  |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Last Updated May 7, 2008 |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Welcome to Editor's Notebook and the world of food history. Here is where we post all the information that goes stale quickly in print. Come back weekly (at least). Here, too, you can read about your fellow subscribers to FHN. Be sure to page down for our conversations from the past two or so months. There are book comments at the bottom. If you have something to tell about, click on "Contact Us" above or right here at editor@foodhistorynews.com. I like hearing from you! Cheers -- Sandy Oliver. May 7, 2008 In this issue: The Spice Route. Gary, Ken, and Cannibalism. The Spice Route is one of several books on spices and their lore that have appeared in recent years. Written by John Keay, this is one from the University of California Press's California Studies in Food and Culture. I'll tell you, the guy has done his homework, and this book is a wickedly detailed piece of work on a mind-boggling topic. It is a rugged read, chock-full of unpronounceable nouns, and for those of us crippled by the American education system's weak preparation in world geography, a sentence like the following can reduce one to tears: "To Barygaza comes cotton-cloth from Minnagara (Mandasor in Saurashtra) plus, courtesy of the trade-minded Shatavahanas, great wagon-trains of onyx and muslins from 'two important marts' in Dakshinabades (the Deccan), name Paithana (Paithan) and Tafgara (Ter.). More Himalaya spices are brought down from as far as Poklaius (Charsudda, near Peshawar) by way of Ozene (Ujjain), 'which was previously a seat of government.' In fact it was the capital of western India under the emperor Chandragupta and his Mauryan successors." (pg. 65.) Right. Keay has clearly tackled some very difficult sources, dealt with names that change over time, in ancient, obscure documents written in ancient languages. There are maps though not every place name appears on them. I have worked myself, slowly through 113 pages of 256 of text. I have absolutely thrilled to relations of some early spice-trade-driven maritime history. I hope as I work my way through I will derive more from the later chapters where I already have a working matrix that I can fit some of this material into. It hasn't been easy so far. This book is not for sissies or the impatient. What I have learned so far is that the spice trade is much, much more ancient than we have previously imagined. That lots of things qualified in the trade besides pepper, ginger, and cloves, including incense, certain minerals, and cloth. That if you turn to even Roman and Greek sources for information about early spice trade, you can get in trouble because their information was pretty fuzzy; you have to look at much earlier stuff. Or at this book which does it for us. John Keay The Spice Route A History, California Studies in Food and Culture, 17, $40.00, hardcover 978-0-520-24896-0, available now. $16.95, paperback 978-0-520-25416-9, available now. http://www.ucpress.edu/books/pages/10668.php - 19.7kb Cannibalism is for many an unsavory topic. As co-editors Gary Allen and Ken Albala note in the introduction to a Human Cuisine, discussion of eating our fellow human beings is likely to prompt nervous laughter: "Jokes are, in part, a way of hiding real anxiety about touchy subjects," they write. Ken and Gary have managed to assemble an anthology that no publisher was brave enough to take on, so they plan to self-publish. Gary wrote: "Human Cuisine is an anthology of (mostly) new literary pieces about cannibalism. Short stories, essays, a poem, and part of a play explore different aspects of the subject treating it thoughtfully, playfully, frighteningly and sensitively. Approaches range from historical/mock historical, to Sci-Fi, and from memoir/confessional to sheer speculation. We were amazed by the quality and variety of works submitted. We've just seen the proofs, and were happy as those clams cited in the familiar proverb. You can find out more about the book at this website.
May 1, 2008 In this issue: Cornbread Nation4 is available. Further thoughts on digitizing cookbooks. Jellypress, a new blog.. North Carolina sprouts a culinary group. Cornbread Nation 4, the annual publication of Southern food writing generated by the University of Georgia Press and the Southern Foodways Alliance is available (at discount for members) with fifty-three essays edited by Dale Volberg Reed and John Shelton Reed. Among the highlights they are bragging on are: Edna Lewis on the joys of spring, Rick Bragg on the spirit of New Orleans, Hal Crowther attends the World Invitational Rib Championship, and Amy Evans' photographic essay of oystering in Apalachicola Bay. Lolis Eric Elie tells how post-Katrina New Orleans is, in the words of a local cook, "coming back through people's stomachs and their appetites." Molly O'Neill muses on the South's almost religious connection to sugar, Beth Ann Fennelly recalls a culinary North-meets-South moment that gave rise to a not-so-red velvet cake. Jack Hitt searches for the soul of low-country food along the South Carolina back roads. Matt and Ted Lee observe a cook at work on a chicken purloo, a dish as African as it is American and there are Recipes for roux, braised collard greens, doberge cake, and other dishes. If you want to acquire the book, check here. Some facts: ISBN 0820330892, paper, $17.95, 6 x 9 1/4 in., 16 b&w photos. Further thoughts on digitizing: Sarah Uthoff wrote to say, "Technology people tend to focus way too much on CAN something be done and not nearly enough on SHOULD something be done which is an important question although it's often shouted down." She observed that most material scanned today are out of copyright, "so sharing the information anyway possible to the largest group of people possible is of itself ethical." Sarah would have a problem with it if material was not out of copyright and "someone posted someone else's work without permission (which happens all the time online)." Or if the original was "substantially changed, damaged, or destroyed" during digitizing, usually not a problem with digital scanning, though in the past when micro-filiming was the current technology, some books, magazines and newspapers were sliced and diced to make process easier. Another thing that would give her a problem was "If somebody changed, edited, or selectively scanned a book without explaining exactly what was left out and why." She identifies the biggest danger as "when people assume both that everything is available online and that everything available online is free. Scanning, especially done well, costs time and money both initially and to keep it up. If people think everything is online they will assume anything not there doesn't exist (I could tell you a few non-food related horror stories about that, that have cost reputations, lives, and money) and that keeping up physical collections is no longer necessary." Sarah says we have to be sure to educate people about these issues, but they may not justify not digitizing material. Jellypress: Old Recipes, Modern Life is a blog that Laura Schenone (The Lost Ravioli Recipes of Hoboken: A Search for Food and Family, recently published by W.W. Norton) sent news about because it has picked up her "Not to Be Forgotten Recipe Project" that she set down in order to write and raise her family. The blog can be found at this url http://www.jellypress.com/#1 and is a charming place to visit. Laura says, "My partner in this venture is Nancy Gail Ring, whom I met years ago when she was a food history columnist at the Star Ledger." Nancy also is a book author, former pastry chef, artist and painter. The blog features "Antique Recipe Road Show" where readers ask or help answer "old recipe" questions and there's a column called "Masher," where Laura says, "we'll mouth off a bit. In North Carolina, a new culinary (history?) group has apparently sprouted up. Someone, who won't tell me about themselves wrote, "Please consider listing a new group in North Carolina, named Food Heritage of North Carolina. We are a creative and diverse community based group, whose purpose is a return to North Carolina regional home-style cooking: its history, traditions, stories and recipes. We meet on Saturdays on varied dates and times. at the Durham Downtown Library, 3rd floor Conference Room, 300 N. Roxboro St. Durham, NC. We invite all to our welcome table. (We've got much more than barbecue on our plate.) For more information regarding future meetings, e-mail us at foodheritageofnc@gmail.com." So if you go to one of the meetings will you report back to us? April 23, 2008 In this issue: Psyche's Food Studies Workshop. Food Cultures and History. Ken's Beans. Liz Driver's Bibliography. Digitized Cookbooks. Psyche Williams-Forson, food studies scholar and author of Building Houses Out of Chicken Legs: Black Women, Food, & Power (2006) will lead a food studies research workshop on May 16, 5-8 pm (abstracts due Apr. 25) at a location at UC Davis, California (exact location TBA). Join them for an evening of conversation about new and emerging work in the field of food studies.(Dinner included.) Interested persons may submit a one or two page abstract of a food studies project in which they are engaged. Dr. Williams-Forson will read abstracts in advance of the workshop and will offer comments on a limited number of them, as well as lead our discussion. This is an opportunity for scholars (graduate students and beyond) to have an in-depth discussion of their work and methodologies. Abstracts should be sent via e-mail to Kimberly D. Nettles - kdnettles@ucdavis.edu. Participation preference will be given to those involved in the Davis Humanities Institute's Critical Studies in Food and Culture cluster. Here is how to participate. Interested persons should submit an expanded abstract, no more than two (2) single-spaced pages, of a project they are in the midst of conceptualizing, researching, and/or writing within the field of food studies. This is an opportunity for scholars (graduate students and beyond) to have an in-depth discussion about their work and the methodologies/approaches they find useful to examining various aspects of food and foodways. Dr. Williams-Forson will read the abstracts in advance of the workshop and will offer comments on individual's work as well as lead our discussion. A limited number of participants will be accepted in order to allow time to work through some of the best ways to unpack the myriad issues surrounding new and emerging work in the field. European Institute of Food Cultures and History - Summer University's 2008 Theme is "Food Exchanges in History: People, Products, and Ideas." The Institute will be held in Tours, France on Aug. 31 - Sept. 7, 2008. For the full program, the application form, and all further information see the website. Ken Albala has won the Jane Grigson Award for Beans: A History, published by Berg Publishers in 2007. The award was announced at the 2008 IACP (International Association of Culinary Professionals) Awards Ceremony, on Friday, April 18 in New Orleans. Commenting on the award, Ken Albala said, "Thanks to all the people at Berg," after all, we always have to be grateful to publishers, "to the great libraries where I did the research like the Clements in Ann Arbor, MI and the Schlesinger in Cambridge, MA and others in Europe, and thanks to the Culinary Trust and the University of the Pacific for funding the research. This book was an absolute blast to write, no pun intended." This award is the same one, BTW, that yours truly won for Saltwater Foodways. IACP's The Jane Grigson Award honors distinguished scholarship and depth of research in food books and is named in honor of the British cookery writer Jane Grigson who had a great interest in history and traditional food, and its relevance to modern cookery. Liz Driver's grand bibliography Culinary Landmarks: a blbliography of Canadian cookbooks 1825 to 1949 is due out Monday, April 28 with a launch at Heliconian Hall in Toronto, Ontario. It is published by University of Toronto Press, and will be available though independent bookstores. ISBN 978-0-8020-4790-8. Contact utpbooks@utpress.utoronto.ca or visit www.utppublishing.com. Mary Williamson wrote me to say, "Fiona Lucas," a co-founder of Culinary Historians of Ontario, "and I, and a few others, are planning a symposium in 2009 in honour of Liz Driver's bibliography. It is a marvel of scholarship, and a very worthy model for culinary bibliography. Liz has compiled biographies of authors and companies -- many for Canadian editions of American cookbooks. Her introductions and entries are exhaustive. Alan Davidson wrote the initial Introduction a year before he died, and he was hugely impressed. It's a large book: 2276 entries, 1257 pages, illustrations, maps, full