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Cooking in America, 1590-1840 (The Greenwood Press Daily Life Through History Series)
Trudy Eden
Manufacturer: Greenwood Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
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Cooking in America, 1840-1945 (The Greenwood Press Daily Life Through History Series)
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Cooking in Ancient Civilizations (The Greenwood Press Daily Life Through History Series)
ASIN: 0313335672 |
Book Description
There are no recipes for what the Indians ate in Colonial times, but this cookbook uses period quotations to detail what and how the foodstuffs were prepared. The bulk of the cookbook is devoted to what the European immigrants cooked and what evolved into American cooking. The first colonists from England brought their foodways to America. The basic foods that Americans of European descent ate changed very little from 1600 to 1840. While the major basic foods remained the same, their part in the total diet changed. Americans at the end of the period ate far more beef and chicken than did the first colonists. They used more milk, butter and cream. They also ate more wheat in the form of breads, cakes, cookies, crackers and cereals. The same was true with fruits. Over time the more exotic vegetables like broccoli, cauliflower, artichokes, and numerous root vegetables including both sweet and white potatoes became common vegetables. By the end of this period, many Americans were even eating foods like tomatoes, okra, and sesame, which were unknown to their ancestors. In addition, Americans, like their relatives in Europe, incorporated coffee, tea, and chocolate into their diets as well as more sugar. Along with them came new customs, such as tea time, and, for men, socializing at coffeehouses. Also, distilled beverages, particularly rum, which was often made into a punch with citrus juices, were increasingly used. Basic cooking technology also remained the same throughout the period, and the cookbook gives a sense of how meals were prepared. The open hearth provided the major heat source. As time passed, though, more and more people could afford to have wood-fired brick ovens in their homes. Although the recipes presented here from the first century of colonization come from cookbooks written for people of upper status, by the end of the time period, literacy rates were much higher among men and women. European and American authors published numerous cookbooks that were relatively inexpensive and available, so it is reasonable to assume that those recipes were representative of actual American cookery practices. Many changes occurred to cookbooks and recipes during this period. The recipes became more detailed and more reliant on standard measures, and the recipes were for foods that are less complicated and expensive to prepare. This fact is more a sign that cookbooks were being written for a less wealthy group of readers than that tastes and appetites had changed. The trend toward simple and frugal foods continued up to 1840 and beyond, a sign that readership had expanded as well as an indicator of what the bulk of Americans were eating. As well, recipes that were considered American were developed. All of these recipes are in their original form and have been taken from contemporary published or private cookbooks. The explanations after the recipes give historical information and suggestions if the recipe is vague or if it calls for an unusual ingredient. Dining tips are included as well. Period illustrations complement the recipes.
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- A Revolution In Eating
- The link between food and freedom.
- The New World according to food.
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A Revolution In Eating: How the Quest for Food Shaped America (Arts and Traditions of the Table)
James E. McWilliams
Manufacturer: Columbia University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
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Meals to Come: A History of the Future of Food (California Studies in Food and Culture)
ASIN: 0231129920 |
Book Description
Sugar, pork, beer, corn, cider, scrapple, and hoppin' John all became staples in the diet of colonial America. The ways Americans cultivated and prepared food and the values they attributed to it played an important role in shaping the identity of the newborn nation. In A Revolution in Eating, James E. McWilliams presents a colorful and spirited tour of culinary attitudes, tastes, and techniques throughout colonial America.
Confronted by strange new animals, plants, and landscapes, settlers in the colonies and West Indies found new ways to produce food. Integrating their British and European tastes with the demands and bounty of the rugged American environment, early Americans developed a range of regional cuisines. From the kitchen tables of typical Puritan families to Iroquois longhouses in the backcountry and slave kitchens on southern plantations, McWilliams portrays the grand variety and inventiveness that characterized colonial cuisine. As colonial America grew, so did its palate, as interactions among European settlers, Native Americans, and African slaves created new dishes and attitudes about food. McWilliams considers how Indian corn, once thought by the colonists as "fit for swine," became a fixture in the colonial diet. He also examines the ways in which African slaves influenced West Indian and American southern cuisine.
