Food History

I received some new teaching toys in the mail today. There’s a company in England that specialises in making little packs of reproduction ephemera. I bought these packs because they fit what we’re doing on Thursday night, and they arrived just in time. One of the topics for Thursday’s class is food during the Blitz and my students being able to handle reproduction ration books will help bring that aspect of the past to life.

In fact, ephemera is wonderfully evocative. I did a post a while back on a leaflet advertising Dr Morse’s Indian Root Pills, and meant to write more, but life got in the way (as it does). And I’ve given you another variety of ephemera - think of how nostalgic some folks become when they see the favourite wrappers from their childhood.

I can’t introduce you to my wartime ephemera, because I want some surprises for Thursday’s class and how can it be a surprise if you’ve read it on your teacher’s blog two days before? Instead, I’ll talk about the tea leaflet in the Fifties pack, because it takes me back to my childhood. I wasn’t alive in the fifties, of course, but the habit of cutting coupons from tea and carefully saving them for gifts is definitely something I remember from my childhood. I don’t remember us every cashing those coupons in, but we must have. We were forever cutting them out, anyhow.

The facsimile leaflet I have in front of me is for Black and Green’s Golden Tips tea catalogue from 1954-55. It has a few drawings of jewellery on the back flap, but otherwise is just a list (with headings) of what can be got and for how many labels.

Let me give you some food-related examples:

A tee strainer will set you back 14 labels and a bun tin 21. You could exchange 31 for a good quality tea towel and 47 for three dessert spoons of solid nickel. If your life is incomplete without an aluminium porringer (2 pint size, best quality) then you need to drink 63 labels worth of tea, while you could get tannin poisoning if you drink enough (176 labels worth!) for three aluminium saucepans with lids. At the lowest end of the scale is a kitchen swab, which only needs 6 labels. I want the bun tin. Maybe I should get a half a dozen friends a-drinking while I build my time machine.

There’s a blog devoted to ephemera, if your appetite is whetted. It’s called Ephemera and covers a lot of the stuff of daily life that fades from our sight so quickly. Maybe Marty (whose blog it is) has a leaflet with a picture of that desirable bun tin on it?

Every now and again on my other blog I open the floor to questions. I’ve just done that today and it suddenly struck me that maybe readers here had their own questions about food and food history.

Food history is long and complex, and there’s a fair chance that some questions will be beyond me. There’s also a fair chance that I can answer others, or at least report back later with an answer. We won’t know which is true about any given question until that question is asked.

From now, then, until Friday morning in anyone’s time zone (your time zone, my time zone, Antarctica Common Time Zone) you can ask any questions you want about food history. You can ask them as comments or you can use the email contact button near my bio. If I can answer them easily I shall and if I can’t, I’ll do my best to explain why an answer is difficult or impossible. This may be when we discover just how ignorant I really am!!

If this works, I’ll do it again. If it ends up with me in a puddle of hopeless humiliation, then I suspect I shan’t.

The thing is, that historians train using very narrow fields. It’s always a challenge translating what I know as an historian into approaches to history and to food that will be of interest to a wider public. The nuances of meaning of a particular word (one of my actual research areas) is really not frightfully interesting to most people. Cultural history does translate, as this blog shows, but there’s a difference between translating things I know and answering questions about what other people want to know.

This could be fun. Maybe. When I come out from my secret hiding place, I’ll let you know if it was fun.

Today is the day of the blogchain. Some of you will have met the blogchain before, others will be here because of it. For everyone else, it’s when a group of writers link to each others’ posts, using the previous one as inspiration. This month’s chain has been rather rollercoastery for me because the first few writers were talking about dogs, and I had this horrible thought that I would have to talk about dogs as food (and maybe their significance historically) which is not something I really want to talk about, to be honest. I was lucky, though, and dogs and cats faded just in time.

Polenth was before me in the chain and said “If the post is about eating bumblebees or cute froglets, I’m going to cry. You wouldn’t want that, would you?”

What do I do? I have recipes for frogs and even recipes for dogs, but I won’t give them to you. The thing is, each and every culture has its prohibited areas and all these are no-go for most of us. These prohibitions are legacies of our food history. It means that some things bring us to tears when we think of them as food and some bring us to nausea. These emotions are sometimes linked to the actual foodstuff and its qualities (see yesterday’s post!) but are equally often linked to how we’re brought up and how we see food. What I love doing is tracing the growth and change in these sentiments over time. When a pet becomes food and when foodstuff turn into cosseted cuddlies – these are important to know. Why the changes happen are even more important. They help us define some very fundamental aspects of ourselves.