indexes. I hope it receives the recognition it deserves. Booksellers, alas, are already jacking up their prices." Digitized cookbooks available online came up in an email I had recently from Lynn Nelson, proprietor of Kitchen Garden Books & Antiques [The Artful Old, Odd & Unusual, Fine Volumes, Cuisine & Horticulture, 24357 US Hwy 331 South, Santa Rosa Beach, Florida 32459, kitchengarden@mchsi.com, 850.622.1077.] Lynn asked what I thought about the ethics of digitizing so much culinary material formerly available only in print. Here is my reply: "So many of them have already been scanned and are available on-line. On the plus side is that they are available to people (like me) who are geographically isolated from culinary collections in libraries, and by the young who greatly prefer to turn to the Internet for information. Usually, the Internet is more comfortable to use than microfilm. I find I can spend more time reading on a monitor than I ever could using the microfilm machines. Another consideration is preservation: old, fragile material not being handled so much...An awful lot of us who do culinary history are grateful for all this easy access to the books, and, I suspect, increasingly to manuscripts, too. Libraries will continue to collect old volumes, and so will people older than 55 who continue to prefer paper, and of course, collectors will, too. You know, it all happened so quickly." I wonder what some of you think? April 11, 2008 In this issue: On-line Culinary Exhibits. Smoke and Fire. Money for Food Historians. On-line culinary exhibits are informative, fun, and don't require the expenditure of gas to get to them. From time to time I have bumped into these sites and been charmed. I kept thinking, oh, dear, I really ought to make a section on the resources page for these Worthy Websites. Thank goodness Jason Young, who describes himself as a disciple of Jan Longone at the Clements Library has done the work of listing what is out there on his blog called Food in the Library, Culinary Exhibits Online. Jason writes that the list was originally prepared for the University of Pennsylvania Rare Books Library. He identifies "digital, publicly accessible exhibitions through which institutions such as libraries, museums and archives contribute to the study of food and society." Jason used two resources, A Selective Guide to Culinary Library Collections in the United States, by the late Madge Griswold, and Library and Archival Exhibitions on the Web, managed by Diane Shaw at the Smithsonian. When you visit the site, if you notice he has missed any exhibitions, feel free to use the comments section of the blog to let him know about it. I have to tell you that I was so glad to see Madge Griswold's work in use. Her death late last year was a loss to us all. Her Guide ought to be a bookmark for you. The Smoke and Fire Company has sent out its 2008-2009 catalog and I have to say I was glad to receive a copy because it reminded me that they usually carry items of interest to food history types. They have a collection of pottery mugs and porringers, a copper tea kettle, half-gallon and two gallon brass kettles, green glass bottles, wooden ware, as well as clothing, clothing patterns, cookbooks (but not a high quality selection), and all kinds of other historic reproduction stuff. Their website is www.smoke-fire.com. Or you can phone them 800-766-5334, or write even, Smoke and Fire Company, 27 N. River Rd., Waterville, OH, 43566. Money for food historians! Annually, the Culinary Historians of New York award their $1000 Amelia Scholar's Grant to a student or scholar with a current, well-developed project in culinary history. The grant is merit-based and unrestricted. Creativity and scholarship are the main criteria; projects addressing New York's culinary history are encouraged, but the grant is not limited to such topics. Applications are due May 31st. For more information and an application form, visit this website. April 3, 2008 In this issue: America Eats material surfaces in Plymouth. Eating Dessert this weekend in the Midwest. Let's hear it for small local culinary history groups. Culinary Landmarks launch. America Eats! was on the front page of the new Food History News and it jogged Paula Marcoux's memory of some papers she thought she had. Paula works at Plimoth Plantation and even though these days mostly she works on the Mayflower, she is a die-hard foodie and used to head the foodways program there. She called me up and asked me how to reach Pat Willard who wrote the FHN article, and bless her, Pat got back in touch right away. Paula told me, "I just got some boxes of books out of storage, and came across a file of articles written by Marion G. Goddette (and Hedwig von Dembinska), for Katharine Kellock at the WPA. The file folder reads 'Massachusetts Cook Book, Non-essential, Mass. W.P.A. Writers' Project, Jan. 15, 1942', but only some of the material relates to Massachusetts, and all of the typescripts are dated 1938. Judging from letters included in the file, the material was destined for a "Literary Cook Book" which seems to have aborted when Miss Goddette was transferred to the "Rights of Man". Paula continued, "The reason I mention storage is to justify my lack of memory of provenance for this file, but judging by other materials I had stored with it, I believe it to have been the product of my dumpster-diving following an office-cleaning here at Plimoth Plantation. Our Plantation archives are already over-loaded, so it seems likely that someone was divesting of non-PP materials." Goodness knows over time how much material stayed in dumpsters and is now lost, which is exactly why we are trying to raise consciousness about the project. Paula reports that Pat got back to her right away with the names of Library of Congress librarians who have been dealing with the WPA stuff. They are going to eat dessert this Saturday, April 5 in Chicago as the Greater Midwest Foodways Alliance holds their all-day "Sweets: A Journey Through Midwestern Dessert Traditions," at Kendall College, 900 North Branch Street. They say, "Enjoy a day learning about: The influential role of the railroad and immigrant populations in bringing new desserts to the Midwest and establishing them as traditions, Abraham Lincoln's favorite dessert, the blue-ribbon pie traditions of county fairs, including unusual, lost recipes such as bean pie and sugar-cream pie, the cooking of late 19th-century Michigan, as described in the autobiography of Della Lutes, the role of Midwestern food companies in creating much-loved home dessert recipes such as the French Silk Pie, Tunnel of Love cake and Princess Brownies, the humble Midwest origins of many internationally known candies, candy bars and other treats, such as the Heath Bar, dessert traditions completely unique to the Midwest, including the Wisconsin Kringle and the Mennonite-German Pfeffernusse." Featured speakers are Robyn Mather Jenkins and Donna Pierce from the Chicago Tribune, in addition to a host of other dynamic Midwest food academics, culinary historians and cookbook authors. Lectures, interactive discussions and, of course, delicious tastings throughout the day that will help illustrate the ideas discussed. The cost is $50 in advance, or $60 at the door, with refreshments and lunch included. To register, call (847) 432-8255, visit the website or by credit card: http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/29929. Program schedule is at http://www.greatermidwestfoodways.com/sweets.htm Let's hear it for small culinary history groups, too. I think it is terrific that we have groups like the Southern Foodways Alliance and the Greater Midwest Foodways Alliance. SFA does wonderful work - their oral history projects are absolutely terrific, and their symposium is a real knock-out. GMFA is off to a decent start, and I have hopes that they can eventually avoid crippling internal politics to develop into a really worthwhile organization. I also treasure every small group that comes along. We hear rumors of a new one in Seattle, WA, and another in Atlanta, GA. This is a good thing. SFA is expensive, lush, and needs Jack Daniels and White Lily Flour money to keep going. An Atlanta culinary historian group will need only its members and a place to meet. These small groups do a terrific job of keeping members interested and learning, they are convivial and fun, and often have terrific publications. Not everyone has to go around sucking up to corporations to keep the food history field moving forward. March 27, 2008 In this issue: Corti Brothers & Mrs. Beeton's Marmalade. Helen Tangires's Public Markets. Spaghetti Banquet. Berg's American Foodways Press. Corti Brothers is specialty food and wine market and a mail order business in Sacramento, California. Current owner Darrell Corti is a long time subscriber to Food History News, and kindly sponsored an issue. His interest in the best of the past is evident once again in the recent newsletter that offers Capital Vintage Marmalade which Corti Brothers makes using Mrs. Isabella Beeton's 1866 recipe and Seville oranges, sugar and water, and "nothing else." Darrell writes that it improves with age, becoming mellower and the batch for sale now was made in 2005. Too cool. Helen Tangires's book, Public Markets is published by W. W. Norton, as one in a series of Library of Congress Visual Sourcebooks Series that also includes canals, lighthouses, theatres, barns, and bridges. Of course, as far as we are concerned this is a work of food history because feeding city populations is what the markets are all about. The contents include illustrations, photographs, drawings, maps and posters from around the world. As the book notice says, "public markets persist as the most enduring form of global, urban food exchange and a strong sense of tradition continues to inform their architecture and design." Helen is a member of the Culinary Historians of Washington, to whom she spoke on the work in this book. She wrote Public Markets and Civic Culture in Nineteenth Century America and is the administrator of the Center for Advances Study in the Visual Arts at the National Gallery of Art in Washington. The details: Public Markets, Helen Tangires, 336 pages, illustratons 850 bw, price is $75.00 ISBN 978-0-393-73167-5. Available on April 4. Spaghetti Banquet: this is the name applied to a dish made in the early 20th century by the family of one of my neighbors. Some time ago, she asked me if I knew anything about the dish, and though I have kept my eyes peeled for such a thing, I can't say I have seen it yet. It doesn't hurt to ask you all, though. Here's the recipe. My friend is beginning to think that maybe this is an item unique to her family. It would have been made by her grandmother, fondly remembered by a son, and never quite replicated by a daughter-in-law. SPAGHETTI BANQUET 1 can tomato paste (small size) American Foodways Press is dedicated to "dedicated to the preservation of twentieth and twenty-first century American social and cultural history of food" and are actively seeking new manuscripts in the field of food studies. You can visit their website to get a feel for what they are doing, and while there check out the 2008 forthcoming titles. I was particularly glad to see that Mark Sohn has a new book: this one Bourbon: A Kentucky Tradition. Weather Report: My daffodils are up, even though most of the garden is trapped under an ice sheet. We finished smoking the hams and bacons and had a boiled ham for Easter dinner. So good. I am beginning to notice that the potatoes are sending out sprouts, but am glad to say that they are a little delayed this year - by this time other years, I have already snapped sprouts off at least once. We are eating the last cabbage, and the onions are holding up well. Still a few more apples. My only complaint is another bad cold that knocked me out for four days this week. March 19, 2008 In this issue: Gelatin conversation. Cynthia Clampett likes Aspic, too. Joy of Recipe Research Workshop. FHN75 struggles toward publication. I've had a gelatin conversation this week with a nice man named Ken Belsen referred to me by Lynne Belluscio at the Jell-o Museum . Ken wanted to know why Jell-o caught on so much in the first two years of its existence. It was really wonderful for cooks to make molded without having to mess with calves feet. As we talked, I began to realize that Jell-o came along in the midst of a perfect storm of declining household help, widespread use of artificial refrigeration (ice boxes and ice harvesting) a growing middle class who really wanted to aspire to molded dishes. He wondered if there was any other single product that took off the way Jell-o did, and frankly I couldn't think of one at least not in the first half of the 20th century. TV dinners? Maybe olive oil. Maybe one of you has an idea. An aspic mention