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The Restaurant Putting India’s Disappearing Tribal Cuisine Back on the Menu
WHEN ARUNA TIRKEY, A MEMBER of Central India’s Oraon indigenous community, walked into her small town’s glossy new department store almost a decade ago, one product made her stop short: a packet of millet. Known locally among the Oraon as madua, millet was a staple in Tirkey’s family when she was growing up. As the influence of…
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Found: Milk Residue That Proves Ancient Europeans Used Cute-as-Heck Baby Bottles
FOR DECADES, ARCHAEOLOGISTS EXCAVATING ANCIENT children’s graves in Germany and Austria were puzzled by a set of artifacts: small, rounded vessels, some with handles, and some with designs that looked like the ears and feet of unrecognizable creatures. “We think of [them] as mythical animals,” says Julie Dunne, a Senior Research Associate in chemistry at the…
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How to Master Affirmative Consent (It’s Hot, We Promise)
“I’ve never been with anyone who talks so much during sex,” he said. I was midway through an R-rated romp when this sexy someone’s comment stopped me in my tracks. What?! I thought. What could be better than alternating oral sex with oral expression? As a feminist writer, I spend a lot of time talking…
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Sold: Charles Dickens’ Liquor Log
ON JUNE 6, 1870, CHARLES Dickens strolled into the cellar of his country house, Gad’s Hill Place in Kent, and surveyed his liquor stores. The day before, wine merchants at Joseph Ellis & Sons had dropped off a cask of good sherry. If Dickens wanted whiskey, he could dig into stone jars of it, including some…
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The Japanese Ghost Town Buried Deep in a Canadian Forest
AT FIRST, IT DIDN’T LOOK like much: a clearing about an hour’s walk into the dense forest of British Columbia’s Seymour Valley, with some rusted cans scattered among the dank leaves and moldy tree trunks. It was 2004, and Bob Muckle, an archaeologist and anthropology instructor at Capilano University, was looking for a site to teach…
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When American Waitresses Were Labeled ‘Women of Ill Repute’
WHEN NELL RETURNED TO THE breakroom, her waitress’ apron was full of money. Her coworkers, spotting the dollar bills, laughed. “Them ain’t tips,” said one waitress. “Them is dates, ain’t they, Nell?” Nell displayed the cash to her friends. “Sure,” she said. “Be thankful for a dollar in these hard times!” Nell wasn’t the only waitress…
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Our Favorite Porn That’s Both Sexy and Ethical
Saying that porn is a contentious issue is like saying the meteor that wiped out the dinosaurs was a space rock: It’s not wrong, but it doesn’t reveal the scope of the damage. From the “feminist sex wars” of the 1980s to current anti-porn crusaders, many have argued that filmed sex is inherently wrong, regardless…
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The Founder of America’s Earliest Lesbian Bar Was Deported for Obscenity
IT TOOK OFFICER MARGARET LEONARD three tries to get her hands on Eve Adams’ book of lesbian short stories. We don’t know what, exactly, the New York Police Department officer experienced when she first slunk undercover into Eve Adams’ Tearoom at 129 MacDougal Street. But it’s easy to imagine a group of artists gathered under gleaming…
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Found: Slime-Covered Notebooks Full of Conservation Data and Fish Scales
SKIP MCKINNELL FOUND THE SLIM books in a Vancouver basement: stacks of field notes coated with salmon scales still stuck to the 100-year-old fiber with slime. Then affiliated with Canada’s Department of Fisheries and Oceans, McKinnell had read about the notebooks, which allegedly contained extensive data about and samples from British Columbia’s salmon population from the first…
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The Refugee Women Turning Tastes of Home Into a Food-Delivery Business
WHEN FOOD BECAME SCARCE UNDER Taliban rule, Hoor got creative. Since the Mujahideen conflict, trade between neighbors had been periodically forbidden, rations were portioned out to the privileged, and even growing garden plots could be risky. But years of war had taught her how to find food for her family in a pinch. Hoor snuck groceries under…
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Reina Gattuso 