While a mania for all things British was a unifying feature of eighteenth-century cuisine, the colonies discovered a national beverage in domestically brewed beer, which came to symbolize solidarity and loyalty to the patriotic cause in the Revolutionary era. The beer and alcohol industry also instigated unprecedented trade among the colonies and further integrated colonial habits and tastes. Victory in the American Revolution initiated a "culinary declaration of independence," prompting the antimonarchical habits of simplicity, frugality, and frontier ruggedness to define American cuisine. McWilliams demonstrates that this was a shift not so much in new ingredients or cooking methods, as in the way Americans imbued food and cuisine with values that continue to shape American attitudes to this day.
Customer Reviews:
A Revolution In Eating.......2007-07-16
The colonization of the United States did not happen in one particular way by any particular set of individuals. In other words, the country we now call the United States is not the result of a single group of people coming to the Americas that thrived and grew to eventually become the individual states that we see today. Instead, this country was formed by several groups of individuals who came to America for different purposes. Some groups came to America as British colonists. Some came to found a strong strict religious colony. Others came to grow sugar cane. Others turned to making money growing tobacco. Still others came as slave labour abducted from Africa or pulled from the Native population.
With each of these groups came a different set of intensions and a different set of ideals. Some groups very strictly adhered to living and eating practices of their cultural heritage. Other groups adopted some or all of the foods, crops, and general eating practices of the Natives in the area.
A Revolution in Eating: How the Quest for Food Shaped America is a very interesting book. Not only does this book illustrate how food preferences of these groups of people varied dramatically according to their colonization purpose but it also gives the reader a deeper understanding of the American regional differences that continue through to modern day. Moreover, this book also looks at the different ways food was acquired and meals were prepared as well as the social practices of food sharing in these various regions.
The link between food and freedom. .......2006-06-28
McWilliams' book is fascinating and completely unexpected. I'd never given a thought to what explorers, settlers, slaves, and/or Native Americans ate beyond the traditional stuff of Thanksgiving. A Revolution in Eating starts with survival basics and takes you through New World regional "foodways" and drinking habits to a new undestanding of all sorts of familiar American traditions and beliefs about people, places, and things that turn out to be fundamental to our social, economic, and political independence as a nation. I couldn't put it down.
The New World according to food........2006-01-16
McWilliams' book is an exposition of how and why "traditional American" food as we know it today evolved in various places, and how and why these culinary evolutions in turn influenced historical movements.
We tend to take the task of gathering, planting, processing, and preserving food for granted in our 21st century lives; in truth, these are the most important tasks for our survival! McWilliams adeptly compared how culinary traditions evolved and developed distinct characters in New England, the Caribbeans, and everything in-between, depending on local resources and the people who lived in those areas. The latter part is determined by relations between the white settlers and the native Americans, and the West African slaves forcefully translated to the New World.
One fascinating aspect of the book is how closely the nature of work (or in many cases here, forced labor) and food are interconnected. Areas that grow sugar as a cash crop develop culinary traditions distinct from those that grow tobacco, and not only because of the obvious geographical difference. Social reality also had a strong interconnection to how food is cultivated or gathered.
McWilliams interspersed interesting re-examinations of the menu items that we take for granted today: How did smoked meats enter the American tradition? Why is Hoopin' John historically significant? What about the New England vegetable gardens come about?
Unfortunately, McWilliams tend to rely too much on including quotations of diary entries of people of the different eras. Rarely a page goes without any exultation of some random dairy farmer, or plantation operator, or inspector, or European visitor, on the "bountiful harvest of dis [sic] soiles [sic] .... " and "... are very resorrsful [sic] in gathering ... " After a while these quotations lose their charm and become bothersome and unnecessarily slows the pace of the main story.
Overall, this is an excellent and educational read. The subjects are well-researched and gives a fresh perspective of the "traditional" American cuisine as we know it today.
