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Welcome to Secret Breakfast / The best place to start your day with gyoza bags and ethical shrimp, upgraded popcorns, accordion breads, and - of course - restaurant’s curses

Hi there!

If you're reading this, I'm the luckiest person today.

This means the new Secret Breakfast software engine is working and my new address is not in your bin folder.

I don't wanna bother you with the reason for my "operating system" change (I'll leave it to a blog post). For now, you just know:

• I'm making Secret Breakfast more open;
• The newsletter will be out on Wednesdays;
• I moved the operations to secretbreakfast.com, which will be faster and cleaner than ever;
• I refurbished the newsletter design and palette like I do every year
• We have a new Privacy Policy (same old stuff, but it's the law);

I hope you can make yourself at home. Please write back if things aren't working for you,

Piero

Photograph: Yasuyoshi Chiba/AFP/Getty; Jakarta, Indonesia; a street performer takes a break to eat.

✺ Lauren Cook, I Love Shopping. You can read a preview on Dirt. Please notice: it's a dog who's talking.

Eastern Europe's Vegetable Revolution

Cabbage Strudel? Vegan (and Beef) Borscht? Potato Babka, Pierogi and Walnut Pâté? I'm confident I haven't ever cooked any of these. Alissa Timoshkina's book takes us to an unexplored territory that could help us rediscover Ukrainian and Eastern European flavors from often-forgotten vegetables. Plus, I love the cover artwork.

Kapusta by Alissa Timoshkina
Shortplot → 🥬 🧅 🥣 🥟

The Hidden Symphony on Our Plates

We are often told that our taste is actually the product of other senses, smell for starters. Now in Trento, Italy, the MUSE Science Museum has an exhibit exploring how sound shapes our eating habits—from triggering appetite to influencing purchasing decisions: its called Food Sound: The Hidden Sound of Food and is made of headphone-guided installations.

The exhibition makes me think to popular phenomena like Mukbang videos with their exaggerated chewing sounds; the soothing crackling of ASMR food content that attracts millions of viewers; or even musical groups like the Vienna Vegetable Orchestra and Collectif SOMA, who transform carrots, peppers, and eggplants into functioning instruments.

Their performances reveal that food doesn't just satisfy our taste buds—it creates an entire sensory symphony we rarely consciously perceive.

Picture: Food Sound - Muse Museum in Trento

Chiew See on Instagram: ”~ Accordion Bread~ *Sweet stiff starter* – triple in 7-8hrs at 27-28C 30g starter 90g bread flour 40g water 15g sugar *dough* 230g bread flour 20g sugar 4g salt 1 egg (55g) 110g milk 20g butter All of the sweet stiff starter Cocoa paste 10g dark cocoa powder 15g water Method ➡️ Prepare sweet stiff starter and use when it triples, about 7-8hr at 27-28C. ➡️ Mix everything except butter till dough comes together and is strong. ➡️ Add butter gradually and knead until fully incorporated and dough achieves window pane. ➡️ Split dough into two equally ➡️ Add the cocoa paste to one of the dough and mix to combine ➡️ Rest the dough for 15mins ➡️ Roll out the two dough and stack one on top of another with 1/3 offset ➡️ Make a single fold and chill in fridge for 15mins ➡️ Roll out the dough into rectangle ➡️ Roll up from one end to another (like rolling Swiss roll) ➡️ Score the dough and place into greased tin (20x10x10cm) ➡️ Proof 3.5-4hr at 28C or until dough fills 90% if the tin ➡️ Egg wash (optional) ➡️ Bake at 180C for 40-45mins #shokupan #sourdoughshokupan #sourdoughbread #sourdoughloaf #sourdoughsandwichloaf #wildyeast #naturalyeast #levain #sweetstiffstarter #accordionbread”

26K likes, 336 comments - autumn.kitchen on February 18, 2025: ”~ Accordion Bread~ *Sweet stiff starter* – triple in 7-8hrs at 27-28C 30g starter 90g bread flour 40g water 15g sugar *dough* 230g bread flour 20g sugar 4g salt 1 egg (55g) 110g milk 20g butter All of the sweet stiff starter Cocoa paste 10g dark cocoa powder 15g water Method ➡️ Prepare sweet stiff starter and use when it triples, about 7-8hr at 27-28C. ➡️ Mix everything except butter till dough comes together and is strong. ➡️ Add butter gradually and knead until fully incorporated and dough achieves window pane. ➡️ Split dough into two equally ➡️ Add the cocoa paste to one of the dough and mix to combine ➡️ Rest the dough for 15mins ➡️ Roll out the two dough and stack one on top of another with 1/3 offset ➡️ Make a single fold and chill in fridge for 15mins ➡️ Roll out the dough into rectangle ➡️ Roll up from one end to another (like rolling Swiss roll) ➡️ Score the dough and place into greased tin (20x10x10cm) ➡️ Proof 3.5-4hr at 28C or until dough fills 90% if the tin ➡️ Egg wash (optional) ➡️ Bake at 180C for 40-45mins #shokupan #sourdoughshokupan #sourdoughbread #sourdoughloaf #sourdoughsandwichloaf #wildyeast #naturalyeast #levain #sweetstiffstarter #accordionbread”.

Instagram

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Yes, Shrimp Matter

Andrés Jiménez Zorrilla / Asterisk

What made a private equity analyst decide to devote his life to tiny aquatic crustaceans? Now he advocates for shrimp welfare, citing evidence of their sentience and the staggering 440 billion farmed shrimp slaughtered annually in often cruel conditions. Despite widespread practices like eyestalk ablation and overcrowding, new interventions including electrical stunning and improved water quality management are already reducing suffering for billions of shrimp.

When the Michelin Star Becomes a Restaurant’s Curse

Christina Cacouris / The Wall Street Journal

Michelin's Mixed Blessing: For some chefs, the coveted stars have become a golden handcuff rather than a badge of honor. From Lucca to Paris, restaurant owners are questioning whether perfection is worth the price of stifled creativity, financial strain, and customers who come for the status, not the food.