Like old cookbooks? Like old recipes? Then don’t miss this down-to-earth video, shot by Liza de Guia, entitled “The Historic Gastronomist,” about a 27-year-old Brooklyn woman named Sarah Loman who is resuscitating centuries old recipes from American history. Loman writes a food history blog called “Four Pounds Flour.” Meet Sarah Lohman. She’s not a professional … More The Historic Gastronomist
There is reason in roasting of eggs! ~~~ James Boswell, Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides In nineteenth-century America, giddy with conquest and Manifest Destiny, domestic science denizens rose up, called themselves home economists, and jumped on the bandwagon of cleanliness and right thought. The results of that movement set the stage for today’s … More The Chicken or the Egg? 2. The Cooking of Eggs
Boarding houses, a slice of the folkloric American food story … American food icon James Beard grew up in an Oregon boarding house operated by his mother. And New York Times food writer Craig Claiborne cut his teeth in his mother’s Mississippi boarding house kitchen. In a way, we’re still feeling the impact of those … More Boarding Houses, Fodder for Popular Culture
Unlike cowboy lingo, lumberjack lingo did not add many words to the pantheon of American spoken English. Nevertheless, this fascinating list of terms — used by lumberjacks to describe food and items associated with food and cooking — proves highly entertaining. Notice the meaning of “pregnant woman pie,” for one. Axle Grease: butter Bait Can: … More Lumberjack Culinary Lingo
On a typical day in 1929, cooks at Ritter Company Camps of Dickenson County, Virginia , served the following menus to anywhere from 75 – 100 loggers: BREAKFAST: Cornflakes Oatmeal Stewed or fried apples Canned peaches Fried ham, pork chops, or beef steak, with country gravy Fried potatoes Biscuits Butter, jam, jelly, syrup Coffee, milk … More Bean Burners and Hash Rasslers: More Logging Camp Food
Legends and folklore provide wonderful entrées into cultures. And in the United States we’ve generated a few of these delectable tall tales ourselves. Take the mythical lumberjack Paul Bunyan, who stands heads above the Headless Horseman of Sleepy Hollow and other similar characters. Lumberjacks created Paul and, with each telling, he grew bigger. And hungrier. … More The Appetite of Paul Bunyan
I think that travel comes from some deep urge to see the world, like the urge that brings up a worm in an Irish bog to see the moon when it is full. ~Lord Dunsany Sitting in the passenger seat of any conveyance for any length of time gives a person plenty of time to … More Questions, and More Questions …
TRIUMVIRATE: Latin triumvirātus, from triumvirī, board of three [men] Americans owe a lot to the following three people — without them our grocery stores and larders and pantries would still be filled with cans of baked beans and boxes of Jell-O.* James Beard Julia Child Craig Claiborne *David Kamp’s The United States of Arugula (2006) … More The Triumvirate of American Cooking
CYNTHIA D. BERTELSEN 
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