edgepedia

Food, customs, and everyday culture

6,788 articles

Masquerade ball

Masquerade ball: a masked dance, from Italian mascarata (English 1590s). Documented in Venice from 1268, central to 18th-century Venetian Carnival and Georgian London, revived with Carnevale in 1979.

Maß

Maß: German noun for a measure, unit, or extent (das Maß, plural Maße), and in feminine form die Maß the Bavarian one-liter beer serving in a Maßkrug, historically 1.069 liters, now the Oktoberfest standard.

Massaman curry

Massaman curry (แกงมัสมั่น, gaeng massaman), also called matsaman or Muslim curry, is a mild, sweet-sour Thai coconut curry with beef or chicken, potatoes, peanuts, tamarind, and warm dried spices, of Muslim origin in southern Thailand.

Massimo Bottura

Massimo Bottura (born 1962), Italian chef of Modena's three-Michelin-star Osteria Francescana, twice No.1 in the World's 50 Best, and founder with Lara Gilmore of Food for Soul, the anti-food-waste refettorio network.

Massimo Dutti

Massimo Dutti is a Spanish fashion brand founded in Barcelona in 1985 by Armando Lasauca and owned by Inditex since 1991. A premium Zara sibling selling menswear, womenswear, and accessories, it ran €2,019 million in FY2025 sales across 511 stores.

MasterChef

MasterChef is a competitive cooking TV format created by Franc Roddam, launched on BBC One in 1990 and rebooted in 2005. Adapted in over 70 territories, it holds the Guinness World Record as the most successful cookery format, with spin-offs like Celebrity and Junior MasterChef.

MasterChef (American TV series)

MasterChef (US) is a FOX cooking competition, premiered July 2010, hosted by Gordon Ramsay with Joe Bastianich and Tiffany Derry, in which amateur cooks compete for $250,000 and the MasterChef title.

MasterChef (British TV series)

MasterChef (British TV series), BBC One cooking competition launched 1990 with Lloyd Grossman, revived 2005 with Gregg Wallace and John Torode; global format sold to 200+ territories; hosts replaced in 2025 by Grace Dent and Anna Haugh after misconduct investigation.

MasterChef Australia

MasterChef Australia is Network 10's competitive cooking show, an adaptation of the British MasterChef format, running since 2009 with a $250,000 prize. Season 18 (2026) was judged by Andy Allen, Poh Ling Yeow, Sofia Levin and Jean-Christophe Novelli and won by Vinnie Gibaldi.

MasterChef Canada

MasterChef Canada is a CTV competitive cooking reality show for amateur home cooks, part of the MasterChef franchise, airing since 2014 with judges Claudio Aprile, Michael Bonacini, Alvin Leung, and later Mary Berg, Hugh Acheson, and Craig Wong.

MasterChef India

MasterChef India: Hindi-language Indian adaptation of the MasterChef cooking-competition format, launched 16 October 2010 on StarPlus with Akshay Kumar, produced by Endemol Shine India, moved to Sony TV in 2022; season 9 won by sibling duo Vikram and Ajinkya Gandhe.

MasterChef Junior

MasterChef Junior is the children's edition of the MasterChef cooking competition format, for home cooks aged about 8 to 13. Distinct national versions run in the US on Fox, in Spain (moving from RTVE to Disney+), and on Telefe in Argentina.

MasterChef: The Professionals

MasterChef: The Professionals is the BBC's British cooking competition for working professional chefs, a MasterChef spin-off created by Loyd Grossman and Gary Rhodes, first aired 25 August 2008 on BBC Two, judged by Marcus Wareing, Monica Galetti, and Matt Tebbutt since 2026.

Mastering the Art of French Cooking

Mastering the Art of French Cooking, by Julia Child, Simone Beck, and Louisette Bertholle (Knopf, 1961; Volume Two 1970), is the 524-recipe cookbook that taught Americans classic French technique and, with The French Chef, launched America's food media boom.

