Reina Gattuso

  • Can Nigerian Drumming Teach You to Pick the Perfect Watermelon?

    Can Nigerian Drumming Teach You to Pick the Perfect Watermelon?

    FOR OGBODO NKIRUKA, THE SLAP of a hand hitting a watermelon is a welcome melody. A fruit vendor who’s been selling watermelons from a roadside stand in the Nigerian city of Enugu for 15 years, she identifies the ripeness of her wares by ear. Each melon has its own music, a deep, hollow thump—ba ba, ba,…

  • Australia’s Growing Camel Meat Trade Reveals a Hidden History of Early Muslim Migrants

    Australia’s Growing Camel Meat Trade Reveals a Hidden History of Early Muslim Migrants

    THERE IS A CAMEL IN Hanifa Deen’s kitchen. He looks down at her as she cooks, eyes proud yet warm, delicately flared snout smelling dinner. While the creature is merely an image on a poster, Deen, who has written several books on Islam in Australia, regards him affectionately. Read more at Atlas Obscura. Photo: National Museum…

  • This British Colonial Report Offers a Rare Glimpse Into India’s Historic Cannabis Cuisine

    This British Colonial Report Offers a Rare Glimpse Into India’s Historic Cannabis Cuisine

    THICK, SUGARY, AND CREAMY, RICH with saffron and almonds, bhang thandai is so sweet that at first it’s hard to pinpoint the drink’s secret ingredient. After a sip or two, however, the telltale taste lingers: spicy and slightly musky, it’s the signature whiff of cannabis. After a few minutes, the high comes, dreamy as the rainbow play of…

  • How Lesbian Potlucks Nourished the LGBTQ Movement

    How Lesbian Potlucks Nourished the LGBTQ Movement

    JEN MARTIN AND LIZ ALPERN lived in “that house.” Many queer friend groups have one. It’s the kind of place where a pot of soup is always boiling, where bread is always in the oven, where someone is always willing to read your tarot cards. Friends stopped to visit the Brooklyn apartment on weeknights. It was…

  • The Girl Who Jumped Out of a Pie and Into a Gilded Age Morality Tale

    The Girl Who Jumped Out of a Pie and Into a Gilded Age Morality Tale

    ON MAY 20, 1895, 16-YEAR-OLD Susie Johnson, wearing nothing but gauze and haloed by a flock of live canaries, burst through the crust of a giant pie. It was polo player John Ellliot Cowdin’s 10th wedding anniversary, and the dinner was lavish: 16 courses from clams to coffee, each punctuated by champagne. Two models entertained the…

  • This British Orchid Is Under Guard in a Secret Location

    This British Orchid Is Under Guard in a Secret Location

    FOR A FEW WEEKS EACH spring, a lone guard monitors the moors of northern England. This warden pitches a tent in a remote field to watch over a prize so rare that collectors have been known to break laws, trek into deep jungles, and risk capture by guerillas in its pursuit. Read more at Atlas Obscura. Photo: Kyla…

  • The Promise and Perils of Resurrecting Native Americans’ Lost Crops

    The Promise and Perils of Resurrecting Native Americans’ Lost Crops

    ELIZABETH HORTON NEVER INTENDED FOR Plum Bayou to become a testing site for recovering lost crops. By planting historical staples such as Chenopodium berlandieri, a type of goosefoot and a cousin of modern-day quinoa, she sought to teach visitors about the agriculture of the Toltec Mounds Archeological State Park’s original inhabitants. Yet Horton’s plants aren’t originals—they’re wild cousins…

  • How Did Cahokian Farmers Feed North America’s Largest Indigenous City?

    How Did Cahokian Farmers Feed North America’s Largest Indigenous City?

    JUST OUTSIDE ST. LOUIS, VISITORS can witness the monumental earthen mounds that mark Cahokia, the largest indigenous city north of Mexico. There’s a persistent myth that the original inhabitants of what is now the United States were all hunter-gatherers living in small communities. Yet these mounds—likely used for ceremonial and housing purposes by people of the Mississippian Culture—reveal…

  • American School Lunch Is Becoming More Diverse, Like It Was in the 1910s

    American School Lunch Is Becoming More Diverse, Like It Was in the 1910s

    ALANA DAO COULDN’T FIGURE OUT which was worse: going to school with a lunch box full of hummus, or pulling out Chinese pork floss buns in front of her classmates. In the 1990s, Sugar Land, Texas, was a steak and potatoes kind of place. Read more at Atlas Obscura. Photo: Jacob Riis, Library of Congress/Public Domain.

  • The Swap-a-Fish Program That Traded Tilapia for Seafood Contaminated by Agent Orange

    The Swap-a-Fish Program That Traded Tilapia for Seafood Contaminated by Agent Orange

    AS IT GLINTS IN THE afternoon sunlight, Newark, New Jersey’s Passaic River looks peaceful. But a plaque along the boardwalk has a warning for visitors. “The river remains full of life,” it reads. “Try to spot these creatures, but until the pollution is removed from the river, be careful NEVER to catch or eat any of…