For those of us who value America's culinary past, smashing a generic pumpkin is more of a moral obligation than an act of vandalism.

By mixing olive oil with just a hint of palm oil for flavor, Dona Conceicao offers what is known here as the "perfect" moqueca, a rosy-red blend of palm oil, fresh fish and coconut that is not really a bouillabaisse, but a classic stewy song to Brazil's culinary past.

At a time when Americans possess little connection to their culinary past or the expertise to create something from it, and when loosely conceived and poorly researched cookbooks roll out of big test kitchens like squishy white bread, it is reassuring to find as accomplished and authoritative a collection as this one.

This was one of the places that launched Londoners on the quest to rediscover their culinary past, and it's a place for anyone who wants an off-piste eating experience.

Along with his two Ph.D. candidates, Dorothy Cashman and Tara Kellaghan, Máirtín is building a research cluster around Ireland's culinary past and heritage.

But beside these meditations on sea creatures' spiritual and culinary past came grim reports on their precarious state, caused by pollution, disease and over-fishing.

Whereas for years the indigenous American cuisine was relegated to the shadows of this country's culinary past, today it is being re-examined, dusted off, spruced up and brought into the modern kitchen.

Through a long culinary past, the Japanese have developed sophisticated and refined cuisine.