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Food in Colonial America (Colonial America)
Mark Thomas
Manufacturer: Children's Press (CT)
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
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ASIN: 0516234919 |
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Food in Colonial and Federal America (Food in American History)
Sandra L. Oliver
Manufacturer: Greenwood Press
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Binding: Hardcover
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Food in the United States, 1820s-1890 (Food in American History)
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A Revolution In Eating: How the Quest for Food Shaped America (Arts and Traditions of the Table)
ASIN: 0313329885 |
Book Description
The success of the new settlements in what is now the United States depended on food. This book tells about the bounty that was here and how Europeans forged a society and culture, beginning with help from the Indians and eventually incorporating influences from African slaves. They developed regional food habits with the food they brought with them, what they found here, and what they traded for all around the globe. Their daily life is illuminated through descriptions of the typical meals, holidays, and special occasions, as well as their kitchens, cooking utensils, and cooking methods over an open hearth. Readers will also learn how they kept healthy and how their food choices reflected their spiritual beliefs. This thorough overview endeavors to cover all the regions settled during the Colonial and Federal. It also discusses each immigrant group in turn, with attention also given to Indian and slave contributions. The content is integral for U.S. history standards in many ways, such as illuminating the settlement and adaptation of the European settlers, the European struggle for control of North America, relations between the settlers from different European countries, and changes in Native American society resulting from settlements.
Customer Reviews:
Use as a Research Tool.......2007-01-24
This book brought a number of primary sources together to form one of the most comprehensive books on the subject of food in Colonial America. The author had a thorough understanding of the subject, and not only provided apt descriptions of cooking in the period but also provided numerous visuals to aid the reader envisage what stoves and cookware looked like. I would recommend this book to anyone looking to become more familiar with the history of food.
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- Perfect
- GREAT Book!
- An excellent book for hands-on learning.
- quick read on the basics but not always accurate
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Hasty Pudding, Johnnycakes, and Other Good Stuff: Cooking in Colonial America
Loretta Frances Ichord
Manufacturer: Millbrook Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Library Binding
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ASIN: 0761303693 |
Customer Reviews:
Perfect.......2007-05-08
This product was just what we needed!! My son had a colonial feast to prepare for and we got some wonderful ideas from the book. Each recipe also featured interesting facts about the colonial period!! Would definetly recommend!!!
GREAT Book!.......1999-07-23
Hasty Puddings...is a TERRIFIC book for both adults and kids, in or out of the classroom. I found the history absolutely fascinating and the recipes are classics and well worth having in any kitchen or classroom. Don't miss this book...it's a wonderful blend of history and recipes!
An excellent book for hands-on learning........1999-05-09
This book is an excellent way to teach history through hands-on activities. Kids will not even realize they are learning about our colonial history while they are reading this fascinating account of the food eaten during this time period. Kids will learn about the dangers of fireplace cooking (many women burned to death because their dresses would catch on fire), the origins of "Soul Food", and the paramount importance of the Native Americans to the survival of the first colonists. It it written for nine to twelve year-olds so it fits perfect with the fifth grade social studies curriculum but my eighth grade students also love it. Students can use it for their eighth or fifth grade US History project presentations. They can present the history of colonial cooking while serving Johnnycakes or Peanut Soup.
quick read on the basics but not always accurate.......1999-05-07
This is a basic and simple cook book for children. It makes a nice quick read for kids and adults. Unfortunatly not all the information is accurate. In a few of the passages you will find the "politically correct" version of history slipping into place. For a quick lesson in colonial food it does an okay job, but for any type of true indepth look- look elsewhere.
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- Interesting Yet Lacking
- Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy.
- If you're into history....
- A Novel Look at American History
- Good read for beer drinkers and history buffs
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Beer in America: The Early Years--1587-1840: Beer's Role in the Settling of America and the Birth of a Nation
Gregg Smith
Manufacturer: Siris Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
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ASIN: 0937381659 |
Book Description
One of the most important but little-known aspects of early American history was beer's role in the founding of our country and its formative years. The definitive account of beer's impact on people and events that shaped the birth of a nation will astonish readers.
