food Archives – CULTURE MIX

Max launches culinary series ‘Chasing Flavor’ with Carla Hall

December 21, 2023

Carla Hall posing out front of Taco Tamix food truck with El Pastor Taco, as seen on “Chasing Flavor” (Photo courtesy of Food Network/Max)

The following is a press release from Max:

Celebrity chef and best-selling author Carla Hall takes viewers on a global adventure to explore the unexpected roots of popular dishes within today’s American food culture on the original Max series “Chasing Flavor.” Beginning on February 1, 2024, follow along as Carla’s curiosity about America’s most delicious dishes from chicken pot pie to ice cream leads her to Ghana, Italy, Turkey, and more. Along the way, Carla traces the history and lineage of dishes, discovering the interconnected, international origins and cultures that paved the way for today’s American cuisine – because if you don’t know the history, then you don’t know the dish. Join Carla as she chases flavor across the globe to find out how it all comes together on the American plate.

“’Chasing Flavor’ brings together so many of the things I am passionate about. It’s about food, and family, and sharing stories and history and travel. And more importantly, giving credit to the cultures that had a hand in a particular dish,” said Hall. “I’m really proud of this show. Everyone involved in making it, myself included, put their heart and souls into it. It was a wonderful adventure, and I can’t wait for others to share it.”

Throughout the six half-hour episodes, Carla dives into American classics from shrimp and grits to hot chicken, to barbeque, and more. On one episode, Carla is on an unexpected dairy adventure that takes her from the United States, to Italy, and to Turkey to discover the origins of ice cream. Stopping at the top ice cream spots in New York and Philadelphia, Carla learns the unique churning methods used to give the classic dessert its smooth, creamy texture. Then, in Italy Carla gets a lesson on the difference between ice cream and gelato, and in Turkey, Carla is like a kid again playing with her food as she uncovers a unique ingredient that gives ice cream its silkiness.

Carla’s travels do not end there as she goes on a taco trip to Mexico and discovers how a vertical flame helped cultures collide to create tacos al pastor. She also explores how Jamaica helped to shape the flaky crust of chicken pot pie, and in Ghana, she gets a spicy taste of the roots of hot chicken with chef Eric Adjepong. With every bite in every country, Carla’s journey highlights the influences that have shaped American cuisine.

“Chasing Flavor” is produced by Fremantle’s Original Productions for Max.

Carla and Gamze watching Dondurma stretching in “Chasing Flavor” (Photo courtesy of Food Network/Max)

A scene from “Chasing Flavor” (Photo courtesy of Food Network/Max)

Bassetts Ice Cream’s Alex Bassett Strange and Carla Hall at City Kitchen, the test kitchen at Reading Terminal Market in Philadelphia in “Chasing Flavor” (Photo courtesy of Food Network/Max)

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Max®, which launched May 23, 2023, is an enhanced streaming platform from Warner Bros. Discovery, delivering unparalleled quality content for everyone in the household. With a personalized user experience that brings unique and unexpected stories ranging from the best of unscripted to the highest quality in scripted programming to live news to sports, Max is the destination for HBO Originals, Warner Bros. films, Max Originals, the DC universe, the Wizarding World of Harry Potter, CNN Max, Bleacher Report Sports Add-On, an expansive offering of kids and family content, and best-in-class programming across food, home, reality, lifestyle, and documentaries from leading brands like HGTV, Food Network, Adult Swim, Cartoon Network, Discovery Channel, TLC, ID and more, all in one place.

Vice TV premieres ‘Devoured,’ narrated by Jon Cryer, a true crime show about the food industry

February 18, 2021

Get ready for a new kind of food show. VICE TV has announced the premiere of Devoured, the first television series to merge true crime and food. Narrated by Emmy® Award winning actor Jon Cryer (CBS’ Two and a Half Men, The CW’s Supergirl, and the iconic John Hughes’ film Pretty in Pink), Devoured explores the foods Americans love while uncovering the sordid secrets and criminal pasts that restauranteurs, chefs, and foodies have tried to hide- recipe thefts, mob beatdowns, family betrayals, and murder. The six-episode series premieres on VICE TV February 21, 2022 @ 10 PM ET/PT.

Each one-hour episode of Devoured will be a deep dive into a single true crime story that centers on one American city or region’s food specialty. Viewers will be taken through a thrill-ride of twists and turns as narrator Jon Cryer uncovers the unbelievable stories of how food fuels criminal enterprises, both large and small. Along the way, the series dishes up the food’s origin story and impact on the culinary landscape — while revealing how our passion for eating well can become a recipe for doing wrong.