Now I wonder how Spontaneous Derivation will handle the next link in the chain?

Secret Government EGGO Project
Fantastical Imagination
For the First Time
Virtual Wordsmith
Polyspace
My Life, You’re Welcome to It
Polenth’s Quill
Food History
Spontaneous Derivation
Spittin’ (out words) Like a Llama
Fresh Hell
SLAKE
Forbidden Snowflake
Virginia Lee’s Vagaries

It’s autumn in Australia and the falling leaves have obviously drifted into my brain and meant I didn’t sort out the Carnival dates. I finally swept out my brain and so here is the Carnival of the Recipes – a second post for the day for my regular readers and maybe not too late for everyone else to add to their cooking planning for the week. Enjoy!

I’m dividing the recipes in a very unorthodox manner this time round. They are all things I want to eat, but half of them I can’t eat. For instance, I can’t eat Katy’s lovely Steamed Mussels with Tomato and Fennel but I can most definitely rejoice in Christine’s Stuffed Peppers with Cheese (Poivron au Fromage). Instead of being sensible and dividing them according to ingredients or any other kind of logic, I’m carefully explaining to you whether I can eat them. The reason behind this is only obvious to those who live in my hometown: it’s the Monday night after a long weekend, and rationality went out the door two days ago.

Melissa’s Southwestern Meatloaf sounds like a tasty dish for the next time I have to cook for a crowd, while I shall just have to eye off Stephanie’sPepperoni Rolls.

Karen says “This is a recipe for stuffed jalapenos. These are great to serve as appetizers or finger foods for a party.” I need to find a substitute for the bacon – stuffed jalapenos is such a fabulous thought. Pasta is another fabulous food, though I rather suspect there is no substitute for shrimp (being Jewish can really limit a foodie’s joy), but I can dream, and maybe you can cook. Yi Hui Chang has a recipe for Shrimp pasta with parsley oil looks delectable. I shall have to assuage my hunger with a rather yummy Sweet and Sour Chicken Recipe from Bobby at Free Online Recipes.

Expat Chef must have had my restrictions in mind, as there are three dishes I can cook (and they look great – if it wasn’t nearing midnight I might be tempted into trying at least one of them immediately). Check it out. Also check out Marsha Hudnall’s Healthy Recipe: Whole Grain Bread.

I’ve been thinking of corned beef recently. It’s still hot during the day, but cold nights make me think about winter slowcooked meals. This is a good one from the World Famous recipes website and, for the Northern Hemisphere, you will be looking for light summer dishes.

So there are a bunch of recipes to try, and a bunch to yearn over. And they all look wonderful! I am so grateful for the existence of cooks who blog.

Welcome to the Kosher Cooking Carnival! It’s a little late, and it’s all my fault. I forgot it was my first week of university teaching when I offered to do it. I also didn’t count on thunderstorms and about a dozen articles due at once. Everything’s a little late except my class on Edible History. That went delightfully. One of my students has a particular interest in the history of ice cream and is prepared to cook to prove it.

Now that it’s here, please enjoy the Carnival. Lots of good links and a couple of rather tempting recipes.

Let’s start with one of the recipes, perhaps. An absolutely delicious parve pie crust. Thank you, Leora, US friends have been known to tell me that something is ‘as easy as apple pie’ and I always wondered just what part the crust played in this.

There’s along history of Jews making sure that fellow Jews get a decent meal for Shabbos. Poor Jews a hundred years ago would scrimp all week to try to achieve this for themselves, too. It’s lovely to see this tradition continued, and with a bake sale, too. Food turning into more food. It makes everyone just that much happier.

Batya tells us about a Chanukat ha-kitchen. Worth doing just for the challah! To balance that challah, you can read about a less-perfect bagel. Having finally found a baker in my hometown who knows how to cook a bagel, I asked him why he gave some of his bagels the toppings I associate with onion rolls. “I don’t know what an onion roll is,” he said. It turned out he hadn’t eaten kosher bagels, either. Life is a city with almost no Jews can be very entertaining.

I envy Batya being snowed in and then finding a cheap sandwich (appropriately linked to Hillel’s name). We had some snowflakes here yesterday and decided it was a miracle. It’s summer in Australia, after all.

Summer doesn’t make me feel less hungry when I look at Batya’s beautiful pictures on eating out in Jerusalem.