Mastika (μαστίχα)

Mastika (μαστίχα, also mastiha or mastic) names two mastic-resin spirits: Greece's PDO Chios mastic liqueur (min 20% vol, 150 g/L sugar) and the Balkan anise-mastic aperitif of Bulgaria and North Macedonia that clouds white with water.

Matcha

Matcha (抹茶) is Japanese powdered green tea made from shade-grown tencha leaves that are steamed, dried unrolled, and stone-milled to 1-20 μm powder; whisked in the tea ceremony since Eisai's 1191 introduction, now a $4.3 billion global market with unregulated "ceremonial grade" labeling.

Matcha latte

Matcha latte: a Western café drink of whisked Japanese powdered green tea (matcha) with steamed milk and sweetener, hot or iced. Caffeine 19–44 mg/g of powder; "ceremonial grade" is unregulated; demand boom tripled tencha prices.

Matchgirls' strike

The Matchgirls' strike, July 1888: about 1,400 women and girls at Bryant & May's Bow match factory in London walked out over fines, low pay and phossy jaw from white phosphorus, won their demands, and helped launch New Unionism.

Mate (drink)

Mate (yerba mate) is a caffeinated South American infusion of Ilex paraguariensis leaves, drunk from a gourd with a bombilla; about 80 mg caffeine per cup, high in polyphenols, central to Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay, and Brazil.

Matekino Lawless

Matekino Lawless is a New Zealand Māori master weaver of Ngāti Maniapoto descent, an early advocate for reclaiming raranga and whatu, made an ONZM in 2023.

Mateus (wine)

Mateus (Mateus Rosé) is a Portuguese medium-sweet, slightly sparkling rosé created in 1942 by Fernando van Zeller Guedes of Sogrape, named for the Palace of Mateus, sold in a WWI-flask-shaped bottle, and at its 1978 peak over 40% of Portugal's table wine exports.

Matryoshka doll

Matryoshka (матрёшка), also called Russian nesting doll: a turned wooden doll holding smaller dolls inside, invented in the early 1890s in the Mamontovs' Moscow 'Detkoye vospitanie' workshop by Malyutin and Zvyozdochkin and bronze-medaled at the 1900 Paris Exposition.

Matsudaira Harusato

Matsudaira Harusato, known as Fumai (1751–1818), was the seventh lord of Matsue domain and a leading late Edo period tea master who founded the Fumai-ryū school.

Matsusaka beef (松阪牛)

Matsusaka beef (松阪牛) is a Mie Prefecture wagyu brand from never-calved Japanese Black heifers fattened 900+ days near Matsusaka, GI-registered in 2017, famed for low-melting marbling fat, rivaling Kobe and Omi beef.

Matt Preston

Matt Preston (born 1961, London) is an Australian-based food journalist, cookbook author and TV personality, lead judge of MasterChef Australia 2009–2019, columnist for Stellar and delicious., author of Big Mouth (2023).

Matt Stonie

Matt "Megatoad" Stonie, San Jose competitive eater and YouTuber, won the 2015 Nathan's Famous contest with 62 hot dogs, ending Joey Chestnut's eight-year streak; he holds 14 eating records.

Matt Tebbutt

Matt Tebbutt, British chef and TV presenter, host of BBC One's Saturday Kitchen since 2016 and Channel 4's Food Unwrapped; former owner of The Foxhunter, Monmouthshire, and one-series MasterChef: The Professionals judge.

Matthieu Blazy

Matthieu Blazy (born 1984, Paris) is a French-Belgian fashion designer, Chanel's artistic director since December 2024 and former Bottega Veneta creative director (2021-2024), known for trompe-l'oeil leather craft and the 2025 debut that sparked "Matthieu Mania."

Matty Matheson

Matty Matheson, born 1982 in Saint John, is a Canadian chef, restaurateur, and actor known as Neil Fak on FX's The Bear, executive producer of the series, host of Just a Dash, and founder of Our House Hospitality restaurants including Prime Seafood Palace.

Matzah

Matzah (מצה, matzo) is unleavened bread of five grains eaten on Passover, baked within 18 minutes of mixing flour and water; shmura matzah is guarded from harvest, and machine matzah sparked an 1859 halachic controversy.