Customer Reviews:
Interesting Yet Lacking.......2007-01-13
Gregg Smith's book "Beer In America: The Early Years - 1587-1840" seeks to introduce ales, porters, and lagers as fundamental drinks of young America. Smith achieves mixed results in his account of beer's place in United States history.
The first half of the book is fascinating and rewarding, at least initially. Using lively prose devoid of the cumbersome style that sometimes appears in history works, Smith takes the reader into an American history that is resoundingly focused on beer. Fifty pages into the book, however, the approach loses its potency. Instead of allying his writing with realistic focus on fact, Smith begins to use the first half of his book as a condensed version of American history from Colonialism to the Jeffersonian period. While the pages are peppered with fascinating trivia and some important beer events, much of the history Smith describes is the same as what is offered in any high school or college American history classroom, albeit Smith does make a point to keep beer at the center stage. Sometimes Smith's focus on beer seems misplaced, for he almost seems to suggest that without beer, the United States would fail to exist. By the time the first half of his book concludes, much of what Smith writes seems as though it is a reasonable, long, undergraduate term paper.
Fortunately, Smith's later chapters make-up, in part, for weaknesses early on in his book. Chapter eight describes the history of big brewing industry in the United States. Beginning with Chapter nine, Smith begins to address specific social factors influencing and surrounding beer. Chapters eleven and twelve are welcome references describing early beer recipes and home brewing methods employed in early America. His fourteenth chapter is also excellent, it detailing Colonial brewing technology.
Reading Smith's book, I am left with a mixed opinion. On the one-hand, Smith goes out of his way to frame beer in America's historical context. He does this by almost blatantly shoving beer in every major event in early American history rather than focusing on facts surrounding beer. To be fair, however, Smith's telling involving beer in US history helps to weave a fascinating tale, one that breaks from often dull textbook accounts. For the livelihood Smith instills in American history, he ought to well be applauded. Criticism is warranted, however, in Smith's blind repeat of consensus history. For example, in spite of his frequent points that women played important roles in brewing, there are few women directly named in his account. Another problem in Smith's work is his inconsistent footnotes. The many intriguing facts and figures he notes are sometimes left without an apparent reference, and this is a shame for historians. From all of this, I wish that Smith had expanded his later chapters and condensed the first seven chapters of his book. Instead of retelling basic American history, Smith could well have more objectively accomplished his intention of explaining beer's fascinating role in early US history by focusing on important aspects of the brewing industry as well as amusing instances involving beer. There is no need to continually put a glass in the Founding Father's hands and there is no need to make it seem that the United States would cease to be without beer. In spite of these shortcomings, Smith's book is still a worthwhile read that leaves one to think about history every time he or she cracks a cool one.
Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy. .......2006-01-16
This book is an intersting account of the role of beer in American history. According to Smith the two are almost inseparable. For instance, Smith illustrates how the American Revolution may never have happened or at least been successful without beer. Going back further, to the early Dutch and English colonies Smith demonstrates just how important beer was to the settlers. Did you know that in New Netherland there were more taverns than churches? Also church services were often held in taverns? Records from the early English colonies also show that in some cases colonists preferred to go to a tavern on Sunday instead of Church. As a result laws had to be enacted to reverse this trend.Smith also demonstrtates the historical significance of the tavern (and beer) in early American politics. Indeed, many of America's founding fathers were actually brewers and of course consumers of beer including Thomas Jefferson, Ben Franklin, George Washington, and Sam Adams.
Smith also discusses early prohibtions in America. What makes these prohibitions unique is that they never actually banned beer. As Smith emphasizes beer was considered a heathful drink at the time and many people never saw it as the cause of "sinful" drunkenness.
