By KATIE WORKMAN

Some food trends put in deep roots, some are fleeting, some are outright silly and some are just plain fun. I am putting the “just plain fun” label on this one: pearl-shaped foods that pop in your mouth.

Tiny sphere-shaped foods seem to be everywhere, entertaining mouths with their pop-ability and the sometimes unusual transformation of familiar foods.

Call it part of a bubble moment: The bubble hem is hot in fashion, and decor is loving soft, round corners and playfulness.

Here are some examples of pearl-shaped foods, old and new.

Straight from nature

Some pearl-shaped bubble foods have been with us for a long time — not fads at all. Perhaps the classic is caviar, and fish eggs in general. Different fish eggs have different types of “pop” and different flavor profiles.

Fish roe is great on blinis, toast point and potato pancakes, but also eggs, shellfish and pasta.

Not all caviar is pricy, either. California-based Tsar Nicoulai, for example, offers gold pearl trout roe for about $14 an ounce; it’s bright orange with a firm shell and a silky, distinctive pop. Their Estate Malossol Caviar retails for about $100 an ounce; it has a softer texture, a brownish black color and a buttery, earthy flavor.

Could it be time for the finger lime?

Another natural, pearl-shaped product — one not so well-known — is the finger lime. It looks like a skinny, pinky-shaped lime, but inside are wonderful little crunchy caviar-like pearls of lime juice. It’s definitely a novelty, but not a gimmick: The flavor and texture is a terrific addition to anything from oysters to scallop ceviche.

The skin of finger limes can be green, burgundy or dull orange. The pulpy pearls can be green, pale peach or red.

To harvest a finger lime’s caviar, just slice the lime down the middle and then squeeze each half. If your finger lime is fresh, the caviar should spill out easily. Look for them at specialty stores or online.

Boba and boba tea

Boba and boba tea (also known as bubble tea) have been around since the 1980s, introduced from Taiwan and now taking the world by storm.

Boba pearls are usually made from tapioca starch (from the cassava plant), water, and sometimes a sweetener, like brown sugar, using a process known as gelatinization. The little boba balls are chewy and bouncy, and while they are most often served in a sweet cold tea, they can also be used in different preparations. There is also popping boba, designed to burst when you bite into it.

Boba tea is usually sweet and creamy, shaken before serving to create a frothy texture. A fat straw is used to slurp up the balls, which are chewed as you drink.

You can buy boba tea at coffee shops and specialty stores, and get packaged boba pearls to make drinks and other confections at home. Twrl Milk Tea, for example, makes boba offerings like Lychee Popping Boba and Brown Sugar Boba. You can also buy ready-to-drink boba tea in a can, or bubble tea kits.

Spherification: Making foods pop-able

A trend that’s been percolating for years is spherified foods — liquids that become squishy little orbs when a gelled membrane is created around them.

One of my favorites is balsamic and other vinegar pearls. De Nigris, for instance, makes a line of Italian balsamic vinegar pearls, including some flavored with truffle and orange. Messino makes balsamic pearls and also lemon pearls, filled with real lemon juice, and pomegranate pearls. Tartuflanghe turns truffle juice into truffle pearls, and also makes anchovy and pesto pearls.

Prova ’s vanilla, coffee and cocoa pearls are made for pastry chefs to serve on desserts.

You might sprinkle balsamic pearls on crostini or bruschetta, salads, and burrata or other cheeses. Try lemon pearls on top of oysters or grilled fish.

Pomegranate pearls can be served on yogurt, tarts and cocktails — as can the pomegranate’s natural pearls, the jelly-like arils that cover some seeds.

Spherification, or reverse spherification as it is officially called, uses sodium alginate and calcium to create the little orbs. The technique was invented in the 1940s and popularized by chef Ferran Adraia in the 2000s at his famed, now-closed restaurant El Bulli, in Spain. Chefs like Wylie Dufresne at WD-50 in New York have helped bring it to the fore.

Spherification beyond liquids

Some restaurants spherify their own foods, from ravioli to melons. Olive lovers might be dazzled by the spherified olives at Jose Andres’ Mercado Little Spain in NYC.

BelGiosioso makes teeny little mozzarella pearls, weighing in at 2.5 grams each. They look adorable in pasta salads and antipasti platters. They also melt into perfect little cheesy pockets in baked pastas, like baked ziti.

Easter candy, too

On the sweet side, there are translucent hard-candy rabbits stuffed with candy pearls from Pure Sugar. You’ll have to steel yourself to smash them open, or just shake the pearls out from the bottom if you can’t bear to break the bunny.

Katie Workman writes regularly about food for The Associated Press. She has written two cookbooks focused on family-friendly cooking, “Dinner Solved!” and “The Mom 100 Cookbook.” She blogs at https://themom100.com/. She can be reached at Katie@themom100.com.

