Food History

I just re-read What Katy Did At School, one of the sequels to What Katy Did, after a break of too many years to count comfortably. When I last read it, I was significantly younger and I read it to put myself in the book. I was the right age to be there. This time (though I really don’t like to say it), I read it with the eye of a writer and of an historian. Unfortunately, this blog is about food history, so you’re going to have to pretend the writer and most of the historian don’t exist. The bit of me that does exist is the food history bit. Its brain lies somewhere near my waistline.

Here are some random thoughts: (more…)

Please forgive the picture. It has absolutely nothing to do with this post. The trouble is, my little camera just can’t do the fine detail I need for the picture of my choice today. The picture of my choice, is, of course, to illuminate my special subject of the day. When I do my food history course next February I’ll see if one of my students can get a good shot when I bring it in for show and tell.

It’s a strange little artifact of food history, though I myself am the wrong sex to use it.

What is it? I really want to insert an evil laugh (more…)

I can’t resist it. Maybe it’s because Australia just had an election and the US is inexorably moving towards one (I have some historical election cake recipes for crucial moments in the US process, by the way - I just can’t leave well alone, can I?) or maybe it’s because I’m entirely focussed on the social implications of eating right now.

I’m not going to give you commentary - both extracts speak for themselves. I want to point out the names (more…)

I promised you recipes from quite a different source. From teaching women how to be traditional, we have traditional women who demand their rights.

They proved they can cook by giving us volume after volume of fabulous recipes. They proved their politics in the title and the subtext of the books. The US was much later than Australia in getting the vote to women at the Federal level. This is rather odd, because US women were politicised early and actually had a significant amount of power at the time the US broke away from Britain.

Then it changed. From being ahead of the world, the US took a step back. (more…)

Are you entirely fed up with posts about fried food? I hope not, because I really want to do two more. I have lots more recipes, for one thing. For the other thing, there’s information in those recipes and it needs extracting.

Yes, you guessed it - I’m in educational mode. Almost direly educational, at that.

This post is all about a particular cookbook that was targetted at young women who had to learn their housewifely skills. The sort you get as an engagement present by well-meaning cousins who hardly know you. The next is the other end of the spectrum. You’ll understand why I feel so learning-inclined when you see the second post. (I feel like saying “Trust me, I’m a doctor” but, really, “Trust me, I vote” is more appropriate.)

The educational book is rather straightforward. It’s really just a cookbook, but it’s marketed quite narrowly. It reminds me of the Pollyanna book where she gets married and becomes sad and serious and housewifely and boring. I used to call that one (privately, where Pollyanna lovers could not be offended) (more…)

I have good news and bad news.

Because of minor impediments (like a flood at the travel agents and like the Federal election) advertising for my tour just didn’t get far enough soon enough and we didn’t get enough bookings by 30 November. That’s the bad news.

The good news is that bookings will remian open for a month or so, but it may be a little more expensive than the brochure says (though the travel agent will keep it as low-cost as they can: we’ve chosen comfortable places to stay rather than backpacking types or hostels or whatever, if you’re wondering why it’s not $4000).

If you know anyone who was considering (or who might have wanted to consider, if they had known about it), then details are here. There are some cool things planned which aren’t on the brochure (like lunch with Elizabeth Chadwick) and I’m happy to answer questions.

So, what are the new ingedients that people fried with, and why am I so excited? (it’s my second post today and I’m excited - that says a lot)

In older cookbooks the raising agent is yeast or other substances (I’ll introduce you to the other substances one day, I promise - they’re fascinating). Today I’m introducing you to that extraordinary new stuff, baking powder.

It really is surprisingly recent and it has definitely changed the taste of our food and how we cook. I ought to do a special post about it one day. Too much food history and only 24 hours in a day: that’s my problem.

Baking powder had really good advertising. Tonight’s recipes come from The New Dr. Price Cook Book for use with Dr. Price’s phosphate baking powder, Chicago, Royal Baking Powder Co. 1921, and gives you a bit of the newness, the advertorialness and just how recently it came into our lives. Actually, Dr Price’s book is a bit deceptive, as you’ll see by the second book from tonight. Baking powder was in common use by World War I. This gives you the real Educational Stuff - never trust one source! (more…)

Yesterday I read a cookbook that, although the right date for my Prohibition banquet, was entirely the wrong food. It was home cooking and a lot of the recipes looked really scrummy, so I thought you might like an extract for the first of the fried food posts today. The book is The Perry Home Cook Book, by the Ladies of Perry, Kansas, and Vicinity 1920. One day I might have to get hold of a modern community cookbook from Perry, just to compare Perry food over time. Today is not that day, however: today is the day for joyous fried food. (more…)

I was so busy today I completely forgot the time and that I promised to post more Chanukah delights. I’ll do you two posts tomorrow to make up (maybe three, if I get extra-enthusiastic).

