Esquire: Over on the magazine’s “Eat Like a Man” blog there’s a slide show about monumental meals in fiction, with quick little essays on eight different literary scenes, from a pig feast in The Odyssey, to “a dish of sauerkraut with a slice of ham over the top and a sausage” in A Farewell to Arms, to barbecued horse in A Game of Thrones, wherein “they gorged themselves on horseflesh roasted with honey and peppers…. Drank themselves blind on fermented mare’s milk….” —James Ross Gardner

Nature: Mother always said, drink your milk and grow up big and strong. What Mother did not mention was, drink your milk and you can dominate whole continents and displace the weak. Andrew Curry reports on research showing that the high rate of lactase persistency in modern Europeans (read: drinking milk without stomach bombs) comes from a genetic mutation in Neolithic farmers, which gave them a huge evolutionary advantage that allowed them to survive over the other populations on the continent. Or, as I like to think of it: Make cattle, not war. —Angela Qian

Seattle Times: Many a restaurateur or, ahem, huge fast food chain for that matter, could learn a thing or two from our very own James Beard Award winner Tom Douglas. He was a leader in instituting healthcare for his employees, and now he’s upped the back of the house staff wages by 25 percent. I bet line cooks everywhere are toasting their Fernet to Tommy D this week. —Cassie Sawyer

National Geographic:  You may be surprised to discover that the grossest thing in the sewers of London is not a man-sized rodent, a whitewater rapids of bodily waste, or someone’s pet alligator.  It’s a collection of fatbergs: accretions of grease, oil, and fat that won’t wash away, instead congealing into huge balls of reeking fat that stalk the sewers like massive, drain-blocking monsters. Now they’ve found one the size of a school bus—15 tons of guck, presumably mostly from restaurants which are the biggest producers of grease. The lesson? Dispose of your grease without sending it down the drain. (The weirder lesson? Even a schoolbus-o-fat can be harnessed for the public good. You won’t believe what they’re doing with it.)  –Kathryn Robinson

McSweeney's: If you only learn one thing from this latest epic new-food roundup, it's that your life has been empty without Hot Chips and Cheese,  the convenience store's answer to Frito pie: "Hot Cheetos have this indescribable quality, like when you’re eating them it seems pretty obvious they could kill you. They taste so chemical and chalky and spicy, but spicy in a way that does not occur in nature, not like any actual spice, pepper or flavor that exists. They taste how a highlighter looks. Somehow, the warm yellow nacho cheese, equally chemical and the texture of melted plastic, is a welcome addition." Don't say you don't want to put that in your mouth. —Erica C. Barnett

Crain's Chicago Business: Some food truck owners in Chicago got candid about what it costs to actually launch one. There's the truck, yes. But also the insurance, the permits, the commissary fees, and costs like installing a fryer inside your truck, or paying someone to festoon it with eye-catching graphics that help draw customers. I'd love to know how these numbers stack up to Seattle. —Allecia Vermillion

The Atlantic: Brunch staple or loss leader? Here, an examination of the economics of the bottomless mimosa. Apparently I'm on a business kick this week. —AV