Our Favorite Features of 2022

These are the Serious Eats stories our staff enjoyed reading the most this year.

By
The Serious Eats Team
The Serious Eats Team
At Serious Eats, we’re a team of self-proclaimed food nerds who are ever-curious about the “why” behind cooking. The staff has worked in restaurants, test kitchens, bakeries, and other notable publications, bringing extensive culinary and editorial expertise to the table.
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Published Dec. 22, 2022
Gif的favorite features of 2022

Serious Eats / Amanda Suarez

As 2022 comes to a close, we wanted to take a moment to highlight some of the incredible stories we published on Serious Eats this year. Our staff, along with a wonderful group of contributors, make it possible for us to share thoughtful, fun, and informative stories with our readers—and we couldn't let the year come to an end without sharing some of our favorite pieces. Though it's tough to pick from so many excellent features, the stories below are the ones we enjoyed reading the most, and the ones we've continued to think about.

  • From China: The Future of the Wok

    A factory worker polishes a hand-hammered wok under two lightbulbls

    Serious Eats / Graeme Kennedy

    This essay was one of the most ambitious Serious Eats has ever commissioned, and I'm very proud of the final result. WriterChristopher St. Cavishbrought so much thought and care to every element of the story, drawing on years of his prior work tracking hand-hammered woks in Shanghai and building on it with trips to other parts of China. The result is a mix of profile, memoir, and cultural and culinary reporting, all to produce a thoughtful snapshot of the past, present, and future of the wok in the country that created it. —Daniel Gritzer, senior culinary director

    From China: The Future of the Wok

  • All About Labaneh

    Overhead view of a plate of labneh with zatar pita chips surrounded by a grocery store container of labneh, a bowl of zatar, and a plate of pita chips

    Serious Eats / Amanda Suarez

    I love Yasmine's feature on labaneh. It's informative and insightful, and she does a wonderful job weaving her own experience with the ingredient throughout the piece. —Amanda Suarez, senior visual editor

    All About Labaneh

  • A Vegetarian's Christmas Eve Pig Roast

    A colorful and dense illustration of a festive cuban pig roast in Miami

    Serious Eats / Marla Cruz Linares

    We've published many lovely features this year, but my favorite is from a new contributor,Vanessa Garcia. Her story about feeling personally compelled to revive her Cuban family’s cultural tradition of the Buena Noche (Christmas Eve) pig roast—despite being a vegetarian!—wasn’t just evocative and well-written, it dug deep into what the holidays meant for her. I was touched by how important it was that she continue the tradition for her own child, even if it ran contrary to how she prefers to eat, and that combination of personal sacrifice and cultural remembrance brought a tear to my eye. Like the Grinch, my small heart grew three sizes after reading it. —Jake Dean, updates editor

    A Vegetarian's Christmas Eve Pig Roast

  • The Wok Shop's Tane Chan on Her Life and Business

    Tane Chan holding a wok in The Wok Shop

    Serious Eats / Todd Coleman

    It was such a joy to read Yasmine's profile of Tane Chan and her store,The Wok Shop, in our first digital issue,The Wok. Chan's enthusiasm and passion for woks comes through in her words and her puns. She hooks you right at the beginning, sharing her story about her childhood in New Mexico to her move to San Francisco and the opening of her first Chinaware store in 1969. It makes me endlessly happy to see that she's thriving in her element. Like Chan says, "Woks for all walks of life, okay?" —Kristina Razon, editor

    The Wok Shop’s Tane Chan on Her Life and Business
    Continue to 5 of 9 below.

