Food

Noodle dish is nation’s favourite comfort food and source of civic pride – but it has health risks

The road to ramen paradise ends in the unlikeliest of places. At Men Endo, located in a suburban street, next to a school and a low-rise apartment block, bowls of noodles disappear in a flurry of slurps, gulps and hurried but heartfelt exchanges of appreciation between customer and chef.

On a cold afternoon in Yamagata, a city in Japan’s northeast, the wait for a seat at Men Endo’s counter is mercifully short. Inside the door, a ticket dispenser lists myriad options, from regular shoyu (soy sauce) ramen – in small, medium or large portions – to maji soba, a soupless symphony of toppings, sauce and noodles that diners are invited to mix together with their chopsticks, along with a spoonful of spicy miso.

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These hearty, warming dishes will brighten up the dark cold months – and remind you there is a world of flavours out there

You can’t get much more than this tender chicken by way of comfort and pure deliciousness

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When I started as a reporter in Paris in the 1970s, long, boozy lunches were the norm. Now only fast food and fine dining are thriving

Spare a thought for the poor French restaurateur. Once the iconic image of a sybaritic nation that loved nothing more than a boozy meal out with friends or colleagues, the French restaurant is in deep crisis. Traditional restaurants are closing faster than you can shout “garçon!”, as eating habits change and the cost of living pinches.

“It’s a catastrophe for our profession,” Franck Chaumès, president of the restaurant branch of the Union of Hospitality Trades and Industries (UMIH) said in a television interview recently. “Some 25 restaurants are going out of business every day.” The UMIH has demanded – so far in vain – that the government ration the opening of new restaurants, in proportion to the local population, and license only professionals who are qualified in cooking and accounting.

Paul Taylor is a senior visiting fellow at the European Policy Centre

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Please don’t ever offer me cranberry sauce with my roast turkey – that’s just jam on your Christmas dinner, and who wants that?

As a grumpy old woman in the prime of my pedantry, I have already died on many hills, and I have the scars to prove it. I have sacrificed myself on the battlefield of patriarchy chicken, by walking square into people who stride down the centre of the pavement staring at their phones and expecting everyone else to jump out of their way. I have risked life and limb in a pub full of football fans by declaring my belief that the only “real sports” are running fast, jumping high and throwing or swimming far – the rest are just “games”. And I have driven myself to tears by consistently walking into the same branch of Pret a Manger and ordering the same coffee, please, “and nothing else”, and then standing there blankly when I’m invariably asked, “And anything else?” When it comes to defending arbitrary red lines, my belligerence knows no bounds.

And yet, with Christmas approaching, I have been trembling at the thought of strapping on my armour and fighting yet again for what I truly believe: that meat and fruit should never be served on the same plate. And yes, you perverts, I do mean turkey and cranberry sauce – just stop putting jam on your Christmas dinner!

Katy Guest is a Guardian Opinion deputy editor and a style guide editor

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Seaweed has become a key cash crop as climate change and industrial trawling test the resilient culture of the semi-nomadic Vezo people

Along Madagascar’s south-west coast, the Vezo people, who have fished the Mozambique Channel for countless generations, are defined by a way of life sustained by the sea. Yet climate change and industrial exploitation are pushing this ocean-based culture to its limits.

Coastal villages around Toliara, a city in southern Madagascar, host tens of thousands of the semi-nomadic Vezo people, who make a living from small-scale fishing on the ocean. For centuries, they have launched pirogues, small boats carved from single tree trunks, every day into the turquoise shallows to catch tuna, barracuda and grouper.

A boat near lines of seaweed, which has become a main source of income for Ambatomilo village as warmer seas, bleached reefs and erratic weather accelerate the decline of local fish populations

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In the first 10 months of this year, South Korea imported $159m worth of kimchi, almost entirely from China, while exporting $137m

The pungent scent of red chilli powder hangs in the air at Kim Chieun’s kimchi factory in Incheon, about 30km west of Seoul. Inside, salted cabbage soaks in large metal vats in the first stage of a process that Kim has followed for more than 30 years.

But watching over the production line has become increasingly fraught. South Korea imports more kimchi than it exports, and the gap has widened as cheaper Chinese-made products take hold in the domestic market.

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Red chicory leaves with blue cheese, honey and walnuts; a big jug of caramelised swede and honey soup; a turkey wellington with red wine gravy, cranberry relish and a hispi and sprout slaw; and a showstopping yule log to finish

Christmas lunch in my family is about as traditional as it comes, and is pretty much the same every year no matter who’s house we’re at (including at least three monumental rows about things that happened years ago). Everyone chips in, too, even the kids – well, they’ve got to earn their dinner somehow. Rather than shooing them off to watch cartoons while the adults do all the work, we make sure they’re hands-on in the kitchen alongside us, especially with the annual yule log. Not only is this a valuable life lesson, it also helps develop and strengthen our family culture. The children get to share in that sense of pride at a job well done, too, and everyone feels a part of the occasion. And isn’t that what Christmas is all about?

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The temptation is to sit at home and hibernate, but beating the winter blues can be done. Here’s how to embrace the coldest and arguably most beautiful season

Stephanie Fitzgerald, a chartered clinical psychologist, used to dread winter. Like many, she coped by keeping busy at work and hibernating at home, waiting for the cold, dark days to be over. But this approach wasn’t making her happy. So she sought out the science that would help her embrace the winter months, rather than try to escape them. In her resulting book, The Gifts of Winter, she writes: “I fell deeply in love with winter … It is a captivating and truly gorgeous season.”

How did she change her mindset – and can the 42% of us who say summer is our favourite season learn to love winter too?

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