beginning of the 20th century, a group of young men ate standard American food—replete with food additives like borax and formaldehyde—as part of government research to better understand food safety.

The history of many kitchen appliances involves unexpected discoveries and applications, including wartime radar turned hamster defroster and replacing an 'ice king' with heat-stealing boxes.

The syncytiotrophoblast is the outer layer of the placenta and the largest human cell, spanning an area about twice that of a king-sized bedsheet.

The Dracula character, now seen as the vampire archetype, was inspired by a seafood-induced nightmare its creator experienced.

Volcanic activity may have triggered the Black Death by spewing gases that led to crop failures in Europe, thus forcing the import of grain ships with plague-infested fleas.

Artificial coral reefs have been 3D printed from nontoxic, biodegradable terracotta clay, which coral polyps have used as a foundation for rebuilding marine ecosystems.

Read a deep dive on the 'all-purpose healing' peptide BPC-157.

A researcher recently discovered an interview from 1967 between groundbreaking journalist Joan Didion and the Grateful Dead, years before the band became an institution.

For centuries, it was common to sleep in two shifts: a few hours at the beginning of the night, and a longer period beginning around midnight

The concept of phantom limbs, the perception that amputated limbs are still present, dates back to a French military surgeon in the 16th century.

The term 'algorithm' originated from the Latinized name of al-Khwārizmī, a 9th-century mathematician whose works introduced Arabic numerals and the decimal-based numeral system to Europe and whose treatise 'Al-Jabr' gave algebra its name.

In 2019, a laptop loaded with six of the worst malware in history and described as 'an exhibit of historical weaponry' sold for $1.3M.

The US first hosted the World Cup in 1994, a tournament that lives in soccer infamy for its poor planning and the murder of Colombian player Andres Escobar, who'd accidentally scored on his own net.

Ebola is a filovirus, meaning it resembles a thread under a microscope, though it sometimes twists and can resemble a bowl of spaghetti.

Trace how the Bill of Rights, inspired by centuries of political theory, took shape between 1774 and 1789.

The Brothers Grimm were lawyers before they were storytellers, and became interested in fairy tales as they began investigating how rules and customs had been passed down through cultures.

One disco producer saw 'Star Wars' four times on its opening weekend and was so inspired that he recorded the album 'Star Wars and Other Intergalactic Funk,' which produced a chart-topping single.

Lesser-known phobias include turophobia, or the fear of cheese, and nomophobia, the fear of being without your cell phone.

American dance legend Martha Graham, sometimes called 'the Picasso of dance,' refused to perform at the 1936 Olympics in Berlin and conceived the piece 'Chronicle' in response to the experience.

Domino's Pizza's 30-minute delivery guarantee was responsible for the chain's 1980s surge, but it was discontinued after the company was found liable for delivery driver accidents.

El Niño, Spanish for 'the boy,' was named after Jesus Christ because the phenomenon resembled the weather changes observed around Christmastime.

Use this tool to calculate the dollar value of your parental mental load, from meal planning to coordinating after-school care, then see resources that help generate solutions.

Gerrymandering works through two techniques: cracking opposing voters across districts to dilute their power, and packing them into a few to waste their votes in lopsided majorities.