  • Can You Stop Beans From Making You Fart? We Put 17 Methods to the Test

    Illustration of an imaginary desk in a lab at Harvard working on a bean study

    Serious Eats / Michelle Kondrich

    This was such a great scientific deep-dive into beans and trapped gas! If you enjoyeating beans, something tells me you've looked into methods on how to effectively reduce your farts, like soaking beans, discarding the soaking water, or rinsing your cooked beans. But do any of those methods actually work?Dave Arnoldpartnered with the Harvard "Fart Squad" to find out once and for all. It's nerdy and fun—my favorite kind of Serious Eats story! —Genevieve Yam, culinary editor

    Can You Stop Beans From Making You Fart? We Put 17 Methods to the Test

  • We Tested 11 Air Fryers (and Cooked 30 Pounds of Potatoes) to Find the Best

    A hand pulling out the basket on an air fryer

    华体会app入口严重的吃/父老乡亲Gemperlein-Schirm

    It feels entirely too braggadocious to call my own piece my favorite feature of the year, but it was so much fun to test and write. Prior to my review, Serious Eats didn't have any air fryer content (just one recipe!), so it was great to form an opinion on a new-to-us piece of gear and help shape the sort of content we may do on air fryers in the future. My other favorite features from this year includethis wok review, this comparison ofVitamix blenders, this review ofwhipping siphons, and this re-do we did of thebest soda machinesfor our recentBubbles! digital issue. —Riddley Gemperlein-Schirm, commerce editor

    We Tested Air Fryers (and Cooked 30-Plus Pounds of Potatoes) to Find the Best Ones

  • Does Your Beer Glass Really Matter? We Consulted a Beer Expert to Find Out

    pouring beer into tulip glass

    Serious Eats / Grace Kelly

    Like Riddley, I feel all kinds of wrong highlighting my own work as my favorite feature of the year, but this piece was just so fun to research and write—especially since I got to chat with my husband’s beer-world hero! What with the rise of craft beer (and the ensuing beer drinking snobbery), it was fun to dive into whether or not a beer glass will make or break that $25 bottle of spontaneously fermented beer aged for two years on Montmorency cherries (hand-picked, in season, of course). The short answer is: the glass isn’t a big deal (unless you’re using a shaker pint glass, in which case, we gently advise you to use a wine glass or invest in a set of tulip glasses; it’s for the best). I loved the history and lore behind various beer glass styles, but also that, in the end, you should just drink from whatever makes you happy. And in my case, it’s a bierstiefel, a.k.a. a 1-liter boot-shaped glass that, if sipped from incorrectly, will leave you drenched in beer. While I'm only being slightly serious, it really is a fun glass to drink from, and certainly will earn you a few disapproving (or approving, depending on your crowd) glances. —Grace Kelly, associate commerce editor

    Does Your Beer Glass Really Matter? We Consulted a Beer Expert to Find Out

  • Bloom Phase: How to Read the Bubbles In Your Coffee

    A collage of coffee blooms at various stages

    Serious Eats / Ashley Rodriguez

    No matter how many coffee articles I read fromAshley Rodriguez, I'm always floored by how thoughtful she is when explaining tricky scientific processes. She can make even the drollest technical details about trapped CO2 feel personable, and this piece is such a great in-depth explainer about a very minute part of coffee brewing. It's one of the best articles about coffee that was written this year on any platform, and I think it deserves the spotlight (even if it is a conflict of interest to hype up the work of my partner!). —Jesse Raub, commerce writer

    Bloom Phase: How to Read the Bubbles In Your Coffee
    Continue to 9 of 9 below.

  • A Tale of Two Cream Teas: Why the British Are Still Arguing Over

    奶油茶准备了德文郡一个奶油tea prepared the Cornish way

    Photo courtesy of The English Cream Tea Company, Graphic / Serious Eats

    WhenSamantha Priestleyfirst pitched this piece, I knew our heavily opinionated audience would have a lot to say—and oh was I right! Many of you dear readers sounded off in the comments on Facebook and Instagram, debating over the "correct" way to assemble a cream tea. Who knew something as simple as eating a scone could bring about so much conflict? Samantha was able to take such a basic topic and trace its history back to the 11th century. I loved learning all about the lighthearted British controversy and its origins. I've yet to try comparing the methods and forming an opinion myself, but I will be sure to report back when I do! —Yasmine Maggio, associate editor

    A Tale of Two Cream Teas: Why the British Are Still Arguing Over Their Scones