here last week prompted our own Cynthia Clampitt to get in touch. She likes the stuff, too, and in fact, had written a column on it. For the occasion she developed a Salsa Fresca Aspic. What a good idea. Simply done with a package of gelatin, a half cup of broth or tomato juice and a cup and a half of salsa fresca, boughten or homemade. Brilliant. What do you think of a Joy of Recipe Research Workshop? I am working up a curriculum for a three day (at least) workshop on doing historical recipe research. It will be a real hands-on how-to-do-it with participants choosing a recipe in advance that they wish to learn about, then doing the research both on-line and in historic cookery books. I will talk about secondary and primary sources, which ones to trust, how to find them, how to analyze the information and organize it to develop a narrative about the dish you are interested in. Now, I would love to do a trial run but I need students who would actually consider coming here to Maine to my house for May 14,15,16 (if no one can come in May, I would try for July 9, 10, 11). If you get yourself here, I will find you places to stay, and you can take the workshop for no cost. If you think you might be interested, email me at editor@foodhistorynews.com. FHN75 has been plagued with problems, poor little issue. First it was the Mars Corporation's last minute refusal to let me print the article Deanna wrote, then we had to butcher our pigs, then I picked Brunswick Stew, of all things, to work on, then the delay while it is proofread and the changes made, then egad, another delay before it went to the printer, and then, if you can believe it - the printer didn't have the paper even though I called them to let them know Food History News was coming….When the paper did come, it was all in 8.5x11 and no 11x17. Grrr. So I pick it up tomorrow. Grumble. In the mail this weekend, God willing. March 12, 2008 In this issue: Virginia food history lecture and field trip. Pasties revived. The United States of Arugula. A symposium on Virginia food history in honor of the Jamestown 400th anniversary was horribly interrupted last spring by the shootings at Virginia Tech. Planned for the weekend after the terrible event, it was cancelled. Fortunately our friends at the Va. Tech Newman Library in Blacksburg have scheduled for this spring related lectures and a field trip. Cynthia Bertelsen Chair of Peacock-Harper Culinary History Friends writes, "This year, on March 28 and May 22-23, we are holding two culinary history lectures and a field trip, respectively on Civil War rations and the production of Virginia hams." "Civil War Rations: A Test of Endurance" with Dr. James I. Robertson, Jr. Dr. Robertson will discuss the harsh conditions that confronted soldiers every day at meal time and what this meant for them and the causes they fought for. Registration fee: $30, last day to register March 23. On Friday, March 28, 2008, 12:00 Noon, at the Holiday Inn University, 900 Prices Fork Road, Blacksburg, VA, it will be "The Romance of Virginia Ham: History and Production" with Sam W. Edwards, III, owner of Edwards Virginia Hams, producer of highly renowned Virginia hams. Then on Thursday evening, May 22 and Friday, May 23, 2008, 9:30 a.m. our Sam Edwards's Virginia ham processing facility in Surry, Virginia, and see the production techniques used in the creation of Virginia's wonderful hams. Cynthia writes, "On the evening prior to Mr. Edwards's talk and tour, savor a dinner at the Kings Arms Tavern and a restful night at the Hospitality House in Colonial Williamsburg. Cross the James River on the ferry that started Mr. Edwards grandfather in the Virginia ham business: Sam's grandmother prepared ham biscuits for the passengers, and they were so popular that the Edwards Virginia ham business grew into the business that it is today. Lunch will be at the Surrey House in Surry after the talk and tour." There is a $15 registration fee plus $25 (refundable) fee to hold a seat at the dinner to be held at The King's Arms Tavern in Williamsburg, Virginia on May 22. Lodging and meal information and registration at these websites. Go to http://www.culinarycollection.org or http://spec.lib.vt.edu/Culinary. Pasties get attention this week in the New York Times. Ah, yes, the more things change the more they etc. etc. I keep saying the past is full of good ideas. In fact, the not so distant past is, too. We will, by the way, have an article on pasty history in a future FHN. I have been reading The United States of Arugula about how, between now and the time I was a mere child, the U.S. managed to discover sun dried tomatoes, drink olive oil, discover mache, arugula, and baby greens, and get past Almaden. It has been a nice stroll through the 20th century with all the prime movers - James Beard, Julia Child, Alice Waters, Craig Claiborne, Pierre Franey and for me an eye-opening look at my own food history. My first cook book was a James Beard basic how to cook everything, a dog-eared little number now missing its front cover and part of the index. A few years ago I picked up the New York Times Cookbook that came out when I was in middle school. I was dubbing around in it and bumped up against the hamburger potato roll that Claiborne said was the most requested recipe that the Times ever ran. I tried it and took it to my friends Jean and Bill for supper last night. You know, it was really delicious-but I have to say I jacked up the seasonings quite a bit. In 1961 a quarter of a teaspoon of oregano, or basil or rosemary plus salt and pepper, and one small clove of garlic was supposed to suffice. Amazing to me how far we have come. I don't plan to drink Almaden ever again, but what about cream cheese and olive sandwiches? What about tomato aspic? If someone makes a tomato aspic and brings it to a potluck in our community, it vanishes in a hurry. These were de rigueur only forty years ago. They still taste good. How short our memories are. The U.S. of Arugula: How We Became a Gourmet Nation, by David Kamp, (New York: Broadway Books, 2006) is, as a review in the current issue of Food, Culture and Society, reports, a bit gossipy, and characterized by "a more general cheerleader-like approach towards America's food progress." Nonetheless I think it is a worthwhile read for anyone interested in food history. If you are forty or over, it will be an revealing look at your own personal food history, and if you are younger, it will clue you in on what it took to pull into the mainstream things you take for granted. March 5, 2008 In this issue: Colonial Burlington Cookery. SoFAB Grand Opening. Classic Culinary Literature at Auction. Vintage Volumes. Second Greater Midwest Food Alliance Gathering. Colonial Burlington Cookery: A Book of Receipts is the title of a little volume assembled by our own Mercy Ingraham and Sue Huesken. This previously unpublished manuscript belonging to Polly Burling dated April 1770 is a nice snapshot of colonial New Jersey gentry foodways with its pickles, puddings and cakes and sprinkling of remedies. The authors organized the book's pages so that an image of a manuscript page appears on the right and on the left page is a transcription of the recipes. Thirteen recipes have been redacted for modern cooks, though as Sue and Mercy point out, historic cooks will have no trouble following the original directions. Additional material includes a list of kitchen items from a 1772 inventory, advice on recreating historic dishes, bibliography, and an essay on Polly Burling's world. Personally, I love seeing manuscript stuff like this come to light. Mercy sells the book, published with the kind permission and assistance of the Burlington County Historical Society, on her website. It is 54 pages long, sells for $12.00 per copy, plus $2.00 for postage. Payment with either personal check or money order is acceptable, and can be sent to: Mercy Ingraham, 2 Water Street, Hulmeville, PA 19047. Vendors who want to buy in quantities of six or more copies may contact Sue Huesken for wholesale cost and arrangements at www.ranmer33@Verizon.net, or by phoning her at 856-461-3399. The Southern Food and Beverage Museum (SoFAB) will celebrate a grand opening of its new home in the Riverwalk Marketplace in New Orleans on June 7, 2008. The museum was founded in 2004, dedicated to "the discovery, understanding and celebration of the food, drink and related culture of the South." So far they have launched the Menu Project, a collection of menus from the South and from restaurants serving southern food throughout the U.S. and the world. They have had exhibits: "Toast of New Orleans," "Tout de Sweet - All about Sugar," and "Restaurant/Restorative." The opening exhibits will include "Laissez Faire-Savoir Fare," the cuisine of Louisiana and New Orleans, "Eating in the White House - America's Food," featuring the food in the White House with an emphasis on the kitchens and chefs, and also "Wish You Were Here," a private collection of postcards depicting African-Americans and food which has never before been displayed. SoFAB is looking for members. Discounted memberships will be available until the June opening, and will be valid for a year after opening. In June, memberships will be available at the regular price of $50.00 for an Individual Membership. Check the website. Classic American and English culinary literature will go on auction at Swann Galleries in New York, on April 7. Eighteenth and nineteenth century items predominate in the second section of the sale. Earlier material is featured in the first part, but readers of Food History News are likely to be more interested in the second part described below. The press release says this about what will be available. Provided by The Fillin & Yeh Collection of Gastronomic Literature, the collection comprises 114 lots in ranging from nearly 50 pre-1800 works to inscribed first editions by M. F. K. Fisher, with an emphasis on 18th- and 19th-century English and American culinary classics. Highlights include Patrick Lamb, Royal Cookery; or, The Complete Court-Cook, London, 1710, first edition, by the cook to 3 English monarchs ($4000/6000); Hannah Glasse, The Art of Cookery, Made Plain and Easy, one of the most popular English cookbooks of the 18th century, here in both the 1747 London first edition ($8000/12,000) and the 1805 Alexandria (Virginia) first American edition ($1000/2000); Amelia Simmons, American Cookery, Walpole, New Hampshire, 1812, later edition of the first cookbook by an American author ($2000/3000); Mary Randolph, The Virginia Housewife, Baltimore, 1836, a Southern classic and the first American regional cookbook ($400/600); Isabella Beeton, The Book of Household Management, London, 1861, first edition in book form of the bestselling English cookbook of the Victorian era ($1000/2000); Esther Levy, Jewish Cookery Book, Philadelphia, 1871, first edition of the first American Jewish cookbook; and M. F. K. Fisher, Serve It Forth, New York, 1937, first edition of Fisher's first book, inscribed to Lucille and Walter Fillin ($600/900). A selection of later 19th-/early 20th-century American charity cookbooks features Maria J. Moss, A Poetical Cook-Book, Philadelphia, 1864, the first American fundraising cookbook, and Hattie A. Burr, The Woman Suffrage Cook Book, Boston, 1886, apparently the earliest suffragist fundraising cookbook ($400/600 each). For further information, and to make advance arrangements to bid by telephone during the auction, please contact Tobias Abeloff at (212) 254-4710, extension 18, or via email at tabeloff@swanngalleries.com. I have to say, I never have hankered to own rare old cookbooks. I can be made very happy indeed with reprints, and can put up with microfilm or on-line digitized versions. It certainly is cost effective. Vintage cookbooks on-line in PDF (which has got to be the slowest possible way to download anything) are available to be seen at this link sent to us by our own Betsy Hedler at Ohio Historical. Those archivists are so busy sharing stuff, bless them. One of the featured cookbooks is the Betty Crocker Cookbook for Boys and Girls. I personally own a 1950s-something version of that that my mom gave me, and it, too, had pigs in blankets, three men in a boat, and ice cream cone cakes. I have to tell you, I was entranced by the offerings, most of which I was not encouraged to try. Our family cookery was a good deal more prosaic. Greater Midwest Food Alliance is getting themselves fired up for another terrific event. Save April 5th. Catherine Lambrecht writes, "Building on the success of its inaugural event," on sausages and hot dogs, "the GMFA will talk about "Sweets and Desserts! A Journey through Midwestern Traditions." Kendall College in Chicago is the site of the day long symposium jointly sponsored by The Almond Board, Culinary Historians of Chicago and Kendall College. Catherine says, "Rolled out