Girls Who Network send in a shrimp dish for the Carnival. It looks interesting, but I won’t volunteer to taste it. We all have our definitions of kashruth, and mine doesn’t include shrimp. My great-grandmother’s apparently included bacon on occasion, which I agonise over from time to time, often on this blog. Batya agonises more carefully than I do, with interesting results.

To finish on a really glorious note, Batya sent me a joke from Bangitout. I don’t know the person in question, but I really like the joke. While you spend the next hour pondering restaurant ideas, I’m going to have a cup of tea.

Top Ten Worst Kosher Restaurant Ideas

10. Shalosh Seudos, The Restaurant!

9. All German Cuisine: Gestapos!

8. Just Herring: Shmaltzys

7. Shabbos Leftovers: dubbed ‘Tinfoil’

6. The Yeshiva Dorm Experience

5. Egg Nog and other foods Jesus Consumed

4. Cholent: Greetings and Flatuations

3. Everything fake! Bacon, Cheese Burger, Shrimp: Facons!

2. Fast Day Theme: dubbed “Fast food”

1. Kosher For Passover Food, All Year Round!

Today I have a special guest blogger. I’ve been getting in touch with other Australian bloggers – finding out what they do and where they blog it. Even blogs about health and wellbeing, and I thought his take on food history might be interesting. Enjoy!!

It is easy to forget that food is about our life. The foodie magazines usually write about food as if it was a fashion accessory, or as a kind of entertainment. The other extreme is reducing food to a collection of nutrients - the ultimate destination of this approach would be one food, easily digested, supplemented with every possible nutrient. Hardly an attractive prospect.

Both of these approaches lose the visceral and emotional connection that we have with our food. Just thinking about our favourite foods can be enough to alter our mood. And think of how strong our reaction is to foods that we really dislike. Food is a very emotional reality (which leads to a different approach to dieting than the simple ‘calories in, exercise out’ approach; but that would be the subject of another post).

Our childhood experiences are a particularly potent source of our feelings about food. One Dutch friend can’t stand the smell of fresh bread. (During World War II his mother would smuggle fresh bread to those hiding from the military. He associates the smell of fresh bread with anxiety for his mother’s life. Whenever he smells fresh bread he feels, once again, sick with anxiety). Then there are the positive experiences from our childhood. The foods that remind us of times of delight. For instance, there are the ‘magic foods’ that I had when getting over sickness. (In years 1 and 2 I was often sick with a “viral infection of the upper respiratory tract”. I learnt to know this phrase even though I didn’t have a clue what it meant.) For me vegemite on toast and lemonade are magic foods (though calling them food may be stretching the point a bit). These were the foods I had when I was getting better from my bouts of sickness. They are forever associated for me with getting well again. They are to this day associated with indulgence for me.

Re-establishing our emotional connection with food can open up a world of delight and indulgence. A world of pleasure not contemplated by either the food magazines or the nutrition gurus. Food can become a human experience for us once again.

Evan Hadkins
www.wellbeingandhealth.net

You know the posts you’ve been reading for the last two weeks? I haven’t been round to post them. I wrote most of them (and the ones I didn’t write are pretty obvious), but I wrote them round Christmas and then I disappeared to work on a novel. I forward-posted them to appear while I was hiding and typing madly.

I went with a group of writer-friends to Yackandandah in north-east Victoria. It’s a very lovely part of the world and I got two car trips to see bits of it. I know that area pretty well as an historian and a foodie (and even as a food historian). My greatest food history sadness was that I didn’t get to visit the sole vine (in Chiltern) that survived the Great Phylloxera Disaster, but the other members of my group made it to Chiltern and even did some shopping there. At least this means I know it still exists. Serves me right for not driving. I last saw it about a quarter of a century ago and I first saw it even earlier than that.

I can tell you about the vine, at least. All Victorian grapevines had to be replanted and the whole industry started again from scratch using resistant American rootstock. The region now produces some of the best fortifieds in the world, but it was devastated just about a century ago. I grew up thinking of it as a kind of phoenix. Maybe one day I will get to see that vine again: it’s an important part of our food history.

I finished my novel. It may take forever to find a publisher, but it’s done and over. Right now I think it is pathetic and awful and am very depressed about it. I always get like this when I read through a novel I’ve just finished, so don’t take it too seriously. I pity my fellow writers, who weren’t depressed and miserable and thinking their work was a waste of time. They were all dynamic and cheerful and incredibly hard-working while I was moping those last few days.

