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Solar cooker
Solar cooker: device cooking food with sunlight alone, first built by Horace de Saussure in 1767. Types include box, panel, parabolic, and heat-storage cookers; standardized cooking power ranges from about 25 W (panel) to 198 W (parabolic).
Solidus (coin)
The solidus (aureus solidus, nomisma) was Constantine I's gold coin of about 4.5 g, struck at 72 to the Roman pound from 312 CE and the Byzantine standard for roughly 700 years until the hyperpyron.
Sombrero
The sombrero is a broad-brimmed, usually tall-crowned hat of straw or felt associated with Spain, Mexico, and the southwestern United States; in Spanish the word means any hat.
Somebody Feed Phil
Somebody Feed Phil is a Netflix food and travel documentary series hosted by Phil Rosenthal, creator of Everybody Loves Raymond; it premiered January 12, 2018, ran eight seasons and 49 episodes, and moves to YouTube in 2027 via a Banijay deal.
Somerfield
Somerfield, formerly Gateway, was a British supermarket and convenience chain (with Kwik Save) bought by Co-operative Group in 2009 for £1.565bn; brand phased out, company closed 2010.
Sommelier
Sommelier: restaurant wine professional who serves wine, advises on pairings, and manages wine lists and cellars. Certified via CMS (four levels, 305 Master Sommeliers), WSET, or ASI (678 Diploma holders).
Son Jong-won
Son Jong-won (손종원) is a South Korean chef, executive chef of Seoul's two one-Michelin-star restaurants L'Amant Secret (French) and Eatanic Garden (Korean), a Culinary Class Wars 2 contestant, and a former civil engineering student trained at the CIA, Benu, and Noma.
Songket
Songket is a handwoven textile of maritime Southeast Asia in which gold or silver threads are inserted as a supplementary weft to create ornamental patterns.
Sonia Rykiel
Sonia Rykiel (Sonia Flis, 1930-2016), French designer and writer, founder of the 1968 Paris knitwear house; known as Queen of Knitwear for striped poor-boy sweaters, inside-out seams, and unfinished garments; brand liquidated 2019, revived under G-III since 2021.
Sonic Drive-In
Sonic Drive-In is an American fast-food chain founded by Troy Smith in Shawnee, Oklahoma in 1953, operating the largest chain of drive-in restaurants in the United States.
Sonoma County, California
Sonoma County, California: Northern California wine county of 1,800 square miles with 19 AVAs, nearly 60,000 vineyard acres, 425+ wineries, known for Pinot Noir, Chardonnay, and Dry Creek Zinfandel.
Sopaipilla
Sopaipilla, also sopapilla, sopaipa, torta frita, or cachanga: a deep-fried flour pastry of Spanish-heritage America. Arrived with colonizers around 1700; central Chile adds pumpkin, sopaipillas pasadas soak fried rounds in chancaca syrup; New Mexico serves honey-drizzled or stuffed sopapillas.
Sophie Dahl
Sophie Dahl (born 1977, London) is an English author and former model, granddaughter of Roald Dahl; known for Miss Dahl's Voluptuous Delights, the BBC2 series The Delicious Miss Dahl, and the Madame Badobedah children's books.
Sophie Gradon
Sophie Gradon (Sophie Hannah Gradon, 1985–2018) was an English model, Miss Great Britain 2009 and Love Island series 2 (2016) contestant, part of the show's first same-sex couple with Katie Salmon; she died aged 32 in Ponteland.
Sorbet
Sorbet (Italian sorbetto, from Arabic sharbat) is a dairy-free frozen dessert of fruit juice or purée, water, and sugar, with 0% milk fat, distinct from sherbet, which contains dairy; typically 25–35% sugar, served as dessert or palate cleanser.
Soto (food)
Soto (also sroto, tauto, coto, saoto) is an Indonesian spiced soup of Chinese origin, known since the 19th century, with about 75 regional varieties; named one of Indonesia's five national dishes in 2018.
Soufflé
Soufflé, a French baked dish of a flavored base lightened with stiffly beaten egg whites that rises in the oven; savory or sweet; earliest recipes 1730s, perfected by Carême; deflates on serving.
Soul food
Soul food is the traditional African American cuisine originating with enslaved people of African ancestry in the American South; also called Southern food. Known for greens, black-eyed peas, fried chicken, cornbread, and 1960s naming tied to Black pride.
Soup
Soup: a primarily liquid food of meat, vegetables, or grains in stock, juice, or water, served warm or cold. Covers clear and thick types (broth, bisque, chowder, cream, purée), etymology, and the soup origin of the word restaurant.
Soup kitchen
A soup kitchen, also called a meal center, is a charitable or public institution serving free ready-to-eat meals, traditionally soup with bread, to needy people, widespread since the 1700s.
Sour (cocktail)
Sour (cocktail): a mixed drink of base spirit, citrus juice, and sugar, shaken and served cold; also called the sour family. Classic 2:1:1 ratio; first printed in Jerry Thomas's 1862 guide; includes Whiskey Sour, Daiquiri, Margarita, Pisco Sour, Sidecar.
Sour beer
Sour beer, also known as sour ale, is beer defined by high organic acid content from fermentation with bacteria such as Lactobacillus, giving a distinctly acidic taste.
Sour cream
Sour cream: cultured dairy product made by fermenting pasteurized, homogenized cream (18-20% fat in the US) with lactic acid bacteria to about 0.6% lactic acid; distinct from crème fraîche and German Saure Sahne.
Sour Grapes (2016 film)
Sour Grapes is a 2016 American documentary directed by Jerry Rothwell and Reuben Atlas about wine fraudster Rudy Kurniawan, billionaire Bill Koch, and Burgundy winemaker Laurent Ponsot.
Sour Patch Kids
Sour Patch Kids, also Mars Men, Very Bad Kids (France), Maynards Sour Patch Kids (UK/Canada): sour-then-sweet gummy candy created in Canada in the late 1970s, renamed in 1985, owned by Mondelēz International.
Sourdough
Sourdough is a flour-and-water fermentation of lactic acid bacteria and yeasts used as a natural leavening agent instead of baker's yeast, with pH 3.7-4.2, a roughly 100:1 bacteria-to-yeast ratio, and documented effects on bread flavor, shelf life, and protein digestibility.
Sous vide
Sous vide (French, "under vacuum") is a cooking method: vacuum-sealed food cooked in a precisely temperature-controlled water bath, typically 65–95 °C, developed in France in the 1960s and popularized by Georges Pralus and Bruno Goussault in 1974.
Sous-chef
Sous-chef, from French sous ("under"), is a professional kitchen's second-in-command who supervises cooks, reports to the head chef, and runs the kitchen in the chef's absence; a rank in the brigade system associated with Escoffier.
South African cuisine
South African cuisine is a blended set of cuisines from Khoisan, Bantu, Dutch, Cape Malay, Indian and British traditions, with dishes like bobotie, biltong, pap and bunny chow.
South African wine
South African wine, made almost entirely in the Western Cape since the first Cape vintage of 1659, is known for Chenin Blanc, the Pinotage crossing, the 1973 Wine of Origin scheme, and seventh-place world production at 4.5% of global volume.