Community Cookbooks and the Women Who Wrote Them
Before "local" became a foodie obsession, small groups of women published collections of their own recipes. And still do!
In The Gay Cookbook, Domestic Bliss Was Queer
Chef Lou Rand Hogan whipped up well-seasoned wit and served a gay take on home life during the early-1960s craze for camp.
Who Invented Weird Hipster Ice Cream Flavors?
From asparagus to pâté de fois gras, early modern ice cream was decidedly different from plain chocolate and vanilla.
What Amateur Cookbooks Reveal About History
Remember those spiral-bound cookbooks from your church group or your mom’s favorite charity? Those amateur recipe collections are history books, too.
The Cooking Classes that Americanized Jewish Immigrants
At the end of the 19th century, a Wisconsin woman named Elizabeth “Lizzie” Black Kander tried to help immigrants assimilate, through the food they ate.
What Hippie Commune Cookbooks Reveal About Communal Living
The cookbooks of the communes of the 1960s and 1970s share the recipes and politics of the era, and still speak to us today about what we eat and why.
Great Grains: How Ancient Einkorn Became the New “It” Wheat
Einkorn, an ancient grain, is mediocre for baking, difficult to process, and unproductive in the field. Why is it the next food trend?