in a one day event, packed with sweet history, experts will spin tales about the sugary world of candy making and spread the sweet secrets of home baked treats. Also, the origins of confection giants will be revealed. Food enthusiasts from academia and the public are invited to attend the symposium at Kendall, 900 North Branch (west of Halsted), Chicago, Illinois, on Saturday, April 5th from 9 AM to 4 PM. For more details and agenda, visit www.greatermidwestfooways.com (soon to be updated) or contact Catherine Lambrecht at 847-432-8255. For registration by phone, call 847/432-8255 or by email, write to greatermidwestfooways@gmail.com. Registration is $50. Admission at the door is $60. Lunch is included in the program. With nut samples available throughout the day, GMFA is sorry, but those individuals with nut allergies are discouraged from attending this event." February 26, 2008 In this issue: FHN75 goes to layout. Brunswick Stew miscellany. Food and War in Europe. More Hercules and Hemings. FHN75, after a protracted effort, finally went off this very morning to be laid out by our own Lynda Clancy. I thought I'd never finish that sucker. I first worried I wouldn't have enough words, then I had too many, so was wrestling the number down at the same time new ideas about Brunswick stew occurred to me. Also, we have a nice essay from Pat Willard about using America Eats! material, and the insights she gained when she followed up on the Depression Era work. John Rees has held forth on breakfast among the Revolutionary soldiers--fascinating stuff. Brunswick stew: The descendant of all stewy-soupy things, B. stew took a path all its own sometime in the fifty years after its so-called invention in 1828. The only thing resembling the first one and later editions was the squirrels and onions in them. Sometime before 1870s someone dumped a succotash in it, along with tomatoes. The squirrels left in the early 1900s and chickens prevailed where before they were considered a co-equal substitution. There are versions with beef and pork to be found among Georgia cooks, and over in Kentucky it evolved into a burgoo. As I poked around, I found a few good things. I liked this website very much, The New Georgia Encyclopedia, on line. In the foodways part of the folklife section is a good modern on-line reference written by John A. Burrison, of Georgia State University, in April 2005. Burrison knows what he is talking about. He makes recommendations for further reading, Joseph E. Dabney, Smokehouse Ham, Spoon Bread, and Scuppernong Wine: The Folklore and Art of Southern Appalachian Cooking (Nashville, Tenn.: Cumberland House, 1998) and additional resources, specifically "Brunswick Stew: A Virginia Treasure," a video produced and directed by Stan Woodward (Greenville, S.C.: Woodward Studio, 1998). Then, too, I took the opportunity to check in with a couple of Southerners I know, Damon Fowler in Georgia and Nancy Carter Crump in Virginia. Damon wrote back extensively. I quote him in part here: I would have said that the essential of modern Brunswick Stew wasn't chicken, but pork. {most Georgians say that] It almost always has chicken in it … but at least in the Georgia version, it's always pork based, although Housekeeping in Old Virginia (1879) has about five recipes for it and only one of them contains pork ("bacon"--probably meaning brined pork). One is beef based and the others are squirrel or chicken. That said, Mrs. Dull has three recipes; the first is pork (a whole hog's head), the second is veal and chicken, the third, called "Family Brunswick Stew" (it's a smaller home version) chicken only. Tomatoes, butterbeans, corn and potatoes are quintessential for Brunswick Stew. Mrs. Dull had okra in her first version, but that's the only recipe I've ever seen with it. Her other recipes are more standard. I don't know anyone who doesn't use onions, too. The argument is over whether it originated in Virginia or Georgia. I think probably Virginia is where the name originated. The oldest printed recipe I've ever seen for it was called Camp Stew (Mrs. Hill, 1867). It had all the essential elements. Damon is revising his wonderful Classical Southern Cooking and is working on a book about Savannah, too. Nancy Carter Crump whose revised Hearthside Cooking is going to be published by Univ. of No. Carolina Press, observed that Brunswick stew in Virginia is a "southside" dish - that is, made on the south side of the James River. She grew up on the Northern neck and never remembers eating it as a child. I am sure we can get all kinds of wound up over B. Stew and burgoo, too. I'll be mighty interested in the reaction. "Food and War in Europe in the 19th and 20th Centuries" is the theme for the Eleventh Symposium International Commission for Research into European Food History set for September 2009 in Paris, France. They have issued a Call for papers, which are due March 31, 2008. Further information about the Symposium can be found in the forthcoming ICREFH Newsletter for Spring 2008. To request a copy if you are not normally on the ICREFH mailing list, please email p.j.atkins@durham.ac.uk. This is what the organizers say: The aim of the Symposium is to shed some light on the question of how wars and food are related to each other and how they are intertwined. How did the special circumstances of war lead to the development of new eating and drinking customs and patterns? How did it help to promote new foods or to replace others? How did war help new consumption patterns to develop? Did war provoke the development of gendered eating styles, did it stabilize male and female consumption patterns or did it destabilize them? What long-term effects of wartime foods on public health can be observed in Europe? Did governments try to learn from these experiences and did war influence health policy after the end of war(s)? All of these questions make interesting topics for contributions. The Symposium hopes to create a perspective of comparison within Europe. "Hercules and Hemings" aired last week on Public Radio in honor of Presidents Day, a Kitchen Sister's production. This link takes you to more stuff. February 18, 2008 In this issue: Hercules and Hemings in the White House. Call for Proposals: Food and Faith "Hercules and Hemings: African American Chefs in the Presidents Kitchen" will be aired tomorrow, Tuesday, February 19 on NPR by the Kitchen Sisters. Hercules cooked for George Washington, and James Hemings was Thomas Jefferson's cook. Both were slaves. According to a bit of PR sent out the piece will also be available online after the initial airing at www.hiddenkitchens.org. Our own Leni Sorenson is the Font of Kitchen Sisters' Knowledge at Monticello. Food and Faith: Consumption in the Christian Tradition, 1500 to the Present will be a new collection of essays edited by Ken Albala and Trudy Eden who are seeking proposals. They wish to "explore how traditional or innovative dietary practices or food habits have expressed the Christian faith on both sides of the Atlantic." The chapters will cover but will not necessarily limited to the ways Christian adherents have
Ken writes, "We invite submissions from various disciplinary, interdisciplinary, and comparative perspectives, focusing on individuals, single sects, or groups. If you are interested in contributing to this volume, please send your c.v and a 250-500 word abstract of your proposed chapter including your theoretical framework and your primary sources to Trudy.Eden@uni.edu and Kalbala@pacific.edu by April 1, 2008. /p> February 12, 2008 In this issue: Hamburgers and Hot Dogs. FHN75. Weather report includes endive. Hamburgers and hot dogs have histories, too, and though I spend a fair amount of time gnashing my teeth about the garbage written about them, I know that these along with ketchup, Twinkies, chocolate cookies and Coca Cola are what most Americans have in common with each other and the history of them interest a great many people. Delving into the history clam chowder, grits, or pasties leaves out a lot of people while tickling the fancies of New Englanders, Southerners, or anyone from Minnesota or Montana, respectively. Hamburgers are on display at this website together with some of the background information on them, such of which looks fairly good. Keep your salt shaker handy, but it is a field guide to the predominant sorts. Hotdogs have their own site, too, less a history than field guide, too. The American Museum of Natural History put up this exhibit at their food court to go with an exhibit on baseball on from March to August 2002. You can still see the exhibit named "Ten Legendary Franks From Ballparks And Cities Around The U.S. For Visitors To Savor" on line. Two examples are Texas Corndogs and Rochester White Hots, but there are also Fenway Franks and a foot-long number from the West Coast. FHN75 is gradually emerging. I'll probably be sorry, but for Joy of Historical Cooking, I thought I would demonstrate how I do my recipe research by looking up Brunswick stew. (Truth be known, Joy of Cooking always makes me sorry---I never have enough time/space/ambition to track down every fragment of known material on the topic of the quarter.) Of course, I am having fun - there are some surprising things out there, and I promise to share. But you will have to buy a subscription. Weather Report. We are having a fine snowy winter, as are many of you in the northern tier of states. It could snow every other day, as far as I am concerned. It has been cold enough the last couple days that Millie (the cat) has developed the habit of crawling into bed with me, even under the covers. As you may know, we heat the house with wood, and Millie wakes up in front of the living room stove around 3 in the morning and wonders what ever happened to the heat, trots upstairs and wakes me up trying to paw her way under the blanket and comforter past my nose. For the first time, Jamie and I have grown endive for the purpose of those lovely little chicon that sprout up from the root. We didn't do many, but one bucket of four turned up the most lovely little sprouts, silky white and chartreuse green. Divine. We ate them raw. We are now monitoring the second sprouting which will give us salad material or perhaps greens for braising. All this is happening in the bathroom closet because it is warm and dark in there, our cellar is way too cold. January 31, 2008 In this issue: Oxford Symposium Call for Papers. White House Foods at New Orleans Museum. "Not All Home Grown" Historic Food Symposium. The 2008 Oxford Symposium will take place at Oxford University at St Catherine's College (St. Catz) on September 12-14. This year's topic is Vegetables. (A specific food is the topic on alternating years, for example, fish, milk, vegetables) and on the opposite years it is a thematic topic such as authenticity, morality, or food and the arts or travel.) Simon Schama has provisionally agreed to speak at the 2008 Symposium. Biodiversity expert James Godfrey, Chairman of the International Potato Centre, will also deliver a plenary address. Here is the website. What are the special characteristics of these members of the Plant Kingdom? Is the distinction between vegetables and fruits scientific or cultural? Do vegetables have a presence in myth, literature and art as much as fruit and flowers have? Is there a language and symbolism of vegetables as there is a language of flowers? Have they been seen as low-status, poor foods for the lower classes until recently? The history of particular food plants and the effect of these plants upon history and the human diet - for example the spread of vegetables in the Mediterranean with Islam, the voyages of discovery and vegetables from the New World, their uneven acceptance in the Old World, the Columbian Exchange, North v South, East v West, potatoes and famine, maize and monoculture, tomatoes revolutionizing cuisines. Changing tastes - the acceptance of new vegetables and the discovery of new flavours. Dietary prohibitions and injunctions - religious, cultural, philosophical and economic vegetarianism. Nutrition, health and welfare issues. The economic dimension. Biodiversity, plant breeding and scientific intervention on the genetic level. Human omnivory and evolution. How vegetables figure in food fashions. Changing agricultural methods of growing vegetables, changing modes of distribution and marketing. Send paper proposals of no more than 150 words to: editor@oxfordsymposium.org.uk Deadline for submissions is 1 April 2008. Furthermore, mark your calendar with the dates and topics of the future symposia, particularly noting that the 2010 one is in the summer! Food and Language is the topic of the September 11-13, 2009 symposium, and Cured, Smoked, and Fermented Foods is the July 9-11, 2010, topic. "Eating in the White House: America's Food" will be the one of the opening exhibits for the