What I’ve done today is near-finalise the food that needs testing for the Prohibition banquet in 2008, so I and the other testers can work through it and get a menu to the hotel in plenty of time. Also, I’ve sorted out some of the finer details of terminology. The word ‘pudding’ means three different things in three different cookbooks from the same time, for instance (and only one of them equated at all with the Australian use of the word around then) and so I had to find out what it means for the particular style of dinner I am planning. It turns out that it sort of referred to an elegant little cake to go with icecream, which solves another issue that was raising its head: when was it served?

The other thing I did today was research for a novel, but you probably want to hear about food rather than Canberra ghosts!

There are only 2 more days of fried food and then I have a very special post for you. I was threatening it, and I must make good my threats. So keep watching this space, because the rest of the week is going to be fabulous. I hope this means you can forgive my distractedness today!

I wrote you a wonderful post, all about guests and the twelve days of Christmas, but the computer was hungry and gobbled it and it’s too hot for me to do it all again. I think I shall let you dream of exciting guests and fab recipes, instead of me writing about them. While you’re dreaming, let me give you yet more fried food, this time from Miss Leslie, from the 1840 edition of her Directions for Cookery, in its various branches. (more…)

I liked yesterday’s long title so much that today I have another for you. Plus a recipe from a Confederate recipe book, since I have made a Louisianan dish for my party tonight (black-eyed beans with onion and tabasco and dressing - yum). Maybe I’ll give you two posts tomorrow, though, since the title is so long today and the recipes so short.

Soon you can stop worrying about all this fried food (just in case you were concerned about your health or you’re running out of oil or lard) because we’re over half way through Chanukah, so the end may not be in sight but there’s definitely light at the end of the tunnel. I can’t promise an end to mixed metaphors, however. (more…)

I feel all kinds of eighteenth century today. This doesn’t explain why the fried foods I’m giving you right now are from the seventeenth. Basically, we’ve had thunderstorms and sickeningly humid weather and I’m beyond explanations. I’m cooking a nineteenth century fried cheese dish for my guests tomorrow. That seventeenth and that nineteenth century average out at eighteenth, maybe.

I do love the title of John Murray’s book. In fact, I’ve suggested to a friend of mine that he couldn’t do better than emulating this title for his next novel. Russell Kirkpatrick writes mega-fantasy and apparently his next novel is dark and violent, but I still think that a title that takes the whole page is the way to go.

A NEW BOOKE of Cookerie. Wherein is set forth (more…)

I promised you a second post, and here it is. It’s a bit more than a simple cookbook, but it’s from the US and around the same date as the vegetarian cookbook.

There are a thousand stories hidden in this volume. The Lady Managers of the World’s Columbian Exposition sound so much a particular part of that place and time. Expositions and the late nineteenth century, women who organise for the betterment of humanity, and a whole lot more. One day I need to find out more about this book and the Lady Managers who put it together. Though I do wonder if an “Alternate Lady Manager” is a lady only sometimes and what she is the rest of the time?

Favorite dishes. (more…)

For a different type of fried food, let’s look at Cassell’s Vegetarian Cookery. A manual of cheap and wholesome diet. It was written by A.G. Payne and was published in 1891. It’s very much a book of the Commonwealth, rather than the US. There are some major differences in ingredients (oil instead of animal fat for frying, for instance – the simple response to this is “But it’s a vegetarian cookbook”. The thing is, though, that I’ve seen US vegetarian recipes from the same period that still use animal fat) and Payne is very full of explanations that tell us exactly how innovations affect recipes (the general techniques for sweet fritters says it all).

I’m so fascinated by the US/UK differences that I think I might do another post today, just so that you can see US and UK nineteenth century recipes back to back, and draw your own conclusions.

Piroski Sernikis (more…)

Another AW Blogchain is upon us. I’ll give you the complete list of blogs in a few days time, when I’m not trying to do so much at once. It’s the end of my teaching year (just two more classes!), and it’s Chanukah, and it’s … lots of things. My brain loses track and I’m reduced to writing lists. I sing them out to the tune of “Don’t Fence me In” – “Give me lists, lots of lists.” Which brings me to Kat, who started this blogchain off by talking about distractions. (more…)