The 8 Nerdiest Food Articles of 2013

This week, we're rounding up our favorite things of 2013: the prettiest, the funniest, and the nerdiest things on the internet this year.

Today: Curl up on the couch: here are our 8 favorite food geek reads this year.

In the end, after the roasts are out of the oven, the potatoes are mashed, the cakes are frosted and the cookies are cooled, we're all a bunch of nerds over here. We're constantly looking to learn new things: to delve into places in the food world with which we are unfamiliar, and to emerge with new knowledge and new jokes and new cocktail banter. 

So today, we're sharing with you our favorite scientific, historical, and anthropological articles about food from 2013; the pieces that were the most interesting, the most well-written, and the ones we'll reference for years to come.

• The Extraordinary Science of Addictive Junk Food (The New York Times Magazine)