Southern Food and Beverage Museum in New Orleans. Information from the museum reports: "The exhibit will explore the early days of provincial entertaining in the young capital to the more recent era of spectacular state banquets. It will educate our visitors about the foods that American presidents ate as well as how and why they ate them, how the White House kitchens created innovative dishes and policies that caught on with the rest of the nation, and how our dining habits changed as the nation grew through social and economic change." SoFAB staff is looking for the following items or artifacts that might be available for loan such as photographs of White House chefs; White House kitchens; state dinners; presidents and their family members or staffs engaged in eating; or other photos that illustrate dining in the White House. Paper ephemera menus; invitations; place cards; programs; or newspaper articles or artifacts such as dining utensils, china, glassware, or other table items are welcome. For suggestions or loans contact Chris Smith, Director of Collections, Southern Food and Beverage Museum, 1435 Jackson Avenue, New Orleans, LA 70130, (504) 884-4008, wcsmith@uno.edu. Southern Food and Beverage Museum is a new museum in New Orleans that is finally establishing itself after the devastation of Hurricane Katrina. With 13,000 square feet of space devoted to the unique culinary history of the American South, it will open its doors in May 2008 at the Riverwalk Marketplace steps away from the French Quarter, the Aquarium of the Americas, cruise ship terminals, and convention center. "Not All Home Grown," An historic foodways symposium sponsored by Deborah's Pantry is set for March 1, 2008 from Best Western Inn at Towamencin, PA. Deborah writes, "A day with engaging speakers presenting on topics is sure to interest those involved with open-hearth cooking, historic sites, or 18th century everyday life." Several friends of Food History News are speaking including Heart to Hearth's Susan McLellan Plaisted on "Chocolate" and Past Masters' Clarissa Dillon on "Some Dishes, 'In the Best of Taste,' Are Easy to Spot." William Brobst, Administrator of Pottsgrove Manor will speak on "Tea and the Upper Crust" and Plimoth Plantation's Foodways Manager Kathleen Wall's topic is "When Home (Grown) is an Ocean Away," in other words, "What to bring with you when establishing a new colony and things aren't home grown-yet." The $65 registration fee includes a resource packet, breakfast buffet, snacks, lunch, and access to some of the region's well-known historians. There will also be a select group of sutlers to sell their wares during the course of the program. For registration information, go to http://www.deborahspantry.com/ and click on symposium registration. January 23, 2008 In this issue: Butchering pigs. Jackie Williams honored. Fortune Cookie back story. Events in California: About the Mondavis and in March, Tea . Butchering three Tamworth pigs occupied me fully last week. The pigs grew up handsomely, covered in gorgeous mahogany brown bristles, and even with help, they took me about thirty-five hours to process. That, plus I had to go off island to a mainland meeting of the writers for Working Waterfront, the monthly rag of the Island Institute for which I write a regular bimonthly column and island news as well, kept me out of mischief and off the web last week. Happily we now have a year's supply of pork, and have distributed pork to co-owners of the pigs. I made sausage, scrapple, lard, and this year made an impossibly delicious dish known in England as fagots: liver, kidney, pork, breadcrumbs, and egg seasoned up beautifully with nutmeg and other stuff, and wrapped in caul fat, baked. Oh, yum. Our own Jackie Williams, a food historian of the Pacific Northwest, was awarded the 2008 History Award by the Pacific Northwest Historians Guild. Jackie wrote, "I believe this is a first for someone who writes food history to win the award," which makes us all the happier. It is wonderful for Jackie to be recognized for her accomplishments to date and it is great for the field. The Guild promotes dissemination of with Pacific Northwest history and they sponsor an annual conference where scholarly papers are presented. Jackie is the author of The Way We Ate: Pacific Northwest Cooking 1843-1900 and before that Wagon Wheel Kitchens: Food on the Oregon Trail. Fortune cookie history cropped up in the New York Times in an article written by Jennifer 8. Lee. Lee reports that the cookies were probably "invented" in Japan, but popularized in America in the middle 20th century post World War II by Chinese-American restaurants, hence our association of fortune cookies with Chinese cooking. Yasuko Nakamachi, a folklore and history graduate student at Kanagawa University near Tokyo, is Lee's source, and Lee writes, "Her prime pieces of evidence are the centuries-old small family bakeries making obscure fortune cookie-shaped crackers by hand near a temple outside Kyoto. She has also turned up many references to the cookies in Japanese literature and history, including an 1878 etching of a man making them in a bakery - decades before the first reports of American fortune cookies." Barry Popik followed up with an email to me, including a link to Lee's website, http://www.fortunecookiechronicles.com/, on fortune cookies, and added information that he dug up, too, on Fortune Cookies and Fortune Cakes. It is worth a look. Californians can rejoice in two events, one in Davis, the other in Berkeley. On February 7, at U.C. Davis, 4-6 p.m., in the Critical Studies in Food and Culture series, "The Future of Wine History: a discussion on the position of culture in Robert Mondavi's Mission." According to information sent by Erica Peters, "This presentation will screen one part of this larger campaign, a ten minute film called "The Mission" (Crowley & Associates/Mediawest, 1989) wherein the Mondavi family makes its case that wine quality and a knowledge and understanding of wine culture are coextensive. The film will be introduced by Axel Borg, who will historicize "The Mission" by providing the context of its making, as well as insight into the relations between Robert Mondavi, the wider California wine industry, and the University of California, Davis. Following the screening, David Michalski will lead a commentary and discussion on the concept of history and culture introduced in "The Mission," the implications such conceptions have for wine aesthetics, and the possibilities they present to our contemporary understanding of wine and wine history." In short, this is a good one for the academics. "World in a Teacup: Tracing the Global Journey of Tea" on March 1, from 1-5 p.m. is sponsored by The Hearst Museum of Anthropology. The event will be at the Bancroft Hotel, in Berkeley, and will "explore the trajectory of tea in its many forms from ancient origins in Asia, through its spread to Britain, India and the rest of the world, to contemporary manufacture and its modern role in popular culture. Experts will discuss the history and trends of production, preparation, consumption and retailing of tea and related goods. Attendees will then enjoy opportunities to sample tea and other products from select Bay Area purveyors." Tickets are $20.00 general admission; $18.00 for museum members, UCB faculty, staff, and students. For more information call 510-643-7649 or e-mail pahma-programs@berkeley.edu or visit http://hearstmuseum.berkeley.edu/outreach/public_programs.html. January 10, 2008 Alert! Greg Patent on the radio. Our own Greg Patent can be heard on National Public Radio's Weekend Edition this Sunday, January 13, right after the puzzle segment. Greg said, "Danny Zwerdling interviewed me about my new cookbook, A Baker's Odyssey, while I made Cheese Sambouseks, an Iraqi turnover my granny always had on hand. He wanted to have something positive and life-affirming to relate about Iraq to NPR's listeners." Tune in. January 8, 2008 In this issue: BKW workshop fully booked. Wikipedia, Food History, and Barry Popik. FHN75 tossed into cocked hat. Barbara Wheaton's cookbooks as social history seminar scheduled for February 3-8 is fully booked. However, consider having Barbara come to a venue near you. She likes leading this workshop, and will come if invited. Wikipedia is a useful and controversial source of information, a real Wild West of a website, with lots of contributors and tinkerers messing with entries. The general principle is that information on a particular topic gets an entry written by someone theoretically knowledgeable in the material, drawn from previously published sources, and then additional information added, or content in the entry altered, by anyone using Wiki software. I have used Wikipedia, and find that the less prominent the topic, the more likely the entry will be accurate and/or valuable. So, for example, the entry on the oyster shell heaps in Damariscotta, Maine, seems to be more or less spot on because hardly anyone gives a darn about it, where an entry on a current presidential candidate will be fiddled with constantly by anyone with an axe to grind. Some food history entries are pretty terrible. You'll recognize the baloney right away. Barry Popik, by any account an eccentric word historian who has dived in after many food history stories, made some of his research available on Wikipedia. Barry explores early newspapers and other publications for citations of words and phrases. It is legitimate method to use, and often kicks up useful and revealing contexts for various terms. A famous and favorite one of his is The Big Apple as the word to designate New York City. He has also looked for hamburger, pecan pie, pie a la mode, and so forth. Here are some comments Barry sent me on how his work fared in Wikipedia. As you will see, you may be better off going directly to Barry's own web site to see what he has dug up. "I've stopped contributing to the Wikipedia. I went through very frustrating experiences. The pluses: (1) Everyone checks this source first. The minuses: (1) I don't get paid; (2) I (usually) don't get credit; (3) a seven-year-old can (and does) change the work at any time to something that makes no sense. My work is attached to the Wikipedia for many terms. The "Big Apple" entry, for example, has my website. I am also a Wikipedia page myself. The "Big Apple" entry gets vandalized about once a month; it really is a pain to constantly correct it, and then go through a committee of who-knows-who-they-are to argue the same points. I've spent ten years telling people that "the Big Apple" doesn't come from a French whore in the 1800s (an old internet hoax, removed years ago). This is NOT fun! Multiply that with "hot dog." I did nice work on Wikipedia's "pecan pie" entry, copying the first historic cites (from Texas). Someone removed all of them and placed the "pecan" under "Louisiana" cultural history, declaring that the pie originated there. It doesn't. I did some quite extensive revisions to many food entries, then cited my web page. I was then "caught." I cannot submit "original" work to the Wikipedia, and my website is not "peer-reviewed." So I said look, I'm a consultant to the OED, doing this for free. I submit the same stuff to the OED and other scholars; it is "peer-reviewed" by them. My website contains lists of historical citations, all of which are verifiable. The Wikipedia entry is not going to print the entire citation list verbatim, but it should know that my scholarship on this entry exists and is, in fact, the basis for this Wikipedia entry. I was still told that I can't do it. So, other people have been doing it with my work, somehow making the situation OK. For example, my "pie a la mode" information made the "pie" entry, but I couldn't add that myself. To summarize, I no longer directly contribute to the Wikipedia, although my website it linked to it many, many times, mostly by other people. I should be able to contribute much more, though. I hope your experience has been better." I haven't touched Wikipedia. It looks like an absolute sink hole of effort. Life is too short. So if you are an on-line person, remember that if you use Wikipedia you probably need to check out other sources, too, to get corroboration on things you want to know about. FHN75 was to be dedicated to chocolate. However, the main article about how the research was done to produce an historic reproduction of chocolate can't be published because the public relations wonks at Mars Corporation don't want the story out before the book they will publish comes out in June or thereabouts. Some idea or other that something in FHN now will prevent other publications from being interested in the story has led to this, a belated, to say the least, decision that has left me temporarily without any content. I am mighty annoyed, no actually, I am pissed off, but I'll wait