Memory is a funny thing. By “funny,” I’m not thinking Woody Allen amusing or Amy Schumer hilarious. No, by “funny” I mean something akin to “strange” or “perplexing” or even “otherworldly.” And indeed memory can be perplexing, making it appear as the stuff of fabulists. Trying to remember what happened last week, much less 50 or…
Category: Reference
The New World, through the Eyes of Thomas Hariot
To come upon Roanoke Island on a sun-drenched day, surrounded by Roanoke Sound and Croatan Sound, is to gaze upon a place of mystery, a place, no, the catalyst that set off the English settlement of the New World. It’s a place where glittering blue waters roll like hundreds of diamonds spilling from a jeweler’s velvet sack,…
African Cuisines: Cookbooks for Exploration and Discovery of Superb Flavors
Only one of this year’s new releases in print cookbooks covers the cooking of Africa, unless you count books about Moroccan cooking by Fatéma Hal and Z. Guinaudeau, as well as Kittee Berns’s Teff Love: Adventures in Vegan Ethiopian Cooking. The rest only come in Kindle editions, a medium which is not my first choice…
How the English Became Americans, according to Malcolm Gaskill
“An acclaimed British historian traces the first three generations of English colonists in America, revealing how our national identity was forged in the terrifying wilderness of a new continent. In the 1600s, over 350,000 intrepid English men, women, and children migrated to America, leaving behind their homeland for an uncertain future. Whether they settled in…
What the English Cooked in the New World: A Word about the Fallacy of Culinary Appropriation
Lately, claims of cultural appropriation have come to my attention, based on the argument that certain groups of people have “stolen” the culinary achievements of other groups, as well as commentaries suggesting that unless a cook or chef was fetched up in a certain culture, then she or he has no business cooking the food of another…
The Culture of Food in England 1200 -1500
And along comes another new book about the history of English food! My cup runneth over! This one – The Culture of Food in England 1200 – 1500, by C. M. Woolgar – looks promising, for he begins Chapter One by referencing a word game from late medieval England: A carve of pantlers (those ‘who looked after…
Uncovering the Myths of the “Founding Mother” Cuisine: A Few Words About England, Africa, and a Bibliography
I’ll admit it, I spend a lot of time compiling bibliographies. For me, there’s something inherently satisfying about seeing a list of references all lined up, like bunches of beautiful flowers waiting to be picked. For my latest project – reflecting on the influence of English cooking on American cuisine, I’ve augmented a previous bibliography of cookbooks…
Gervase Markham, Author of the First Documented English Cookbook in America?
Sweat rolled down his cheeks and blinded him for a minute, as he grabbed for the dirty white cloth around his neck. He wiped his face and cursed, for the day was hotter than any in living memory, London being usually cool and so rainy that black mold bloomed like the flowers of spring, overnight….
Peregrinations and Pilgrimages: Egeria and the Flour Soup
Rocks tumbled down the rugged sloping ground and dust spun like little tops as Egeria, a nun from early fourth-century Galicia, climbed toward the rocky summit of Mount Sinai. From that craggy point, she gazed at a world she defined by the holy sites mentioned in the Bible. And from there we saw beneath us…
