Why Are Americans Drinking Less?

Plus, there is a bean museum -- and more links

Photo: Getty Images

“In this moment, I see something fundamentally different. Even colleagues who for years had been cheerleaders for high-proof alcoholic beverages are now extolling the virtues of being sober-curious and consuming nonalcoholic drinks. I wanted to delve deeper into what exactly was happening and why. I wanted to know, more than a century after America’s original temperance movement, whether this new era of moderation is the gray area on drinking we’ve long sought.” Jason Wilson of Everyday Drinking writes in the Washington Post about the current temperance movement.

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The loss of a culinary icon

“At a time when most Americans’ concept of Mexican food was limited to tacos and enchiladas, Ms. Kennedy unfurled an ornate culinary tapestry, exploring the distinctly regional nature of Mexican cooking, defined, like the cuisines of Italy and China, by local geography, climate and ingredients.” William Grimes writes the obituary of Diana Kennedy for the New York Times.

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Yes, there is a bean museum — in Tennessee

Food and Wine chronicles the opening of a bean museum at the Bush’s Beans visitors center, where visitors can interact with a “‘reimagined bean scale’ where they're able to ‘get their weight in beans alongside equality examples such as Duke's weight in beans.’”

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New column alert: The Receipt

It’s like Refinery29’s Money Diaries — for food. The first one from Bon Appetit is how a 24-year-old waitress eats on $18K a year in Durham, NC