Listen, at 21 years old, I couldn’t get enough of a pub crawl down barf-soaked streets. I think comedian Colin Quinn’s St. Patrick’s Day poem sums up why at 35, I’ve decided to stray from the pub crawls of yore.

“I’ve lost my friends and seven teeth at this festival to St. Patrick. Puked, out-duked and oft rebuked this holy day’s unholy hat trick. Can’t find the train, it starts to rain. I’m in a world of trouble and a house of pain. Still, this tradition I keep alive, it’s in my blood, at .25.”

My March 17 no longer resembles Quinn’s, and I’ve since perfected the art of the St. Patrick’s Day punk party, and it’s under my own roof. No, I’m not kicking over my garbage bins and covering my walls in black Sharpie art. I’m spinning my favorite Irish punk tunes, making my tried and true St. Patrick’s Day recipes and clinking Guinness pints with my closest friends — after I’ve toasted with an Irish proverb of course.

Here’s a guide to partying like a proper Irish punk from home.

The Tunes

“Nowadays for us, St Patrick’s Day has taken on a totally different meaning where it’s about getting together with friends and family,” Ken Casey of the Dropkick Murphys said in a 2013 interview. Adding what rookie mistakes not to make, and this applies to partying at home as well, Casey said “Don’t start too early. You start too early, you peak at about two, you’re in trouble. … It’s a marathon, not a sprint. You wouldn’t believe how many kids are getting rushed into the gutter outside of the club because they went a little too high, too fast.”

Whether you’re spinning records from The Pogues, Flogging Molly or Dropkick Murphys, you can’t party like a punk on St. Patrick’s Day without some Celtic Punk tunes vibrating your walls. If you don’t have any records handy, I made a Spotify playlist to make your celebration a festive one. And like all the party playlists I make, it starts nice and easy with songs including The Pogues’ “Dirty Old Town,” The Cranberries’ “Zombie,” and The Kilkennys’ “Galway Girl,” and ramps up as you get deeper into the list with pub songs like Flogging Molly’s “Drunken Lullabies,” The Real McKenzies’ “Chip,” and Dropkick Murphys’ “Rose Tattoo.” The playlist, “Party like an Irish Punk on St. Paddy’s,” is searchable via Spotify, or you can check it out by clicking the link here.

The Feast

What could be more punk than a grab-what-you-have traditional Dublin stew known as the Irish Coddle? Bacon, sausage, potatoes and of course, Guinness, make this super easy stew rich and filling. Check out Casey Elsass’s recipe for Food Network Kitchen below.

Ingredients

• 1 pound thick-cut bacon, cut into 1-inch pieces
• 1 pound Cumberland sausage or any mild pork sausage, cut into 1-inch pieces
• 2 large white onions, halved and thinly sliced
• Kosher salt
• 1 cup fresh parsley leaves, finely chopped
• Freshly ground black pepper
• 3 pounds russet potatoes, peeled and quartered
• 1/4 cup Irish stout, such as Guinness, optional
• Irish soda bread, for serving

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 300 degrees.
2. Add the bacon to a large Dutch oven and set over medium heat. Cook, stirring occasionally, until the fat renders, about 10 minutes. Add the sausage and increase the heat to medium high. Continue to cook, stirring occasionally, until the bacon and sausage are nicely browned, about 10 more minutes. Remove the pot from the heat and use a slotted spoon to transfer the bacon and sausage to a plate.
3. Drain the fat from the pot and return it to medium heat. Add the onions, a pinch of salt and 1/4 cup water. Use a wooden spoon to scrape the brown bits from the bottom and sides of the pot, then sprinkle the onions with 1 tablespoon of the parsley and plenty of black pepper. Layer the bacon and sausage over the onions and sprinkle with 1 tablespoon parsley and more black pepper. Layer the potatoes over the meat and add enough water to submerge everything but the potatoes, about 2 cups. Season the potato layer with a pinch of salt and plenty of black pepper and sprinkle with 1 tablespoon parsley. Bring the liquid to a boil (don’t stir!), then cover and transfer to the oven. Bake, checking halfway to add more water if needed, until the onions are very tender and caramelized and the liquid has reduced slightly, about 2 hours.
4. Finish with a pour of stout, if using, and a final garnish of the remaining parsley. Serve immediately with soda bread.

