Stir-fried Noodles with Wild Mushrooms
A few years ago, we got a wok. We didn't need a wok, but we wanted one. So we got a wok . Often those who are not in the know, my ignorant self included, have relegated the wok to simply a vessel for the stir fry. However, one can see the wok truly for what it is: a "cooking pot"--which is precisely what wok means in Cantonese. I started to get curious about the wok, so I called upon our trusty friend, the internet, to tell me all about it. Turns out, we don't know a ton about one of the most widely used cooking vessels in the world, but people have all kinds of theories. I needed some answers--consequently, I turned to notable food historian , Rachel Laudan, who had this to say: we don't know much about the (history of the) wok. She reports that some believe that as a Chinese cooking pot, the wok is about 2000 years old; however, as Laudan attests, other scholars date it more likely to about 1000 (or even only 500) years old and suggest that the...