Looking for a culinary challenge this Thanksgiving? Consider preparing your Thanksgiving dinner like it was 1796. The following recipes are from American Cookery by Amelia Simmons, the first cookbook written by an American, for an American audience, and published in the United States. Before its publication in 1796, only British cookbooks or American reprints of … Continue reading Thanksgiving Recipes from 1796
Old recipe books tell the story of the daily routine of average women in the past. Lettice Pierce Bryan (1805-1877), the author of The Kentucky Housewife, was one of those women. Her collection of “receipts” for food and more illustrate key lessons about running a household in the pre-industrial era. A quick history of cookbooks … Continue reading Mrs. Bryan’s “Kentucky Housewife”: Managing a Household in the 1830s
What’s a shoat? Before the Civil War, cookbooks included dozens of recipes for shoat. Today, this word for pork only appears glossaries for journalists covering agriculture. A shoat (also spelled shote) is a young pig under one year old. Antique words and old recipes, like antique tools or technology, illustrate changes in daily life. Weird old … Continue reading What’s a shoat?
My refrigerator died . . . in July! I’ve had to re-think how I buy, store, and prepare food. During this household drama, I wondered – how did people survive for millennia without refrigeration? Before the refrigerator . . . Until the invention of refrigeration in the late 19th century, average working people ate less fresh … Continue reading How did humans survive without refrigerators?
Should government regulate the food industry? How do these regulations impact our individual food choices? These essential questions help students connect their individual experiences and opinions of school lunches to issues behind government regulation today and in past civilizations. Food has always been connected to politics. Rulers and leaders from ancient, medieval, and early modern cultures … Continue reading From Medieval Bread to School Lunches: Government Regulation of Food
Words come and go and meanings change over time. Exploring the story behind a word can illustrate changes daily life, social behavior, and technology over time. Introduce a word that has fallen out of daily use and ask students to guess the meaning. For example, words related to food and cooking change as technology and … Continue reading Saleratus, Pudding and a Gill: How Old Words Reflect a Changing World
Cookies can illustrate the relationship between food and politics in the classroom. A good cookie must have fat – but should the cook use oleo/margarine or butter? Butter, the fat from milk, has been used in baking for centuries. On the other hand, margarine was just invented about 150 years ago and was one of … Continue reading Cookies and how government regulation affects daily life