“Just when I thought there couldn’t be a genuinely new twist on true crime, I got Devoured.” said narrator Jon Cryer. “While I can only aspire to the greatness of, say, Bill Kurtis or Keith Morrison, it’s an honor to lend my voice to this.”

The series will kick off with an episode dedicated to exploring how the mafia took justice into their own hands after a secret family recipe was stolen from Brooklyn’s L&B Spumoni Gardens & Pizzeria. Other instalments in the series will cover “The Codfather”, who ran one of the largest fishing operations in the United States until he was taken down by the IRS for fishy business practices, the 2015 Blue Bell Ice Cream listeria outbreak, and how infidelity and a stolen recipe led to the end of New York’s world famous Carnegie Deli.

“By combining the popularity of food culture with the intrigue of true crime, Devoured presents a series of riveting stories that underscore the passion that people have for food and how it can bring out a person’s darkest side” said Morgan Hertzan, Executive Vice President & GM, VICE TV. “Having as immense a talent as Jon Cryer narrate VICE TV’s latest true crime premiere is really exciting for us.”

“The series really offers up a buffet of the best ingredients – compelling stories and complex characters set at the intersection of the true crime and food genres,” said Christopher G Cowen, President and Founder of Station 10 Media. “We’re so fortunate to have the chance to make this series with the team at VICE TV.”

Devoured is produced by Station 10 Media. Executive Producers are Christopher G. Cowen, Tony Lord, Matthew Weaver, Josh Stone, Jonathan Goldman and Brent Henderson. Narrated by Jon Cryer. Lee Hoffman serves as Executive Producer for VICE TV, along with Catherine Whyte, EVP, Head of Production for VICE TV, Liz Cowie, Senior Manager, Development & Alternative Programming for VICE TV and VICE TV EVP & GM Morgan Hertzan. The series is distributed worldwide by VICE Distribution.

VICE TV is available via all major satellite and cable providers and the VICE TV app via iOS, Android, Apple TV, Roku, and Chromecast. For more information about VICE TV, go to VICETV.com

ABOUT VICE TV

VICE TV is the Emmy®-winning international television network from VICE Media Group. Since its inception in 2016, the channel has ushered new audiences to cable with its compelling and provocative programming. Boldly redefining news and current affairs, VICE TV produces hundreds of hours of original content for over 150 million homes worldwide. Built around a mission to tell courageous stories you won’t see anywhere else, told by the people you won’t hear from anywhere else, VICE TV showcases the best in informative and entertaining original series, documentaries and movies, and is the destination for content that challenges popular knowledge and opinion.

ABOUT VICE MEDIA GROUP

VICE Media Group is the world’s largest independent youth media company. Launched in 1994, VICE has offices in 35 cities across the globe with a focus on five key businesses: VICE.com, an award-winning international network of digital content; VICE STUDIOS, a feature film and television production studio; VICE TV, an Emmy-winning international television network; a Peabody award-winning NEWS division with the most Emmy-awarded nightly news broadcast; and VIRTUE, a global, full-service creative agency with 25 offices around the world. VICE Media Group’s portfolio includes Refinery29, the leading global media and entertainment company focused on women; PULSE Films, a London-based next-generation production studio with outposts in Los Angeles, New York, Paris and Berlin; and i-D, a global digital and quarterly magazine defining fashion and contemporary culture.

ABOUT STATION 10 MEDIA

STATION 10 Media was founded in 2018 by Emmy award-winning producer Christopher G. Cowen who has garnered four Emmy Award nominations and won once. Station 10 is in post production on the feature documentary Broadway Rising, and in production on several unannounced premium series and specials. Prior to founding Station 10, Cowen served as an Executive Producer on the hit true crime scripted series Dirty John; CNN’s acclaimed “Decades Series“; ESPN’s College Football 150; History’s The Cola Wars; The History of Comedy at CNN; National Geographic’s record-breaking special Killing Lincoln and the feature-length, Emmy-Award winning special Gettysburg for History. Cowen also spent ten years at Tom Hanks’ and Gary Goetzman’s Company Playtone, where he helped develop Band of Brothers, The Polar Express and Where the Wild Things Are. Cowen is a National Member of The Explorer’s Club, a native Californian, and a graduate of Ohio Wesleyan University.

