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.
5 Great Recipes from JSTOR
‘Tis the season for feasting and family traditions. And around here, that means digging into JSTOR’s digital library. ...
Popcorn: From Ancient Snack to Movie Standby
Popcorn is probably one of the oldest uses of the domesticated Mexican grass called teosinte, which has been cultivated as maiz for thousands of years.
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.
The Joy of Fasting
Fasting was once a religious endeavor. The idea that skipping meals could lead to improved health emerged around the turn of the twentieth century.
The Delicious Democratic Symbolism of…Doughnuts?
Doughnuts became popular during World War I, when Salvation Army volunteers—most of them women—made and served the soldiers million of doughnuts.
Frontier America in a Collection of Tin Cans
For Jim Rock, tin cans were as important as shards of ancient pottery. Each can told a story of nineteenth and twentieth century life in America.
Don’t Buy Into the Authenticity Scam
We choose products and services partially based on how they make us feel, on meanings we derive from our choices.
The Cookbook That Brought Chinese Food to American Kitchens
The groundbreaking 1945 cookbook, How to Cook and Eat in Chinese, that introduced Chinese cooking to white American cooks.