JSTOR recipes

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 history

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.
Commune Cookbook

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.
empty plate fasting

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.
Colorful donuts with different decorations

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.
antique cans

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.
Woman taking photo of pumpkin soup with smartphone

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.
Steamed dumplings Dim Sum

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.
Banana coffee

When Coffee Went Bananas

Abel French Spawn was not alone in marketing caffeine-free coffee substitutes like banana coffee to Mormons.
Moonshine still

The Caves in Which Moonshine Was Made

White County, TN, averaged more than a million and a half gallons of moonshine a year at late as the 1950s.