The History of American Food (Margaret Hardin)

What is this podcast? How in the world am I going to do the History of American Food without getting lost? For a quick preview try this introduction.

Music Credit: Fingerlympics by Doctor Turtle
Show Notes: https://thehistoryofamericanfood.blogspot.com/
Email: TheHistoryofAmericanFood@gmail.com
Twitter: @THOAFood

Sure, Iron's not a food - but it is an essential part of how America does food. We'll go back to the beginning and look at how the very 1st settlements' dependance on iron shaped how they saw food.

Music Credit: Fingerlympics by Doctor Turtle
Show Notes: https://thehistoryofamericanfood.blogspot.com/
Email: TheHistoryofAmericanFood@gmail.com
Twitter: @THOAFood

Tools and Weapons – this is what lots of the iron was used for. How were they connected to colonial food?

Music Credit: Fingerlympics by Doctor Turtle
Show Notes: https://thehistoryofamericanfood.blogspot.com/
Email: TheHistoryofAmericanFood@gmail.com
Twitter: @THOAFood

When everything – including making food – is done by muscle power – how did Colonial America decide to get more for less? In many cases – by using iron to make chains to enslave Native Americans and Africans. How did the colonists talk themselves into this? How far back did it start?

Show Notes: https://thehistoryofamericanfood.blogspot.com/
Email: TheHistoryofAmericanFood@gmail.com
Twitter: @THOAFood
Podcast Music: Fingerlympics by Doctor Turtle

Where is sugar even from? When did it make it to Europe? How did it get to the West Indies? I have questions.

Show Notes: https://thehistoryofamericanfood.blogspot.com/
Email: TheHistoryofAmericanFood@gmail.com
Twitter: @THOAFood
Podcast Music: Fingerlympics by Doctor Turtle

Here's where I didn't go in the Sugar History episode. This shows the bones of how medical thinking worked until germ theory got off the ground in the 19th Century. These ideas will return in each century. I don't go deep down the hole, just show you were it is.

Show Notes: https://thehistoryofamericanfood.blogspot.com/
Email: TheHistoryofAmericanFood@gmail.com
Twitter: @THOAFood
Podcast Music: Fingerlympics by Doctor Turtle

Sugar changed the world in the 17th Century. It became a way to make lots of money - and changed the map of North America. The changes to food will take a little while, but the seeds are planted in kitchen and in trade.

Show Notes: https://thehistoryofamericanfood.blogspot.com/
Email: TheHistoryofAmericanFood@gmail.com
Twitter: @THOAFood
Podcast Music: Fingerlympics by Doctor Turtle

Corn has come a long way from that little grass, teosinte, near Oaxaca State, Mexico. Where did it go on its travels, and how the heck did it get, not just to the east coast, but all over the world?

Show Notes: https://thehistoryofamericanfood.blogspot.com/
Email: TheHistoryofAmericanFood@gmail.com
Twitter: @THOAFood
Podcast Music: Fingerlympics by Doctor Turtle

Corn really is how 17th Century colonists either just didn't die - or made fortunes. There are 3 different versions depending on if you were in New England, the Mid-Atlantic or the South. For all three groups Corn was Life.

Show Notes: https://thehistoryofamericanfood.blogspot.com/
Email: TheHistoryofAmericanFood@gmail.com
Twitter: @THOAFood
Podcast Music: Fingerlympics by Doctor Turtle

How important was 17th Century fish? And how did people keep and prepare fish when there was no refrigeration?

Show Notes: https://thehistoryofamericanfood.blogspot.com/
Email: TheHistoryofAmericanFood@gmail.com
Twitter: @THOAFood
Podcast Music: Fingerlympics by Doctor Turtle

Can't live without it... wouldn't want to live without it. So the development of industry, tax, and cuisine are all tied up here with salt. Listen up for history, more trivia, and one way global silver and salt are BFF's.

Show Notes: https://thehistoryofamericanfood.blogspot.com/
Email: TheHistoryofAmericanFood@gmail.com
Twitter: @THOAFood
Podcast Music: Fingerlympics by Doctor Turtle

How salty was 17th Century American food? Very, very salty. The fridge of the age. I'll talk about how the salt was made and used and why salt went industrial in the 17th century.

Show Notes: https://thehistoryofamericanfood.blogspot.com/
Email: TheHistoryofAmericanFood@gmail.com
Twitter: @THOAFood
Podcast Music: Fingerlympics by Doctor Turtle

A chemistry tangent on salt - 17th Century Style

Music Credit: Fingerlympics by Doctor Turtle
Show Notes: https://thehistoryofamericanfood.blogspot.com/
Email: TheHistoryofAmericanFood@gmail.com
Twitter: @THOAFood

There are other things that cause pirates, but restrictive shipping rules, navigation acts and tariffs - enforced from over 8 weeks away definitely causes pirates.

Music Credit: Fingerlympics by Doctor Turtle
Show Notes: https://thehistoryofamericanfood.blogspot.com/
Email: TheHistoryofAmericanFood@gmail.com
Twitter: @THOAFood

We love our perishables now, but they were both welcome and considered worthless in the 17th Century. Is that dandelion food or medicine? What about that mulberry?

Music Credit: Fingerlympics by Doctor Turtle
Show Notes: https://thehistoryofamericanfood.blogspot.com/
Email: TheHistoryofAmericanFood@gmail.com
Twitter: @THOAFood

Pease/Peas and Beans and the other ones. Unglamorous, but dependable, legumes have been with humans for a long time. Untangling Old World & New World beans, and why you never eat New World Beans raw.