a little bit to see if we can do something on chocolate later. Just maybe we'll do an issue on chocolate without them. Their product has been in circulation at least a year, so I be darned if I see what the big whoop is about the book. I suspect it is one of those "the less important it is the more fussing over it gets sorts of things;" a stout defense of not much territory. Stay tuned. January 1, 2008 In this issue: Happy New Year to all and where have we been anyway? Barbara Wheaton at the Astor Center, NYC. Big Mac Museum and Spam, too. Spices and Comfits. Happy New Year to all. One of you emailed and asked "was Food History News still up and running?" and I had a mental picture of myself sound asleep on the couch from about the 13th or through the 22nd. My nose was up and running but that was it. Our household, FHN included, was flattened by a terrible cold than ran right up to the Christmas holiday. I pulled myself together on the 22nd in order to make something resembling a Christmas celebration here, and Jamie has continued until just yesterday to feel rotten. I think I am back to normal, except for a cough. Let's hope that 2008 is a good year for us all, no more colds, and lots of interesting food history things a popping. SEMINAR IS FULL> Barbara Wheaton is taking her "Reading Cookbooks as Sources for the Study of Social History" to the Astor Center in New York City. It is scheduled for the week of February 3 through 8. This is the same course she offered this past year in Los Angeles and Toronto, and at Radcliffe several years ago (when I took it). Its a week long workshop, with a different topic each day, that participants examine through the contents of the cookbooks that Barbara makes available. Basically, you get up in the morning, go to class, listen, read the assigned cookbooks as fast as you can looking for the theme of the day, then re-gather, discuss what you found, and then go read some more. By the third day, you can't remember what day it is anymore and your mind feels crammed full. It is really worthwhile, and will change your point of view forever. Monday is Ingredients, Tuesday is The Kitchen, Wednesday is The Meal, Thursday is cookbooks as a writing genre, and on Friday, participants will discuss the "four people found in every cookbook: the writer, the reader, the cook, and the diner. What were their world views: their moral, economic, and esthetic expectations? How did they fit into their times and places they lived and worked in? Finally, what can these writings tell us about our own world views, and our own assumptions?" This workshop is restricted to 12 persons. It is not for sissies. Serious food historians only need apply. Each person will be asked to fill in an application form explaining their wish to attend. Please email dduda@astorcenternyc.com to apply. Cost: $1500, which will include materials, breaks, Sunday evening dinner, and Monday through Friday lunches. The schedule is roughly as follows: Reading Cookbooks Sunday, February 3, evening dinner Monday to Thursday, February 4 through 7, 9:30 am to 4:30 pm Friday, February 8, 9:30 am through lunch Barbara, in case you are a newcomer, is a noted culinary historian. She specializes in French food history, but is very familiar with English and American food as well. She is the Honorary Curator of the Culinary Collection in the Schlesinger Library at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University, and author of Savoring the Past: The French kitchen and table from 1300 to 1789 (1983) and prodigious bibliographer. The Big Mac Museum located in North Huntingdon, Pennsylvania is dedicated to the story of the Big Mac hamburger sandwich and M. J. Dellagatti who first assembled a Big Mac in 1967. This is one of the newest additions to Food History News Museum Directory. Like a lot of the "museums" of popular culture food (Coca-Cola springs to mind) the website is really mostly a public relations puff piece, full of gushy language and pseudo facts, but if you go to the "museum" you would see a collection of the boxes used to package and present the burgers. There is also a YouTube site for the Big Mac Museum. Cognoscenti tell me that the Spam Museum actually has a really good presentation. Here is their website. (Lots of bells and whistles and takes forever to load if you have dial-up.) Their virtual tour proves that there is real substance to the exhibits, even though it is all very tongue in cheek and amusing. The physical museum is located in Austin, Minnesota. Spices and Comfits: Collected Papers on Medieval Food has been released by Prospect Books, that venerable and dedicated publisher in England, headed by Tom Jaine. Johanna Maria van Winter is the author of the essays which address such topics as fasting and asceticism in the Middle Ages, fifteenth century invalid food, green salads in the Renaissance. Essentially the subjects are grouped into Medieval Food Habits, the Netherlands and their Neighbors; Fasting and Feasting, and Food and Health. There are twenty-eight essays in all, three indices (food and ingredients, persons, and places). Endnotes with bibliography appear at the end of chapters. Some essays, not many, are in French or German. Ms. van Winter is a retired professor of Medieval History at Utrecht University in the Netherlands. She received her doctorate with work on the Knights Hospitallers if St. John of Jerusalem int eh Netherlands, but she was always interested in food. I can't help wondering if she had been born thirty years later if she would not have merely addressed food history. She has been retired since 1989 and has continued research and writing. Details: Prospect Books, hardback, ISBN 1-903018-45-5; 978-1-903018-45-5; 440 pages, 9 black and white illustrations, 2007. $80 US. You can order it from Oxbow Books or from Amazon, if you must.
December 12, 2007 In this issue: The Plum Pudding papers. Persimmons website. More Museum Directory entries. Ravioli journey. Plum puddings were on our minds this past week. It all started with Karen Becker at the Museum of American Frontier Culture who asked about a 17th century plum pudding recipe. Personally, I have a later 19th century one, but Kathleen Wall at Plimoth Plantation went hunting for early versions. Kathleen turned up a 1630 reference to one but no recipe, disputed some parts of the entry in Davidson's Oxford Companion to Food and Drink written by Ralph Hancock. The association of Christmas and plum puddings is a little fuzzy to be sure. When the pudding is made richly, that points to festivity: spices, suet, dried fruits, etc. just as its predecessor, the Christmas pottage, was similarly enriched. Kathleen also dug out a couple of lush links. One from Alice Ross's articles in Journal of Antiques and Collectibles. Alice offers up a Martha Bradley 1758 recipe and another from the Buckeye Cookbook about a hundred years and more later. There are some great pictures there too of molds and a great pudding steamer. Kathleen also reminds us about Ivan Days puddings page at his website. Ivan's recreations and photographs always leave my knees weak. Then lo and behold, today Janet "Old Foodie" Clarkson offers plum puddings here at her blog, entitled "An Enchanting Christmas Pudding." Alas, my own Christmas pudding which I made a year ago, suffered from neglect this summer, the first time I have ever dropped the ball on a pudding, when I failed to douse it sufficiently with rum and by two weeks ago it had grown a healthy layer of mold over all of it. Sad, sad. The pigs, however, really relished it and we will relish the pudding second hand when we relish the pigs. Persimmons, that is Diospyros virginiana, have a website dedicated to their history, natural history, cultivation, recipes, traditions, festivals etc. etc. The site is young and growing. Editor Barry Nichols writes, "We are looking for any and all family recipes, family memories of persimmons, and photographs showing any aspect of our native persimmons! Know the location of a state big tree contender? We can use the coordinates for a planned map page. Know of an old homestead with a persimmon orchard or a few original persimmon trees? Drop us a line!" The idea that we can get GPS coordinates on individual heritage trees is downright thrilling, such an important step towards preserving these historic plants. The Museum Directory on this website has about thirty more entries compiled by our own Shirley Cherkasky. Most of the newest are grist mills, mainly ones in the East and eastern parts of the Midwest, but also Nebraska, Missouri, and California. Among the entries are Bridgeton Grist Mill in Rockville, Indiana, the oldest continuously operating mill west of the Alleghenies. There is now a entry for the Old Mill, a windmill, on 50 Prospect Street in Nantucket, Massachusetts, built in 1746 and the oldest functioning gristmill in the U.S. If you have never visited this part of the Food History News website, check it out. Enter almost any search term (cheese, bread, olives, vodka, sugar, wine, etc.) in the keyword box, pick a category, or a place, hit the search button and see what you can find. Our own Laura Schenone has a new book, a family and food memoir entitled The Lost Ravioli Recipes of Hoboken. You can read about Laura or a review in Newsweek here. The book is about pasta and life, about family stories and authenticity. If you are an Italian American you might want to give this book to your relatives for Christmas. Laura is also the author of A Thousand Years Over a Hot Stove, a grand history of cooking that came out in 2004 and picked up a James Beard award. December 6, 2007 In this issue: Absinth and Ham and Entrees. Absinth and its come back, plus Ibérico ham imported into the US made the news this week and I had that old back-to-the-future feeling. The New York Times ran a piece on each, absinth here and the ham here. You might want to check it out. Absinthe, like many old liquors, to be sure, is loaded with history and mystery. This ham is an acorn fed little number, butchered then cured over a long period of time. It really is a flash from the past, and I can't help wondering how many especially southern hams may have nearly equaled it in past times, when pigs roamed woods and foraged. The hams in question come from La Alberca, Spain, and cost a big chunk of change. Let's grow some here. Then another NYT piece caught my eye, this one on the disappearing entrée. The article reported that in restaurants the classic appetizer, entrée, dessert meal is less and less popular, and one chef is quoted saying that it consists of too many bites of the same flavor. Now just think back to the 18th century, when a genteel table was spread with a dozen different dishes in each of one or two courses, and diners sampled from each over the course of the meal. When I visited in Cyprus a few years back, we enjoyed so much the meals, called meze, made of many dishes: small servings of humus, tabouli, grilled lamb, eggplants, sausages, tomatoes, cucumbers, bread, capers, taramosalta, meat balls-it went on and on. Our table would look like the pictures you see of very early banquets - great long tables virtually paved with plates and platters. December 4, 2007 In this issue: Malinda Russell and me. Detroit Art Museum uses historic food. Drinking and Driving. Mouth Wide Open. Where to get your stockfish and baccala. Malinda Russell is the newly rediscovered author of a book entitled Domestic Cook Book. Jan Longone found a copy of the book, published in Paw Paw, Michigan, in 1866, making it the oldest so far known cookbook by a black woman. Jan reprinted it and all of us who attended the Biennial Symposium in May at the Clements Library where Jan is the curator of American culinary history, got a copy. Molly O'Neill was there (which you know if you read here regularly) and she undertook writing about Malinda and her cookbook for the New York Times. She asked me my opinion about it way last June or July ---so long ago I can't remember. NYT, by the way, takes its own sweet time working it through an article like this, but at last it appeared in the Dining section on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving. Molly did a good job threading her way through the tangle of ideas about soul food, poverty food, and "cosmopolitan food inspired by European cuisine." If anyone was paying attention they would have read that both Leni Sorenson and I don't think that a cookbook is going to tell you much about African American cookery in the 17th, 18th or 19th century. Believe me, if you didn't know by her own introduction that Malinda Russell's book was written by a woman of color you would never have figured it out by the contents. I read the book cover to cover, something I almost never do with historic, or any other cookbooks. When I use them I usually look up a particular recipe or topic in a whole series of