Breakfast scrapple in German communities can be as common as pancakes and waffles. It’s hearty under maple syrup, but that’s hardly its main reason for being.

Vicki Tomashot Bauer of North Canton, Ohio, first tasted Dorito casserole when she was in her teens. Now a mom, Vicki tweaks the recipe for her family.

You may feel guilty about serving your family steak, but it’s impossible to satisfy beef appetites on a budget. This has happened before, in depressions, in meat rationing during wars, and on and on. One of the things we must cut is the food budget, and beef goes first.

The little girl with the umbrella has competition. Pink rocks mined in the Himalayan mountains, black flakes from the Hawaiian shores and gray Celtic sea salt are cropping up in restaurants and on supermarket shelves that were once dominated by Morton’s iconic youngster.

Home cooks are discovering the flavors of meatless cooking.

Testing Nestle Chocolate Caramel Hot Cocoa Mix.

I had a list of 10 breweries that I really wanted to start distributing in Massachusetts. I say "had" because that list is now down to nine, thanks to Dark Horse Brewing Company.

One of the stars during the Winter Olympics was barbecued bacon buffalo burgers on bannock buns. Scottish pioneers brought bannock, a brown quick bread, to Canada. Indians wrapped the dough around sticks and roasted it. Its hearty nutrition and ease of baking kept many a fisherman or cowboy satisfied.

Slow-cooking, revived in recent years in Europe, spread quickly to the United States. As a formally organized “movement,” its members revive and restore culinary customs, sharing recipes, techniques and philosophies. (They don’t shy away from innovative ingredients.) Underlining it is the understanding that family life is enhanced while a room fills with the savory smells of the meal being prepared.

Chicken stew with whipping cream? Leave it to our friends to the north to create hearty stews. With the harsh weather they enjoy (or suffer), Canadian stew is a weekly comfort necessity.

Ferran Adria of El Bulli in Roses, Spain, is considered by food professionals to be the world’s greatest chef. He’s generally credited with developing something called “molecular gastronomy.” So the new trend is to “re-formulate” rather than build.

I’ve always loved how Mediterraneans keep potted fruit trees on their sunny terraces. So last spring, I bought a beautiful lemon tree standard. I placed it on my patio and enjoyed its shiny green foliage and sweet-smelling blossoms all through the summer.

Once upon a time, soups came from cooking pots, not envelopes or cans. The trend is back to crafting them from scratch. They prepare easily, taste fresher and are worth the effort. A classic home-cooked is chicken or turkey with pasta.

It is possible to create a pie with no preformed crust. Then it bakes and, oh my, there’s the crust on the top, sides and bottom. This is the “impossible pie,” also known as the “amazing pie” and the “mystery pie.”

Soups, also known as potages, come in different colors, flavors and textures. They range from hot to cold, mostly broth to hearty, sweet to savory and vegetarian to meaty. For each palate there is a soup to match, and every nation has one or more signature soups to boast about.