For some other St. Patty’s recipes, check out:

• Clodagh Mckenna’s mum’s Classic Irish Lamb Stew takes a bit of time to make, so you may want to whip it up the night before or start early in the morning. It’ll feed six to eight people and keeps well if you’ve got some left over to nurse a hangover with on March 18. The stew pairs well with Irish soda bread. Find the recipe here.
• My go-to St. Patrick’s Day recipe is Alton Brown’s Shepherd’s Pie, which calls for lamb, but you can swap it with ground sirloin or even ground chicken or turkey if you steer away from red meat. This is a hearty dish that will feed several of your closest mates and doesn’t take too long to make.
• Southern California News Group contributor Cathy Thomas has a recipe for Colcannon, a rustic dish of mashed potatoes moistened with milk and butter and mixed with cabbage and onions. It’s a St. Patrick’s Day favorite served with corned beef, and she’s got a recipe for a “quick” corned beef here.
• Scotch Eggs aka St. Patty’s Pub Eggs are soft boiled eggs with a gooey center, wrapped in sausage and breadcrumbs and deep-fried. They are fantastic, and you can find a recipe for them here.
• John Mitzewich’s highly-rated Guinness beef stew is “a very simple dish, but at the same time, it has a deep, complex, rich flavor. The maltiness of dark beer really does amazing things for the gravy.” He serves it in a nice ring of green onion-mashed potatoes. Find the recipe here.

The Drinks

If you have the patience to make a proper craft cocktail, start with the Dubliner, a citrusy take on the Manhattan using Irish whisky. Find Gary Regan’s Liquor.com recipe below.

Ingredients

• 2 ounces Irish whiskey
• 1/2 ounce Grand Marnier
• 1/2 ounce sweet vermouth
• 3 dashes orange bitters
• Garnish: 1 green maraschino cherry

Directions

1. Add the whiskey, Grand Marnier, sweet vermouth and orange bitters into a mixing glass with ice and stir until well-chilled.
2. Strain into a chilled cocktail glass.
3. Garnish with a green maraschino cherry.

Some other St. Patrick’s Day cocktails to try are:

• The Dead Rabbit Irish Coffee may be the perfect hot cocktail to keep you warm this March 17, which is expected to be a relatively chilly and cloudy one. Grab the recipe here. For an Irish coffee with a twist try the Shamrock Flip by Luis Gudino, which incorporates an egg.
• If you prefer your St. Patrick’s Day drink simple and easy, try an Irish beer like the Murphy’s Irish Stout, a Guinness Extra Stout, O’Hara’s Irish Craft Lager or Sullivan’s Malting Irish Red Ale.
• A McGlashan is a funky twist on a whisky sour, which incorporates smooth Irish whiskey, orange-ginger marmalade, and a fiery kick of ginger for a balanced mix of warmth and spice. Here’s the recipe.

The Toast

No St. Patrick’s Day is complete without a proper Irish toast, here are a few of my favorites to clink glasses to:

• “May the winds of fortune sail you, May you sail a gentle sea. May it always be the other guy Who says, ‘this drink’s on me.”
• “Here’s to cheating, stealing, fighting, and drinking. If you cheat, may you cheat death. If you steal, may you steal a woman’s heart. If you fight, may you fight for a brother. And if you drink, may you drink with me.”
• “May your glass be ever full. May the roof over your head be always strong. And may you be in heaven half an hour before the devil knows you’re dead.”
• “May you have the hindsight to know where you’ve been, The foresight to know where you are going, And the insight to know when you have gone too far.”
• “May the lilt of Irish laughter, Lighten every load. May the mist of Irish magic, Shorten every road. And may all your friends remember, All the favors you are owed!”

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There are many religious rituals and traditions practiced around the world where food plays a central role.

Food encourages us to gather with one another and share stories, while particular dishes and cuisines help tell the story of where we came from, who we are and where we hope to go. 

The holy month of Ramadan, which began at sunset on Friday, is the ninth month of the Islamic calendar, observed by Muslims around the world through prayer, fasting, reflection and ending with a large, celebratory breaking-of-the-fast, known as Eid al-Fitr. Today is also Fat Tuesday, marking the end of the weeks-long Mardi Gras celebration leading up to Ash Wednesday and the start of Lent in the Christian faith.

Today on The Metro, we were joined by three metro Detroit chefs to discuss the common connections food has with cultural or religious traditions and celebrations.

Guests:

• Nikita Sanches: Detroit-area chef and owner of the Patchwork Culinary Project, a nonprofit education program that offers culinary training to immigrants and refugees. 
• Omar Anani: Chef and owner of the James Beard-nominated Saffron De Twah, an award-winning modern Moroccan bistro on the east side of Detroit.
• Ameneh Marhaba: Founder and owner of Little Liberia, a West African eatery which is about to relocate to Detroit’s East English Village neighborhood.  

Use the media player above to listen to the full conversation.