cook books for purposes of comparison. (I'd rather read something with a plot or a story line.) I found it an odd little book, but mostly containing all the usual suspects. I found that there seemed to be a mix of several decades worth of recipes in it, for example, Delmonico Pudding with cornstarch in it on the same page as Beef Suet Pudding boiled in guts. There were a couple of oddities: she says in the Whortleberry Boiled Pudding recipe, "Boil with or without a ham," which startled me. There was, btw, sweet potato pie under the title "Sweet Potato Slice Pie," made like "Slice Apple Pie." The real problem here is that scholars of African American food history are looking in all the wrong places for evidence of the enslaved-then-freed-black cooks contribution to American cuisine. I was so glad to read Toni Tipton Martin say that Malinda's book, "dispels the notion of a universal African-American food experience, which is why the term 'soul food' doesn't work for so many of us." Yes, exactly. Black folks as just folks. Soul food is a divisive term, a recent development. Malinda was acting like a mainstream American when she wrote that little book, recording mostly mainstream, mostly northern recipes. You know, color-free food writing. Malinda had a hard life, and the trouble that befell her after freedom on account of her race had nothing to do with food and cooking. It is not where the answer is. We are not asking the right question yet because we don't know enough to know what we still need to learn. What we still need to learn isn't in cookbooks. I won't take time her to list where it is, but if five of you write back asking maybe I will bore the rest of you with a recitation. Detroit Institute of Arts, (5200 Woodward Avenue, in Detroit, Michigan ) uses historic food to draw attention to the objects in its collection. Our own Betsy Hedler at the Ohio Historical Society sent along a link to an article in the Toledo Blade about the museum's renovation. One goal was to give visitors "information that puts objects in their original historic, social, and spiritual contexts." In order to draw attention to the objects, many of which are food related, the museum has employed videos which show the objects being used. An example is the Splendor By the Hour exhibit showing 18th clothing, art, furniture used in elite homes. Visitors can sit at a table while video is projection on it showing the three courses of food prepared by a historic food stylist, presented in period appropriate ceramics and silverware. In another exhibit, vistiros see how wine vessels were used by another video of a silhouette of a slave mixing wine and water and serving it to his reclining master, and the projection makes it appear that the slave has fetched a wine vessel from the display of vessels nearby. The museum believes that visitors appreciation of the objects will be deepened once they understand how they were used. I'll bet they are right. You can check it out here. Drinking and Driving isn't usually a great idea - until it becomes the theme of the 2008 American Table Culinary Tours. Hana Raskin and Catherine Boeber have set up two tours, one to Detroit, (driving) and another featuring Kentucky's bourbon trail (drinking). They plan to show their tour participants the food brought to the Motor City by immigrants in search of jobs in the auto industry. From June 26 to 28, 2008, they will show not only the contents of the auto workers' lunch pails but take their tour to a baking lesson in Mexicantown and a meeting with a Detroit Tiger to hear about dugout eats. Then on October 2-4, 2008, they will lead a tour through the nation's oldest distilleries, and visit a cooperage and sample bourbon cocktails. You can register on line. "Informed adventures for curious eaters" is the tagline they use, and Hana and Catherine find their participants look less for cushy travel with elegant fare than for old fashioned comfort and intriguing presentations. Mouth Wide Open: A Cook and His Appetite is another collection of our own John Thorne's lucid writing. He starts with marrow and ends with Fried Kielbasa-Casing Po'Boy (don't ask, you have to read it to get it) plus another chapter of book reviews. In between there are, of course, recipes, but with John Thorne, a food book isn't about the recipes but John's relationship to food, recipes, other cooks, the store, the time of day, professional chefs, and so on. One of the things I have always admired about John is what is simple about cooking and his newsletter Simple Cooking. John has favorite ways to fix many of the dishes he really enjoys, but he not doctrinaire about his approach to cooking and has a healthy skepticism about the various swings in food phobias and foibles. It is officially published today, by North Point Press, a division of Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, ISBN-13: 978-0-86547-628- and ISBN-10: 0-86547-628-4, and in hardcover at $26.00. Start here and do a search on the author name. Stockfish and baccala are old fashioned fish products, as far a cry from fish sticks as any fish can get. Stockfish is codfish, caught dressed, and merely dried - something that can be done only in very clear, cold dry Arctic air. Baccala is salted and dried codfish, good old salt codfish. Norwegians still make stockfish, drying whole fish, and they also make whole salt cod with skin and bones. You can obtain these products from Corti Brothers in Sacramento, California. See the website and note that you can call them to order anything you do not see for sale on line.
Book Notices & Comment Imbibe!: From Absinthe Cocktail to Whiskey Smash, a Salute in Stories and Drinks to "Professor" Jerry Thomas, Pioneer of the American Bar by David Wondrich Imbibe!: From Absinthe Cocktail to Whiskey Smash, a Salute in Stories and Drinks to "Professor" Jerry Thomas, Pioneer of the American Bar by David Wondrich is now available. This is both a recipe book for some classic American cocktails and a history of Jerry Thomas. Dave told me that he had a section on punches which were left out ultimately, though he hopes he can work them into some other work. We talked about how wonderful some of the old punches, (shrubs, Negus, Bishop, etc.) were and what an important part they played in American drink history, what with their rich material culture associations--all those punch bowls! This is bound to be a good piece of work. Lots of places have it, but here is the connection to dear old Powell's in Portland. ISBN13: 9780399532870 and ISBN10: 0399532870, Perigee Books, 317 pages, hardcover, $23.95. Kitchen Literacy, How We Lost Knowledge of Where Food Comes From and Why We Need to Get it Back by Ann Vileisis. Kitchen Literacy, How We Lost Knowledge of Where Food Comes From and Why We Need to Get it Back by Ann Vileisis appeared on my desk as so many new books do, but this one is different. Ann, who lives in Port Orford, OR, is new to food history, and proves to have a real instinct for it. She studied history and environment and her first book was a history of wetlands which introduced her to the history of agriculture, hence food. That, plus her mentor, William Cronin (Changes in the Land), who interested her in milling and meat packing, moved her towards examining the history of food from a consumers point of view, abut how food is the central aspect of our relationship with the world. The first few chapters are a history of how "foodsheds" (think watersheds) changed over time. She begins by examining Maine midwife Martha Ballard's late 18th and early 19th century diary, observing where Martha reported her food came from and how she handled, stored, cooked it. She moves on into the 19th century and describes how commerce and industry changed our relationship to food, sometimes against consumers' instincts and better judgment, why and how the Pure Food and Drug laws were developed, and so on into the present where so much of our food comes from extraordinarily long distances. In particular she addresses the very tricky question of food for cities from the 19th century into the 20th. The outstanding thing about this book is that Ann who has not immersed herself in food history until now, treads sure-footedly through the material and interprets it accurately. Not everyone who comes fresh to this field manages that. For example, she uses the Dreaded Beechers as a source but instead of accepting their advice as a description of what happened, she perceives the anxiety of the housewife in the kitchen trying to control the activity, and the ominous hovering that resulted. She reads the advertisements for canned foods and understands the odd combination of fear and reassurance that they conveyed: "be afraid of other people's products but trust ours." I really like the way she brings food history to bear on the present. I have always felt that the past wasn't behind me as much as it swirls around me, that using good ideas from the past isn't regression but having a deeper menu of choices. Ann sees this, too, describing how ideas circle around again. She said in a conversation, "We may have thrown the baby out with the bathwater back there but we don't have to do that again." If we don't see what happened once we might not recognize when it happens again. Go buy this book. Here is her website and book information. $26.95 ISBN 1-59726-373-7. It has an index, great pictures, and all that good stuff. Food and the City in Europe since 1800 edited by Peter J. Atkins, Peter Lummel and Derek J. Oddy has been published by Ashgate. It contains several essays by European scholars, organized in four sections--Feeding the Multitude: Urbanization and nutrition; Food Regulation: Food fraud and the big city; Food Innovation; Eating Fashions: the consumer perspective. London, Paris, Barcelona, Berlin, Corinna, Brussels, Prague, Amsterdam, Oslo, Bordeaux and others are represented, and canned milk, water porridge, turtle soup, festive meals, adulteration, immigrants and scientists are discussed. ISBN 978 0 7546 7989 2. Pages number 276. Price (sit down for this one…) $99.95. Send to Ashgatge, 101 Cherry St., Ste. 420, Burlington, VT, 05401; phone (802) 865-7641, (802) 865-7847; email is info@ashgate.com. The United States of Arugula by David Kamp The United States of Arugula: the Sun Dried, Cold Pressed, Dark Roasted, Extra Virgin Story of the American Food Revolution by David Kamp, comes recommended highly by our own Nancy Carter Crump. It is a solid little history of more recent American food habits. One thing Nancy said about it is that it really puts our current cookery into perspective. If you are a young food historian, say 35 or younger, it might be a really good thing to take a look at this book, in order to understand the great changes that have occurred over just your lifetime. Oddly enough, Arugula is categorized among Current Affairs books! In his website, Kamp writes: "One of my stock lines in describing The United States of Arugula is that it's the story of "how we went from Velveeta and Wonder Bread to chevre and artisanal loaves." US of Arugula is available in paperback now, from Broadway Books, at $26.00 ISBN 0-7679-1579-3. Trade Paperback, 416 pages. Three Meals a Day, A Collection of Valuable and Reliable Recipes in All Classes of Cookery by Maud C. Cooke. Three Meals a Day, A Collection of Valuable and Reliable Recipes in All Classes of Cookery, by Maud C. Cooke, originally published in 1890, Chicago by the Acme Publishing House, has been reprinted in facsimile by St. Johann Press in Haworth, New Jersey. The cookery section is full of familiarly user-friendly late 19th century recipes, there is a section of laying the table, and instructions for how to order serving the meal. A section devoted to hygiene and health may prove useful for living history museums recreating the time period. I asked the publisher, David Biesel, why they chose this book. The story of its publication, is, I think interesting: This is what he wrote: "The book has an interesting history. It was given to me (David) by a friend of the family at a family get together in 1976 or 1977. He knew I was in publishing (Macmillian at the time) and he asked why couldn't publishers publish good books like Three Meals a Day. It had been in his family for a long time, shortly after publication. I looked at it, liked it, but realized that to reset, etc. would be expensive (remember this is 1970s) and probably not profitable. He gave me the copy (he was late 70s) and said maybe someday I could get it republished." "Fast forward through my publishing career, …. In 1991, I decided to go out on my own as a 'book packager', Diane gave us the name St. Johann Press which is named for the old town section of Saarbrucken from where the Biesels came from in 1848 as saddlers to New York City. About 1998, John Spong (the now retired bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Newark) asked