From the editor

Andrea Gyorody

Food writing is particularly prone to punning and general wordplay—something very strongly in evidence in the three small bites (see?) below, and of course in the pithy name of this nascent newsletter, which is both a round-up and an invitation. An invitation to what, exactly? To follow along from wherever you are in the goings-on of Active Cultures, but also to re-think, continually, your relationship to cooking and eating and food itself, that most fundamental aspect of the everyday: of culture, of family, of shared and personal histories, of local and global consequence alike.

This inaugural issue's contributions from Spiral Theory Test Kitchen, Cooking Sections, and Dorothy Iannone—excerpted below and published in full on the AC website—manage to touch on those notions in ways big and small, with flavors all their own. Whether you actually roast yourself a darling duck or lovingly sew animal hearts back together before you dry-rub and cure them, I'd bet, after consuming what Digest has to offer, you'll take a longer look at your next meal before you eat it. Treat this missive and the ones that follow as prompts to play with your food, and to consider it deeply.

—Andrea Gyorody