More headlines from The Metro on March 4, 2025:  

• At the turn of the 20th century, metro Detroit had one of the largest mass transit system in the United States. But ridership decreased over the years, and the streetcar system became too costly for the city to maintain. The streetcar tracks across the city have since been paved over, but a new campaign from the Metro Detroit Democratic Socialists of America aims to restore the tracks along Michigan Avenue. Metro Detroit DSA member Melina Herrera joined The Metro to discuss how the organization is working to move the needle on transit in Detroit.

• Juli McLoone is a curator in the Special Collections Research Center at the University of Michigan. One of her focus areas is the evolution of cuisine in various regions and cultures, and she helped preserve and digitize the only known copy of the earliest cookbook authored by a Black woman, “A Domestic Cook Book: For the Kitchen” by Mrs. Malinda Russel — published in Michigan in 1866.

• We also revisited two recent conversations on The Metro with Bharat Ramamurti, senior advisor for economic strategy at the American Economic Liberties Project, and Canadian Economist Jim Stanford about Trump’s tariffs, both paused and in effect.

Listen to The Metro weekdays from 10 a.m. to noon ET on 101.9 FM and streaming on-demand.

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By CHRISTOPHER KIMBALL, Christopher Kimball’s Milk Street

Zuppa forte, also known as zuppa di soffritto, is an old-school Neapolitan dish made by slow-cooking meats with garlic and other aromatics, along with tomatoes and preserved chilies, until reduced and concentrated. The rich, spicy paste-like mixture can be spread on crusty bread, though it’s more commonly diluted and used as a soup base or pasta sauce.

Zuppa forte traditionally was made with odds and ends of meats, including offal, but in our cookbook, “Milk Street 365: The All-Purpose Cookbook for Every Day of the Year,” we use salty cured pancetta as a stand-in. For best flavor, purchase a chunk of pancetta, which contains a decent amount of fat, and cut it yourself. The type sold pre-diced is too lean and cooks up with a tough, leathery texture.

A combination of deeply browned tomato paste and canned whole tomatoes, blended until smooth and simmered in a skillet, yields a sauce with concentrated flavor. Don’t use canned tomato puree or canned crushed tomatoes, which have slightly tinny, metallic flavors that only become more pronounced in the finished sauce. The flavor of whole tomatoes, blended until smooth, is fresher and cleaner.

Instead of harder-to-source preserved chilies, we use Korean gochujang, which may seem out of place, but delivers a similar complex, fermented spiciness along with welcome notes of umami. But if you can find it, spicy, tangy Calabrian chili paste also works well. Fresh basil and dollops of ricotta complement the richness and intensity of the sauce.

Pasta with Spicy Tomato and Pancetta Sauce

Start to finish: 30 minutes

Servings: 4 to 6

Ingredients:

• 14½-ounce can whole peeled tomatoes
• 2 tablespoons gochujang (see headnote) or 1 tablespoon Calabrian chili paste
• ¼ cup extra-virgin olive oil
• 4 ounces pancetta (see headnote), chopped
• 4 medium garlic cloves, minced
• 4 bay leaves
• 2 tablespoons tomato paste
• 1 sprig rosemary
• Kosher salt and ground black pepper
• 1 pound penne, ziti or rigatoni pasta
• ½ cup lightly packed fresh basil, torn
• Whole-milk ricotta cheese, to serve

Directions:

In a large pot, bring 4 quarts water to a boil. In a blender, puree the tomatoes with juices and gochujang until smooth, 30 to 60 seconds; set aside.

While the water heats, in a 12-inch skillet, combine the oil, pancetta, garlic, bay, tomato paste, rosemary and ½ teaspoon pepper. Cook over medium, stirring often, until the pancetta has rendered some of its fat and the tomato paste darkens and begins to stick to the pan, 6 to 8 minutes. Add the pureed tomato mixture and bring to a simmer, scraping up any browned bits. Simmer, uncovered and stirring often, until very thick and the fat separates, about 10 minutes.

Meanwhile, when the water reaches a boil, add 1 tablespoon salt and the pasta; cook, stirring occasionally, until just shy of al dente. Reserve about 1½ cups of the cooking water, then drain the pasta and return it to the pot. (If the sauce is done ahead of the pasta, remove the skillet from the heat.)

Scrape the sauce into the pot with the pasta and add ¾ cup of the reserved cooking water. Cook over medium, stirring and tossing often, until the sauce clings and the pasta is al dente, 2 to 4 minutes; add more reserved pasta water as needed to loosen the noodles if the mixture is very dry and sticky.

Off heat, remove and discard the bay and rosemary. Taste and season with salt and pepper, then stir in the basil. Serve topped with dollops of ricotta.

For more recipes, go to Christopher Kimball’s Milk Street at 177milkstreet.com/ap