Food History

Don’t run and hide your eyes at the word “Blogchain.” This particular blogchain is a series of posts by writers, each of us taking an idea from the previous writers and seeing where it leads us. The post before mine was by Jim Melvin. He talked about organic vegetables and picky eaters, which leaves me so many possible paths to travel I may need to think a moment to find one.

Our notion of what makes a good diet changes over time. (more…)

It’s Friday night and time for a couple more recipes from my grandmother’s 1950s notebook. When these run out I might have to find another ageing notebook, but I’m right for a little.

This week has been a bewildering one on a number of fronts, none of which are at all relevant to this blog. I’m going to make them relevant, though, since bewilderment is something that either needs to be shared or needs to stop entirely. Tonight’s recipes are three that really should not belong in an entirely Jewish cookbook from Melbourne. (more…)

Mrs. Mary Eales’s Receipts is one of those lovely little reproductions put out by Prospect Books. It was originally published in 1718, but this little very bright orange volume is reproduced from the 1733 edition. I chose it for this week’s book because I’m very much in eighteenth and early nineteenth century mode right now, what with that Regency Gothic banquet getting closer and closer. The Banquet is just a month away.

I like lots of things about this book.

I like it that (more…)

One of the most interesting current trends in food history (according to my very biassed self) is how many people care about a particular aspect and want to make sure that we’re informaed and that the knowledge isn’t lost. What’s really fascinating is that there’s an audience for this. One of the most-used parts of this food history blog, for instance, is the growing number of recipes about scones and biscuits.

There are museums of cutlery and cookbook collections. There are collections of childhood memories and there are displays of fashion in school lunchboxes. Most of these I’ve already looked at at least briefly.

Food is important to us. It’s not just a matter of nutrition. There are memories of place and time and social patterns. Foodways help preserve who we are and how we live in the world, and they also help us live in the world. Formal afternon tea in Australia is full of unwritten codes that help particular social groups communicate and remember and bond.

So where does a potato museum come into this? it shows us some of the ways that potatoes have been grown and eaten and thought about over the years. The pototato has a complicated history but not (for Westerners) a long one.

It’s worth checking out and thinking about.

What’s really interesting is that there’s enough information out there, and enough interest in potato history, for the museum folks to maintain a potato blog. There’s nothing humble about recent spud history.

food history, potatoes, potato museum

There are a lot of food carnivals with links to fascinating blogs and interesting recipes. Or was that interesting blogs and fascinating recipes? Sometimes it’s one, sometimes the other, and sometimes it’s both.

The Kosher Cooking Carnival this time round has gone one very sensible step further. What the host has done is turned nearly two years of posts into a table. You will find recipe links to an array of Jewish food and culture, including some you’ve met here already. And it’s all just in time for Jewish New Year!

Note: I am not to blame for any weight you put on through enjoyment of these recipes.

food history, carnival, recipes, Jewish food, kosher food

Today, I have something rather special.

Martha Carlin (who you ought to remember from my earlier posts on her work) has kindly agreed to answer a few questions. I asked her at a totally bad time of year, with university just beginning, so she had to fit it in amongst everything, which makes it a double hapiness to have this interview.

Professor Carlin teaches history at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and is one of the world’s leading food historians. Her particular focus is the Midde Ages. I was going to point out how much of a superior and civilised human being this makes her, but it’s pretty obvious how crucial understanding the Middle Ages is to understanding the present, so I won’t.

Thank you, Professor Carlin!

Question 1: How is food history different from the sort of history most people learn at school?
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How long is it since I’ve given you an extract from a primary source of foodie-interest (apart from cookbooks and modern studies) - far, far too long. Tonight I make up for this derelicton of duty with something small, but very evocative.

This is from the Account Books of the Customs Port of Cardiff (I’ve been watching too much Torchwood, haven’t I?) for the year 1733.

“Novr 20. To the Collector for sending off an Express to the Officers at Newport with Orders for them to keep a good look out for a Vessel called the King of Prussia, which took in Tea Liquors Sugar &c. &c., with an intent to Smuggle the same in this Kingdom 5s.”

You ought to be able to find the original here. And I’m not going to make jokes about a Tardis or someone called Harkness. Truly.

Let me admit up front, I don’t know a thing about what food is eaten at the time of an eclipse, in any country, at any period in history. I needed help, because there’s a total lunar eclipse this Tuesday. It looks as if I might be having a picnic dinner specifically to watch the Moon being eaten and it seemed quite wrong that I didn’t know a thing. I asked Lara, the astronomer friend who alerted me to the total lunar eclipse:

“Are there any food history links with eclipses that you know of? And if there aren’t, what does your group of astronomers eat during a total eclipse of the moon?â€?

