England’s Obsession with Queen Victoria’s Wedding Cake
Queen Victoria's wedding, and its spectacular cake, caused a frenzy.
Would You Like Phthalates with That?
People who like dining out have 40 to 55 percent higher phthalate levels than those who eat at home.
The Unbearable Sadness of Toast
One scholar sees the toaster as a symbol of a modernized, industrialized society—the culprit of bread’s mechanization and a perpetrator of assimilation.
What the History of Food Stamps Reveals
In the early years of food stamps the goal wasn't necessarily to feed America's poor. The idea was to buttress the price of food after the decline in crop prices had created a crisis in rural America.
The Extremely Un-British Origins of Tea
Tea is bound up in the nation's history of colonial expansion. British tea drinkers preferred Chinese tea at first, and had to be convinced on patriotic grounds to drink tea from India.
Sex and the Supermarket
Supermarkets represented a major innovation in food distribution—a gendered innovation that encouraged women to find sexual pleasure in subordination.
Why Americans Love Diets
On a diet or cleanse in the new year? You're continuing in the very American tradition of self-perfection.
How Victorians’ Fear of Starvation Created Our Christmas Lore
One scholar sees more in the Christmas food of authors like Charles Dickens—English national identity and class.
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.