U.S. Food and Drug Administration coronavirus statement on food inspections

March 10, 2020

The following is a press release from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

This statement is attributed to: FDA Commissioner Stephen M. Hahn, M.D.

Today, we are providing an update on the status of U.S. Food and Drug Administration inspections outside of the U.S. in response to the COVID-19 outbreak. After careful consideration, the FDA is postponing most foreign inspections through April, effective immediately. Inspections outside the U.S. deemed mission-critical will still be considered on a case-by-case basis.

The FDA based this decision on a number of factors, including State Department Level 4 travel advisories in which travel is prohibited for U.S. government employees, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention travel recommendations, access restrictions being imposed on foreign visitors by certain countries, guidance from the Office of Personnel Management and the importance of the health and safety of our employees. Another critical factor in taking this action is the confidence we have in our ability to maintain oversight over international manufacturers and imported products using alternative tools and methods.

We are aware of how this action may impact other FDA responsibilities, including product application reviews. We will be vigilant and monitor the situation very closely and will try to mitigate potential impacts from this outbreak in lockstep with the whole of the federal government. We stand ready to resume foreign inspections as soon as feasible.

When we are temporarily not able to physically inspect foreign produced FDA-regulated products or manufacturers, as an interim measure we employ additional tools to ensure the safety of products imported to the U.S., which have proved effective in the past. These include denying entry of unsafe products into the U.S., physical examinations and/or product sampling at our borders, reviewing a firm’s previous compliance history, using information sharing from foreign governments as part of mutual recognition and confidentiality agreements and requesting records “in advance of or in lieu of” on-site drug inspections. For example, we began exercising this authority when we postponed on-the-ground inspections of manufacturers of FDA-regulated products in China earlier in the outbreak. This is all part of the FDA’s multi-pronged and risk-based approach to ensuring quality, as well as compliance, with applicable federal laws and regulations.

The FDA will continue working with U.S. Customs and Border Protection to target products intended for importation into the U.S. that violate applicable legal requirements for FDA-regulated products, which may come from a variety of sources, such as first-time importers unfamiliar with regulatory requirements or repeat offenders trying to skirt the law. The FDA has the ability through our risk-based import screening tool (PREDICT) to focus our examinations and sample collections based on heightened concerns of specific products being entered into U.S. commerce. The PREDICT screening continues to adjust risk scores as necessary throughout the COVID-19 outbreak. We are keeping a close eye out for indications of port shopping or cargo diversion and will continue our oversight of shipments through potentially higher-risk venues such as International Mail Facilities. We can refuse admission of products that fail sample testing or may violate other applicable legal requirements.

Americans can rest assured the FDA is diligently monitoring this outbreak and the impact to our operations. Our leadership team meets daily to talk about the myriad of urgent issues facing us as we actively facilitate efforts to diagnose, treat and prevent the disease; survey the medical product supply chain for potential shortages or disruptions and help to mitigate such impacts, as necessary; and leverage the full breadth of our public health tools, including enforcement tools to stop fraudulent COVID-19 activity.

As this remains a dynamic situation, we will continue to assess and calibrate our approach as needed to help advance federal response efforts in the fight against this outbreak.

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The FDA, an agency within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, protects the public health by assuring the safety, effectiveness, and security of human and veterinary drugs, vaccines and other biological products for human use, and medical devices. The agency also is responsible for the safety and security of our nation’s food supply, cosmetics, dietary supplements, products that give off electronic radiation, and for regulating tobacco products.

McCormick & Company reveals 17 new products for spring 2017

January 19, 2017

(Photo courtesy of McCormick and Company)

McCormick & Company has launched 17 new products for spring 2017:

McCormick Grill Mates: With Hawaiian cuisine taking over the mainland, and churrascarias and Korean BBQ in towns across the country, these new Grill Mates liquid marinades, mixes and seasonings allow grillers to add flavors they enjoy at restaurants to cook-out staples this spring and summer.

Stubb’s: New seasoning mixes were specially created to flavor different types of meat, from pork to steak and chicken, with big Texas taste.

Zatarain’s: Hot sauce and biscuits are staples of the Southern food scene. Zatarain’s first-ever hot sauce is made with aged red peppers, Cajun spices and big chunks of flavorful garlic. And, new mixes for flaky biscuits and crumbly cornbread are made with no artificial flavors, colors or preservatives.

All photos courtesy of McCormick & Company.