This is Lara’s answer:

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Throughout history, humans have measured food and humans have used food as a measurement. Here is an example of how it all might operate if all the common modern measurements were redefined.

One day I might give you a serious post on measuring food, but today is not the day. Understanding the velocity of sheep in a vacuum won out over deep thought, I’m afraid.

A lot of discussions of futuristic food have followed me round recently. Wherever I go, talk turns to the strange futuristic fads of seventies food. My favourite conversations have been about the food described in SF in the 1960s and 1970s. The sort that dump strange notions such as texture and taste and mouthfeel and provide a single square of something that provides a full day of nutrition. Explorer food. Space food. Maybe it’s time to break out some older SF and explore what food golden adn silver age SF writers put in their fiction - maybe it wasn’t as bad as I remember.

In the early seventies, when actual space food was all the rage, the advertisments for new lines of food certainly emphasised the space program when talking about their qualities. They didn’t talk about mouthfeel and happiness.

Thankfully, the slow food movement has come along since then and brought us sumptousness and flavour and even foodporn. I’ll talk about slow food another day, perhaps. In the meantime, here are a couple of space food ads, for your delectation.

food history, 1970s, space exploration, food, advertisements

I promised you a second half to my thoughts on Richard III’s coronation feast, and here it is. It’s not as glamorous as the first half. Well, it is, but only in the minds of people like me, who find provisioning and planning seriously cool.

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Another of my grandmother’s 1950s recipes. Why an ice-cream cake? Because it seems so very 1950s.

Alstra Ice Cream
Make ice cream & freeze well. Just before serving put a half sponge sandwich on a wooden plate & turn ice cream on to it. Beat whites of 2 egg & sugar until stiff & put all over the ice cream sprinkle a little caster sugar over. Put into oven until meringue is a light brown serve at once.

food history, recipe, Alstra ice cream, cake

I was recently given a very special cookbook by K. It’s a very personal booklet and is basically the culinary history of a shared household, so I can’t give you name or title. It feels strange to be blogging a cookbook and to be unable to give you its title because it includes the erstwhile address of the author. It would be a breach of trust and of privacy if I were to do otherwise. This is where history is easier to work on when it’s further away from the present.

Thinking about it, however, a lot of family and personal foodways have something in common with this book. (more…)

I’m exceptionally and extraordinarily clever and have come down with the latest virus. The chief symptom is that all I want to do is sleep.

I found a really interesting article on the relationship between coffee and European political history for you to read while I do all this sleeping. I’ve given you a picture of chocolate truffles, to go with the delectable coffee history.

This is drumroll time.

The first prize went to the Irish Stew story and recipe by Emma.

The second went to Anna’s Jam recipe and story.

Third prize went to Kaaron’s Bili Bili story.

Special mention goes to Gary’s Tryst story and Kaaron’s Bili Bili story. There was no recipe on the Tryst story and I managed to lose the recipe on the Bili Bili story (I can’t remember seeing it, and none of the judges saw it): judges noticed the lack of recipes and marked down accordingly. I’m sorry, Kaaron, about mislaying the sauce recipe and I do hope you will forgive me (I still can’t find it anywhere).

Thank you to everyone for being such good sports and sending in your stories.

Especial thanks to Suz’s Space for the prizes, Broadway Books for the copies of The United States of Arugula, and to all the judges:

Suz from Suz’s Space
Farley from Wine Outlook
Jaime from The New Australian and Fiction Scribe
Dave from Pop Buzz UK and Brit Music Scene
Allison from Reality on Bravo

And now, for some random comments by the judges.

Bili Bili story: “I loved the story, and the setting. I also totally agree that some meals are about the setting, and who you are with rather than the ingredients.”

Irish Stew: “I love Irish Stew and the way it was described made my mouth water.” “funny dad!” “it was written well and included what sounds like a really tasty recipe”

Lemon Meringue Pie: “good attention to detail (gas vs. electric) creative commentary throughout recipe makes it more interesting (and not just cause that’s how I write recipes) would like to have her/him as a friend cause the pie sounds great!”

And, finally, a message from our sponsor:

Thank you to all who entered. It’s been fantastic reading the entries. I’ve had a ball and enjoyed the recipes as well. I do have a request, though. Where’s the Lilly Pilly jam recipe? I have lots of those trees near me and it would be much better to make jam than to stand all over them.