In 1941, Jane Holt, a writer for The New York Times, walked into one of Manhattan’s smattering of Indian restaurants, stuck her face over a simmering pot, and breathed in the scented steam rising from its surface. In her column, “The News Of Food,” she wrote about the “rare Oriental ragout that is called curry” she…

Head to a local market in Bolivia, and the first thing you’re likely to notice is a smell, damp and vegetal, emanating from huge bushels of dried green leaves that are being sold for a few bucks a pound. These leaves are coca, and to Bolivians they’re far more than just the raw material used to make cocaine. Andean…

Welcome to Gateways To Drinkery, where The Takeout offers an entry-level course on our favorite libations, and some suggestions on where to start drinking them.

Armida Sanchez stood patiently over the stove as a pan full of vegetable oil came to a gleam. I’d just returned from morning fishing with her husband, Rolando, on the icy lagoon outside the salt mining town of Guerrero Negro halfway down the Baja Peninsula’s Pacific Coast. While we were gone, Armida had sliced and…