Beer in America also gives a short history of some of the early breweries in the United States. Some of which are still with us today notably Schaefer and Yuengling. In an intersting conclusion to the book the history of early mixed beer drinks is given. Though these drinks are no where near what we drink today this is where many of our holiday and seasonal brews come from. A short history of early brewing technology is also given.
The only real problem with Beer in America is that it should be longer. Stopping at 1840 does not do the book justice! Perhaps stopping at Prohibtion would have made the book go down just a little bit easier!
If you're into history...........2001-11-07
If you are into history and beer this is a great book. Heck, if you're just into history it's a great book. Learn the problems the colonials had with recruiting an army and how they solved it (with beer, of course). Obviously the book reveals much more than that and is filled with fascinating information about how integral beer was to society in the late 1700's and early 1800's. It's a book that you would read more than once.
Worth your time and money.
A Novel Look at American History.......2001-09-06
This book is a very creative look at American history starting with the landing of the Mayflower in 1587. The book looks at the birth of a country from the perspective of a beer lover. The book seems to be historically accurate but I question if the role of beer is overstated in this book. At times Smith gives the impression that without beer the country would still be under English rule because there would have been no continental army if not for the beer retions. All in all Smith succeeds in entertaining you. There is no doubt that great minds like Washington and Adams came up with some of their best ideas over a pint of ale at the local pub. One of the strongest points of the book is the chapter on colonial drinks. This chapter makes the book worth it all by itself. The reader will be amazed at what the colonists considered a good drink. The book comes with my strong recomendation because it is easy to read and it gives some insight into how our founding fathers liked to unwind. If you have a slight interest in history, a love for beer and a bit of imagination, then this is a good book for you.
Good read for beer drinkers and history buffs.......1999-10-07
This book is a fine read for anyone who has any interest in either history or beer. It is an easy read that keeps you interested. Being from Boston I could easily envision some of the scenes recreated by Smith. Enjoyable!!
Average customer rating:
- A New Angle on New England History
- Cuisine and History
- The Meaning of the Menu
- A well-told corrective to some common myths
- Only two librarians could write such a boring book on such an interesting subject
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America's Founding Food: The Story of New England Cooking
Keith Stavely , and
Kathleen Fitzgerald
Manufacturer: The University of North Carolina Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
History
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The First American Cookbook: A Facsimile of "American Cookery," 1796
ASIN: 0807828947
Release Date: 2003-11-01 |
Book Description
From baked beans to apple cider, from clam chowder to pumpkin pie, Keith Stavely and Kathleen Fitzgerald's culinary history reveals the complex and colorful origins of New England foods and cookery. Featuring hosts of stories and recipes derived from generations of New Englanders of diverse backgrounds, America's Founding Food chronicles the region's cuisine, from the English settlers' first encounter with Indian corn in the early seventeenth century to the nostalgic marketing of New England dishes in the first half of the twentieth century.
Focusing on the traditional foods of the region--including beans, pumpkins, seafood, meats, baked goods, and beverages such as cider and rum--the authors show how New Englanders procured, preserved, and prepared their sustaining dishes. Placing the New England culinary experience in the broader context of British and American history and culture, Stavely and Fitzgerald demonstrate the importance of New England's foods to the formation of American identity, while dispelling some of the myths arising from patriotic sentiment.
At once a sharp assessment and a savory recollection, America's Founding Food sets out the rich story of the American dinner table and provides a new way to appreciate American history.
Customer Reviews:
A New Angle on New England History.......2006-05-27
My New England bookshelf groans under the weight of historical studies focusing on the politics, theology, intellectual life, industry, and notable people of the region. These are all worthy if well-worn subjects. Then there's the New England tourism industry, selling "ye olde" Boston baked beans, clam chowder, and Indian pudding as vaunted, almost sacred, symbols of the region. Here, finally, is a book that explains the connection between the two, taking both the history and the food seriously.
There are many surprises here, for instance that turkeys were often boiled and garnished with oyster sauce when served for special feasts, and that the first English to settle the region grew corn because their wheat crops mostly failed. This is a careful, food-oriented story, with lots of detail on what people ate, and how it was processed and preserved as well as cooked. It's also interesting to learn what average families wanted to eat when they were dining on their daily pottage.
