The Takeout's Top Food News Of The Week: November 18, 2023

This week's news includes a lot of holiday hosting advice and a few unique Thanksgiving turkey preparations. But we also have some interesting developments from In-N-Out Burger, a disgraced celebrity chef, and MTN DEW's efforts to avoid an FDA ban. Read on for all the food news stories you might have missed.

The centerpiece of most Thanksgiving dinners is one of the dishes people love to hate on the most. Countless internet articles and social media diatribes decry turkey as dry, bland, and boring. It's become such a common refrain that turkey's mediocrity almost seems like a given, and Americans turn to smoking or deep frying the bird just to make it palatable, if they don't skip the turkey entirely. But it's possible that none of these people dislike turkey—they've just been subject to a lot of poorly cooked turkey. Read More

Fire departments across the country are bracing themselves for one of their busiest times of year. No, it's not the dry season—Thanksgiving is in just a couple of weeks, and many Americans feel the urge to bust out a vat of oil. But the reasons to avoid deep-frying your holiday turkey are as plentiful as the side dishes on Thanksgiving day. Read More

In-N-Out Burger, the family-owned chain known for its fresh burgers, secret menu, and not-so-great fries, is notoriously choosy about its expansion plans. Rather than plotting global domination or a sweeping initial public offering, the company opts to remain a privately owned, carefully curated brand that generally stays in its lane by sticking to its Double Doubles and milkshakes. Read More

Every year it feels like a new regional delicacy bubbles up into America's broader social consciousness, and we learn just how regional it really is. Colorado-style pizza, for example, is still relatively unknown in the larger American pizza diaspora. The Tijuana-style baked potato just recently caught on in Southern California via TikTok. And although it's apparently been around for more than 50 years, I had no clue what a Wisconsin cashew burger was until George Motz made one on YouTube. But an outlier among these delicacies is the Philadelphia-style bagel, which has only been a thing for the past eight years. Read More

Celebrity chef Mario Batali hasn't been heard from very much since the #MeToo movement resulted in multiple allegations against him beginning in 2017. Within a year, Batali lost his spot on the ABC program The Chew, which was subsequently canceled. His restaurant empire then broke apart as he was enveloped in legal troubles. Last year, as reported by the New York Times, he settled two Boston lawsuits involving women who said he groped them at a bar and a restaurant, and he was found not guilty in another case involving similar allegations. Read More

Holiday gifting occasions are fast approaching. It's a season in which many of us like to indulge, and also a time when lots of us receive food gifts we don't end up eating. No one is rude enough to refuse these host and hostess gifts, of course, but how many festive tins of hot chocolate mix or shrink-wrapped wedges of cheese can one person consume? Likewise, even the most generous bottle of wine can go to waste if the recipient doesn't drink. Such gifts are often regifted again and again, simply because they're the overdone default. Read More

We here at The Takeout, a Chicago-based publication, sure are proud of our hometown's food. We've got some pretty delicious stuff within arm's reach, and we realize the rest of you might not have such easy access to our regional foods. Read More

If there's anything McDonald's is sorely lacking, it's plant-based anything. I'm not even a vegetarian and I feel for anyone remotely of that lifestyle who tries to hit up the Golden Arches and walk away with more than fries. It's not that the chain hasn't at least tried to support a go at it in America—remember the McPlant, which McFacePlanted before it even got off the ground? Yet aside from a few breakfast sandwiches you can modify, it's difficult to order meatless entrees. So I was surprised to learn that in New Zealand, McDonald's has a sandwich that caters to vegetarians in the simplest way: subtracting the beef from the burgers. Read More

A recently proposed ban from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration puts a number of soda products at risk, but some major brands are already one step ahead. The FDA has proposed to reverse a regulation that allows the use of the ingredient brominated vegetable oil (BVO) as a food additive in certain products. Spoiler alert: MTN DEW has escaped scrutiny. Read More

It's safe to say a traditionally roasted turkey is not the highlight of Thanksgiving. The sides steal the show, and trendy turkey prep methods risk a garage fire, so why focus too much on the bird? But there's a way to achieve a more flavorful Thanksgiving turkey, and it's by making use of a condiment whose vinegar-forward profile has steadily grown into an American obsession. We're talking about pickles, and their brine is the poultry pairing you never knew you needed. Read More