if we would be interested in reprinting his earlier works … and we said yes. Then if John Spong why not Maud Cooke? Thus started St. Johann Press as a book publisher." "But without an author to call up and ask how are things going (I sent my pages back yesterday -- where is the book) the book took a slow road. It was in terrible shape, but our friends (35 years) at G&H Soho took it as a challenge to show what they could do with such a problem. (Including recreating words that were illegible by electronically "moving" other words or letters.) People ask what type of books do you publish (including our own family!) and Diane's response is "Books we like." (She is a retired school librarian.) Diane is a great cook and I love the "home economics" (look for the ringworm cure). We try to publish books that we call 'evergreen or archival.'" It is available for $24.95 in paperback from St. Johann Press, 315 Schraalenburgh Rd., P. O. Box 241, Haworth, NJ, 07641. You can call them at 201-387-1529, or fax them at 201-501-0698. If you wish to reach the publishers by email, this is the address: d.biesel@att.net. ISBN #1-878282-02-6 Feast: Why Humans Share Food by Martin JonesFeast: Why Humans Share Food by Martin Jones, professor of Archaeological Science at the University of Cambridge, England, points out that humans and their nearest relatives in the animal kingdom, share food socially instead of snapping and growling and stealing one another's food - well, at least after it is on the table. He brings the archaeologist's science to the topic, turning to ancient evidence of hearths and cooking, the behavior of chimpanzees, the development of tools for handling food, and the development of social customs. He believes that our habits of cooking and eating together advanced human capacity to evolve cultures. Feast has proved to be a gripping read. Published by Oxford Univ. Press, it takes a very long view of humans eating together. It is a habit we have in common with certain of our wild relatives, and have engaged in at least half a million years, even before we learned to cook. He reports on the archaeological evidence, including the new and fascinating evidence that comes from sophisticated chemical analysis of residues in human bone and hair, in coprolites (fossilized feces), and in the traces of food oils, seeds, wine, found in pottery and around food storage places, early kitchens, milling equipment, and so on. Jones brings us up through time, interpreting scenarios imagined and recorded ones, derived from the artifacts uncovered with specific sites. The final chapter is about TV dinners. Of course, I don't know enough about the subject matter to be a very effective critical thinker but the book turned my mind around about a few things, always a useful experience. Food and the City in Europe since 1800. Edited by Peter Atkins, Peter Lummel, and Derek J. Oddy. Food and the City in Europe since 1800 is the proceedings of the 19th symposium of The International Commission for Research on European Food History, held in Berlin in 2005. Editors are Peter Atkins, Peter Lummel and Derek J. Oddy, to be published 5th July 2007 in Aldershot by Ashgate. International Standard Book Number: 0 7546 4989 X, price Price: 55. To place an order, please contact Bookpoint Ltd, Ashgate Publishing Direct Sales, 130 Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4SB, United Kingdom, Tel:+44 (0) 1235 827730, Fax:+44 (0) 1235 400454. The Herbalist in the Kitchen by Gary Allen. Hebalist Gary Allen said, "it only took a dozen years or so to make it from initial research into print." It is The Herbalist in the Kitchen, 576 pages, 6 x 9 inches. 56 line drawings. Cloth, ISBN 0-252-03162-8. $65.00. You can purchase it here http://www.press.uillinois.edu/s07/allen.html. More information about it and even some samples are at this website. Check it out. To read a British review of this book you can click here. Click here to order the book from Oxford Univ. Press of America. Here are the details: ISBN13: 9780199209019ISBN10: 0199209014 hardback, 368 pages, $35.00 (01) 368 pages; 40 halftones; 6-1/4 x 9-3/8; ISBN13: 978-0-19-920901-9ISBN10: 0-19-920901-4Curry: a Tale of Cooks & Conquerors by Lizzie Collingham Curry: a Tale of Cooks & Conquerors, by Lizzie Collingham (Oxford University Press, 2006, ISBN-978-0-19-532001-5) is now available in paperback for $15.95. Our friend and subscriber Marian Walke commented on this book for us a while ago: "Collingham includes a wonderful collection of well-documented tidbits, including Eliza Acton's recipe for curry powder -- a decade after Mrs. Randolph (and MUCH milder!); the introduction of chillies and tomatoes into southern India by Portuguese traders before 1600; the difference between Indian, English, and Anglo-Indian "curry"; a brief exploration of ketchup; and the amazing (to me, at least) news that while coffee conquered Europe in the 17th century and tea in the 18th, the Indian subcontinent did not develop a taste for tea until the 20th century, and then only after a concerted marketing campaign by the British. Oh, yes, and the difficulties young Gandhi experienced as a law student trying to maintain a vegetarian diet in Victorian London. I highly recommend this book." The Oxford Companion to American Food And Drink The Oxford Companion to American Food And Drink has appeared in print. Remember the Oxford Encyclopedia of American Food and Drink that came out a couple of years ago? Well, this is a concise form of that, with errors of the last one corrected and more entries. [One of the good things about publishing is that the author/editor gets corrections sent to them because people love to find mistakes and straighten out the author.] I expect that this will be useful to some of you, particularly those with a casual interest or a beginner's curiosity about things, but who cannot afford the big two volume set, since this one will see for an affordable $49. something, and even cheaper at Amazon. It may settle an argument, or provide a sentence of background for the food writer. People with a serious interest in a topic really must look beyond either of these two works, using the bibliographies suggested, to more specific and in-depth material. How do I know? Because I wrote some of the entries, and so I have a close up and personal familiarity with the project . I keep saying this but no one pays attention. IF YOU ARE A FOOD WRITER, and want to say something about the history of a dish, do us a favor: buy this book -- it is not that expensive, and before you call, write, or email me or my food history colleagues with a question, look it up in this book. Because guess where I will look first if you ask me? Just think how quickly you can get an answer this way....deadline looming and all that. The Companion has 608 pages, lots of gorgeous illustrations, and will cost $49.95, (ISBN 1-978-0195307962 and ISBN 019-5307968 - obviously one a hardcover the other soft, but the promo material doesn't say which is which. The Banquet: Dining in the Great Courts of Late Renaissance Europe by Ken Albala. The Banquet: Dining in the Great Courts of Late Renaissance Europe by our own Ken Albala comes from the University of Illinois Press. Ken is another of those very industrious sorts, and with the work he has done on other aspects of Medieval and Renaissance food history, this is a natural product. The book covers Western Europe 1520 through 1660 and Ken describes the transition from the heavily spiced and ornamented dish of the Medieval to the lighter fare of the Renaissance. This is a nice companion, in its way, to Nichola Fletcher's Charlemagne's Tablecloth. Ken describes the story of the ingredients of the dishes served at banquets with their specific meanings in the period, the staging of the banquet, national habits, and addresses such fascinating details as the carver's responsibility to match the humors of the food and his master's flesh. This is available in cloth, 248 pages, for $40, ISBN 978-0-252-03133-5. University of Illinois Press has been publishing their Food Series for a few years now. Apparently no ladies have submitted manuscripts to them for their consideration. Military High Life: Elegant Food Histories and Recipes. Agostino von Hassell, Herm Dillon. Military High Life: Elegant Food Histories and Recipes showed up at my house, a big gorgeous book with lots of stunning illustrations, written by Agostino von Hassell and Herm Dillon and published by University Press of the South, New Orleans. Right away I thought this is one for John Rees, FHN's official military food columnist, and so shipped it off to him for his comments. I didn't know that Darra Goldstein of Gastronomica, had in her wisdom also asked him to review it. So now John has two copies of a book he doesn't admire very much. Why not? Basically, John found it wasn't carefully researched, is thin, unbalanced in content, and riddled with misinformation. A few examples of factual mistakes John gave include that it was not the Emperor Napoleon who offered a prize for the development of a way to preserve food that lead to Nicholas Appert inventing a canning method but the French Directorate in 1795. (And if truth be known, Appert based his invention on even earlier preserving techniques.) Or that awful old saw about pepperpot soup and the troops at Valley Forge. And long time readers of FHN will recognize the story behind the other old saw about "the army marches on its belly" being attributed to Napoleon but, as John wrote years ago for us, the actual source was probably Frederick the Great, who wrote, "Understand that the foundation of an army is the belly." And one of these days we will run a piece on that venerable item, portable soup, which John points out the authors of Military High Life claimed to have been "likely concocted under the command of Admiral Nelson." And there were other problems. Alas, we have here another example of a publisher, the University Press of the South, who ought to know better, jumping on the food history bandwagon, but not taking food history seriously enough to help the authors do a really good job. This book could have been vetted (by our own John Rees) and come out minus at least some glaring errors and perhaps with some ideas how to cover the topic more adequately. Just because a university press publishes something doesn't mean it is necessarily reliable; we don't expect better from commercial houses. Ah, well. Buy the book because "part of the proceeds are being donated to the Samaritan Village Veterans Program, New York City to help feed some of the more than 240,000 U.S. homeless veterans" which (since the gummint clearly isn't up to the task) is a very good reason to pay $35. Give the book to someone with a vast interest in the military who might also like to cook, but make sure they have a short memory, Military High Life: Elegant Food Histories and Recipes. Agostino von Hassell, Herm Dillon. New Orleans: University Press of the South, 2006. 162 pp. Illustrations. $34.95 (cloth). ISBN 1931948607. 1931948607 Fighting Old Nep: The Foodways of Enslaved Afro-Marylanders, 1634-1864, by Michael Twitty Fighting Old Nep: The Foodways of Enslaved Afro-Marylanders, 1634-1864, by Michael Twitty, Director of Interpretation of the Menare Foundation Inc.'s living history project. From the information Michael sent comes this: "Fighting Old Nep is the only recent, comprehensive and full-length text to examine in depth the rise and development of African American cuisine in Maryland during slavery. An invaluable resource for culinary historians studying the foodways of Maryland, the Chesapeake, Upper South and Mid-Atlantic, and enthusiastic eaters interested in the legacy of African American foodways in American culture!" There are thirty-one recipes, mainly of lost dishes, plus those using heirloom crops, wild foods, that come from historic antebellum African American community traditions, for example Red Straw Persimmon Beer, Ashcakes in Poplar Leaves, Cow Horn Okra Soup, Fish Pepper Sauce, and Guinea Keat in Cabbage Leaves. The book has 80 pages, traces specific ethnic links to West and Central Africa, the relationship between African foodways and those of Native America and Europe, the adjustment of African foodways in early Maryland and the development of Afro-Marylander cooking during The Peculiar Institution. The quotes, statistics, and n narratives drawn from over 50 primary and secondary sources. Michael says he includes sidebars about rice growing in Maryland, the real story behind yams vs. sweet potatoes, African contributions to Maryland agriculture and animal husbandry, plus the identity of Old Nep and how he inadvertently helped spark a national hero to fight to end slavery. Ordering Information: Currently available for $7.00 (plus 2.50 shipping a | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