Sharyn (who posted here twice while I was away) saved me from myself on Monday and gave me some regional food and a bunch of local history. I’ll tell you about some of what I saw as the mood takes me. Or maybe as the cheese and mustard make me happy again.

While I was away, my friend Kate (who does those lovely photos) went to New Caledonia. She took some food pictures there, and maybe I’ll direct you to them once I’ve seen her and can tell a bit about her experiences.

Also, I have some much-delayed pictures from Trudi, who was writing away with me recently. I’ve delayed them because there’s a bit more work putting together the posts that explain them than for other posts and life has been impossibly hectic, but they’re too good to stay hidden.

In less than a month I have a course starting in Canberra. You can find details here, if you’re interested. It’s a fun course and I’m looking forward to it. I’ve taught it a few times now, but this year I plan to add a few twists. We have an excursion to a farm to meet historical cows and pigs (including, I hope, one called Beyonce) this time, for instance, plus a heap of new recipes, reflecting my recent research.

The next few days I’m still in the world of speculative fiction, though, as I have reviews to write. Isn’t it just as well that I created a menu for my just-finished novel. If any of you speak up and say “I want to see the menu” I’ll post it for you. It’s based on some rather sumptuous eighteenth century dinners, but modified for a future world that apes the eighteenth century but has certain problems re-creating it accurately.

And now you know where I’ve been and what I’ve been doing and why. Does it rejoice your heart?

(I’m claiming quite a large area as my hometown. Deal with it.)

I’m Sharyn Lilley, author, editor and now small press publisher with Eneit Press. Life’s been a little stressful lately, and Gillian suggested I do something to take a break from the world. This meant I decided to write a few articles to share some recipes and the history of my home with her readers here. I grew up in North East Victoria, nicely situated between the Rutherglen wineries, The King Valley winery and gourmet food region, the Murray River, and the High Country. I was a summer baby, birthday parties by the shores of Lake Hume were a popular choice. So obviously my first recipe is going to be an ice-cream cake. (more…)

Welcome everyone to the Carnival of the Recipes #174. I’m sorry this is a bit more disorderly than my posts normally are, but it’s Christmas Eve Downunder and – though it ought not touch me at all (since I’m Jewish) I’ve been invited to a friend’s place for the whole shebang, including a full day’s preparations. I’ve tried to make up for lack of editing time with some bad jokes. Think of them as fine seasoning, since I can’t plate the meal beautifully. (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…)

I’ve decided I really love being a (small) part of Project Blog. What’s not to love? I get to share recipes with deserving people, and fellow-bloggers say really nice things about me in an effort to induce you to win my recipes (go there and see!).

I feel I ought to say ‘mwa-ha-ha’ instead of ‘welcome,’ though, to all Project Blog folks who are dropping in to suss out winning historical facts. I’ve been in contemplative mood these last few days so you all have to read back a bit. Unless your useful fact is that I’ve fooled the world and don’t actually have a sense of humour? Or that Aussies don’t celebrate Thanksgiving. We could roast a turkey in honour of this Saturday’s Federal election, I guess, except that not a soul is going to want to roast a turkey with the outside temperature being thirty-five degrees. (trust me, you don’t want that in Fahrenheit.)

So, what food history am I giving to you today? (more…)

Readers have made several important comments in the last few days, some through email and some in the comments section. If I have written a post you find interesting (I can dream!), then it’s worth going back after a few days sometimes and seeing what comments readers have made, simply because some of the best insights come from you out there (I keep wanting to say ‘you lot’, but it’s not respectful).

Yesterday, Julie said, (more…)

JM of Write Anyway has introduced me to US Smarties. I was expecting something like Aussie Smarties; after all, our two countries are separated by a mere sliver of water. What I found was a bit of history. Food history, of course.
(more…)

These are they. Or should that be “This is them”? Or maybe “Here we are”? Please just click on the links and enjoy the writing. That way I don’t have to worry about how to introduce the list.

Virginia Lee: I Ain’t Dead Yet!
Playing With Words
A View from the Waterfront
A Thoughtful Life
Gillian Polack: Food history
So, You Majored in Creative Writing; Now what?
Life in the Middle
Finding Boddie; A Simple Way to Snort Your Breakfast
Kappa No He

food history, awchain

One of the reasons I like the Absolute Write Blogchain is because you never know what the person before you is going to talk about. This means that every single time I participate, it give some new insights for my own life. Today, the insights may very well be for my own research and teaching as well. (more…)