Nocenti’s work stands out like Longshot’s weirdly glowing eye.

“I need to start writing pieces about other people’s problems.”

M.C.A.’s in the back because he’s skeezin’ with a whore? No more.

Food requires no justification, no retreat to the cerebral.

Mongolians — the Rosenbergs — Hidden Valley Ranch Dressing?

The plural, parable-spawning condiment of the people.

It’s been said that he was the last man to know everything.

Coyote wearing a giant clock, Loki with a fried chicken franchise.

His Dirk Gently is insufferable, wrongheaded, and largely hopeless.

Washington should never have accepted help from the butter-loving French.

Not criminal, but criminal-minded; chronicling, yet not committing.

Barbecue sauce doesn’t exist — but barbecue?

Mesoamerica was a hotbed of violence, Jesuits… and cuisine.

Reverse-engineering the lives of the vinegars.

Vinegar’s secret history as a beverage.

The sine qua non of condiments: mighty, versatile, & vital.

He’s the antidote to the excesses of molecular gastronomy.

He won the Giant Bible of Mainz in a poker game.

Which of the four hot sauces rules your personality?

The Venn Platter explains the culinary world.

Umami is the savory opium of the people.

Tom Nealon’s Foucauldian-condimental history of the West.

He was the void around which orbited a magnificent pantheon.

The parataxic pyrotechnics of hip-hop’s Ishmael Reed.