The authors use memoirs, letters, and novels as well as cookbooks to uncover what New Englanders thought about the foods they ate. This is a compelling account and a detailed study, with lots of good stories to leaven the Boston Brown Bread. Whether you're interested in the ways gingerbread recipes changed from the court kitchens of the Middle Ages to the farm kitchens of New England, or in the reasons why a wallflower cuisine like New England cooking became enshrined as American food, there's something here for you.
Cuisine and History.......2006-05-20
Although we know that armies march on their bellies and that the search for food has played a crucial role in building societies, the writing of history has often neglected this important subject. Only recently has food history taken its place alongside more conventional approaches to history-writing. This book is a fine example of the new interest in food history.
What impressed me as I read it was how little I had known before, and how much I was learning about what New Englanders ate throughout the region's history. We've all heard about Boston baked beans and Indian pudding, but I didn't know about the gingerbread that colonial militamen nibbled on muster days. Nor did I know that bear was considered even better eating than venison by the Massachusetts Bay colonists. One nineteenth-century writer asserted that cod fish was to New England what roast beef was to England. What struck me most, however, was how the authors discuss the colonial revival of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and how that period shaped our ideas of "historic" New England. What we think of as New England's historic foods--the "first" Thanksgiving meal, those Boston baked beans--were partly based in fact but were mostly the invention of the colonial revivial.
The ways that people use their traditional foods to represent their culture are described in fascinating detail in America's Founding Food. There's a wealth of detail here, but also a great story about what food meant, from the settlement of New England to the revival of the region as a destination for those interested in America's roots. This is a substantial, thoughtful book.
The Meaning of the Menu.......2006-05-18
Americans still think particular New England foods and menus, like Thanksgiving dinner, Boston Baked Beans, and boiled Maine lobster, are important parts of our American identity. This highly informative book tells us why these and other New England dishes were important to many generations of Americans, and continue to be part of our American heritage.
With wit and erudition, the authors separate fact from fiction through careful analysis of some hoary traditions. Along the way, they left me chuckling over such food-lore gems as the Adams-Jefferson dispute on when to serve pudding and the controversy concerning the "authentic" way to make Rhode Island Jonny cakes, with one side declaring that the other's was "hick feed."
There's something here for just about everyone interested in American history or the history of food. From a discussion of the economic motivation for setting up those quaint New England fishing villages to the environmental implications of animal husbandry (which the English colonists introduced into New England), we learn to think somewhat differently about New England's past. Along the way, we get a glimpse of American home life as it was lived, particularly in the 18th and 19th centuries, in New England--the houswife who worries that she's too late bottling her plums and the little boy whose mother's "fire-cake" is such a treat. This book makes you feel like you are in those kithcens. Boiling a hundred oysters to make Oyster Ketchup, helping to butcher a 280-pound hog, these New England cooks were really something!
While it is a history and not a cookbook, this book gives both cooks and history buffs the solid information we need to separate the wheat from the chaff in terms of New England food lore. It offers a chance to see what New Englanders ate, and why, and most tellingly, what they thought about their food.
A well-told corrective to some common myths.......2006-03-30
This is a fascinating story that uses food to debunk many of the myths about New England that we learned in school. Here you will find the real story behind the English reliance on Indian corn, the origins of chowder, and the ways dishes such as baked beans were used to promote one social group over others. This is history at its best--fun, factual, thoughtful, coherent, and readable.
Only two librarians could write such a boring book on such an interesting subject.......2006-03-29
Yes, a scholarly book, with illustrations. Yawn. If you seek anything more than research and the occasional black and white illustration, look elsewhere. I'm sure the authors are being "celebrated" within their communities, but the hype is just that; hype. The cover of the book is the only colorful, exciting thing about it.
Not that I was expecting a cookbook, but it does not appeal to a wide range of people, and that is a flaw. The authors therefore come across as if they must be glad to be part of such an "elite" group of people who "get it," while the rest of us are simply ignorant.
Also, this is definitely not for the foodies.
Average customer rating:
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The Good Land: Native American and Early Colonial Food (Patricia B. Mitchell Foodways Publications)
Patricia B. Mitchell
Manufacturer: Mitchells
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
General
| Baking
| Cooking, Food & Wine
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Nutrition
| Health, Mind & Body
| Subjects
| Books
United States
| Americas
| History
| Subjects
| Books
| 19th Century
| 20th Century
| 21st Century
| African Americans
| Civil War
| Colonial Period
| General
| Revolution & Founding
| State & Local
ASIN: 0925117609 |
Average customer rating:
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A Revolution in Eating: How the Quest for Food Shaped America (Arts and Traditions of the Table: Perspectives on Culinary History)
James E. McWilliams
Manufacturer: Columbia University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
History
| Gastronomy
| Cooking, Food & Wine
| Subjects
| Books
General
| United States
| Americas
| History
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Colonial Period
| United States
| Americas
| History
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Americas
| History
| Subjects
| Books
Social History
| Historical Study
| History
| Subjects
| Books
ASIN: 0231129939 |
Book Description
Sugar, pork, beer, corn, cider, scrapple, and hoppin' John all became staples in the diet of colonial America. The ways Americans cultivated and prepared food and the values they attributed to it played an important role in shaping the identity of the newborn nation. In A Revolution in Eating, James E. McWilliams presents a colorful and spirited tour of culinary attitudes, tastes, and techniques throughout colonial America.
Confronted by strange new animals, plants, and landscapes, settlers in the colonies and West Indies found new ways to produce food. Integrating their British and European tastes with the demands and bounty of the rugged American environment, early Americans developed a range of regional cuisines. From the kitchen tables of typical Puritan families to Iroquois longhouses in the backcountry and slave kitchens on southern plantations, McWilliams portrays the grand variety and inventiveness that characterized colonial cuisine. As colonial America grew, so did its palate, as interactions among European settlers, Native Americans, and African slaves created new dishes and attitudes about food. McWilliams considers how Indian corn, once thought by the colonists as "fit for swine," became a fixture in the colonial diet. He also examines the ways in which African slaves influenced West Indian and American southern cuisine.
While a mania for all things British was a unifying feature of eighteenth-century cuisine, the colonies discovered a national beverage in domestically brewed beer, which came to symbolize solidarity and loyalty to the patriotic cause in the Revolutionary era. The beer and alcohol industry also instigated unprecedented trade among the colonies and further integrated colonial habits and tastes. Victory in the American Revolution initiated a "culinary declaration of independence," prompting the antimonarchical habits of simplicity, frugality, and frontier ruggedness to define American cuisine. McWilliams demonstrates that this was a shift not so much in new ingredients or cooking methods, as in the way Americans imbued food and cuisine with values that continue to shape American attitudes to this day.
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Family marks restaurant's 25 years with charity bash.(Competitive Edge: Cortland Colonial): An article from: Westchester County Business Journal
David J. Glenn
Manufacturer: Westfair Communications, Inc.
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Digital
General
| Business & Investing
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Business & Investing
| Subjects
| e-Docs
| Formats
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General
| Business & Investing
| HTML
| Formats
| e-Docs
| Formats
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ASIN: B0008E7ZEC
Release Date: 2005-07-31 |
Book Description
This digital document is an article from Westchester County Business Journal, published by Westfair Communications, Inc. on October 6, 2003. The length of the article is 691 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.
Citation Details
Title: Family marks restaurant's 25 years with charity bash.(Competitive Edge: Cortland Colonial)
Author: David J. Glenn
Publication:
Westchester County Business Journal (Magazine/Journal)
Date: October 6, 2003
Publisher: Westfair Communications, Inc.
Volume: 42
Issue: 40
Page: 1(2)
Distributed by Thomson Gale
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