Music Credit: Fingerlympics by Doctor Turtle
Show Notes: https://thehistoryofamericanfood.blogspot.com/
Email: TheHistoryofAmericanFood@gmail.com
Twitter: @THOAFood

How and why the 17th century colonists made a distinction between pumpkin and squash. One was good and the other bad. Spoiler alert - those Puritan Pilgrims had some ideas about bright colors and what made a loose woman.

Music Credit: Fingerlympics by Doctor Turtle
Show Notes: https://thehistoryofamericanfood.blogspot.com/
Email: TheHistoryofAmericanFood@gmail.com
Twitter: @THOAFood

Digging out the rest of the vegetables our 17th Century pre-Americans were eating. But really showing how vegetables are involved in the North-South rift, and just how early that started. While it was partly the weather, it turns out religion, economics, labor policies and farm kids vs. city kids all had a hand in it. I was surprised how what could have been a very small topic went so for afield.

Music Credit: Fingerlympics by Doctor Turtle
Show Notes: https://thehistoryofamericanfood.blogspot.com/
Email: TheHistoryofAmericanFood@gmail.com
Twitter: @THOAFood

Another reason for America at all... Cows. Arable England was all out of room - and there were lots of casks of salt beef the Navy needed to buy. So, go grow cows in the New World! This episode looks at just what a cow is, and how they got to Colonial America.

Music Credit: Fingerlympics by Doctor Turtle
Show Notes: https://thehistoryofamericanfood.blogspot.com/
Email: TheHistoryofAmericanFood@gmail.com
Twitter: @THOAFood

I finally did it - I've covered all the thingies in my logo! Beef, Sugar and Iron (though that cowboy coffee pot will remain empty until the 18th Century). 17th Century beef did not come in steaks - rather gobbets and slices, or reconstituted from salting or stringy, stringy jerky.
And what good is a steak knife if you don't yet have a fork?

Show Notes: https://thehistoryofamericanfood.blogspot.com/
Email: TheHistoryofAmericanFood@gmail.com
Twitter: @THOAFood
Music Credit: Fingerlympics by Doctor Turtle

Did you know milk fresh from the cow is 101F/38C ?
That's right, a "cold glass of milk" wasn't really a thing in 17th Century Colonial America. But people still drank or supped on liquid dairy. Find out how - and learn about the most cow to table dessert ever.

Show Notes: https://thehistoryofamericanfood.blogspot.com/
Email: TheHistoryofAmericanFood@gmail.com
Twitter: @THOAFood
Music Credit: Fingerlympics by Doctor Turtle

How does milk work so you can take a liquid and make it in to solids?
This episode I talk about how liquid milk, which will just go bad on you in a second was turned into butter and cheese so it could travel around the 17th Century American food world.

Music Credit: Fingerlympics by Doctor Turtle
Show Notes: https://thehistoryofamericanfood.blogspot.com/
Email: TheHistoryofAmericanFood@gmail.com
Twitter: @THOAFood

Corn bread and Pumpkin beer - that was some serious suffering in the 17th century. Finally the competent farmers showed up in Pennsylvania to grow the real grains the English colonists missed in the New World.

Music Credit: Fingerlympics by Doctor Turtle
Show Notes: https://thehistoryofamericanfood.blogspot.com/
Email: TheHistoryofAmericanFood@gmail.com
Twitter: @THOAFood

No coffee? No orange juice? No sparkling water? What did the 17th C colonists drink to wake up, to refresh themselves? Beer of course.
The problem was… it was bad beer. Join me to find out why, and how long it lasted.

Music Credit: Fingerlympics by Doctor Turtle
Show Notes: https://thehistoryofamericanfood.blogspot.com/
Email: TheHistoryofAmericanFood@gmail.com
Twitter: @THOAFood

17th Century bread had plenty of fiber, and occasionally some very tiny rocks. The hand milled grain - and initially this was mostly corn - that went into to the early breads was more meal than flour, so bread was rather dense. More of an unleavened fireside puck than a familiar loaf.
It would take decades and the settlement of early Pennsylvania before the bread we would recognize became somewhat common. From those earliest colonial campsites… ovens had to be built, the bread tools had to be carved, the wheat successfully grown and to get a regular barm (yeast) supply, they had to get the beer brewing.

Show Notes: https://thehistoryofamericanfood.blogspot.com/
Email: TheHistoryofAmericanFood@gmail.com
Twitter: @THOAFood
Podcast Music: Fingerlympics by Doctor Turtle

Deer are 17th Century Colonial Food. But because they are seen as free, and not well managed, they quickly fall off the regular American Menu. Learn about the toughest meat everyone ate for a few years, but then only the richest and poorest ended up eating… and still eat today.

Venison will go largely into eclipse, but not the deer antler handle.

Show Notes: https://thehistoryofamericanfood.blogspot.com/
Email: TheHistoryofAmericanFood@gmail.com
Twitter: @THOAFood
Podcast Music: Fingerlympics by Doctor Turtle

Once again - not a food, but wood is absolutely essential in the quest for edibles in the 17th century. Wood was necessary to grow food, harvest food, process food, cook food, store food, and transport it to market. And there were lots of trees used in lots of different ways. A few provided edibles - fruits and nuts, sweet sap and medicinal bark, but for the most part, trees provided the infrastructure required to get food on the board.
I will lists trees like Harlan Pepper lists nuts. ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Best_in_Show_(film) )


Music Credit: Fingerlympics by Doctor Turtle
Show Notes: https://thehistoryofamericanfood.blogspot.com/
Email: TheHistoryofAmericanFood@gmail.com
Twitter: @THOAFood

Yes I've already mentioned Pickles once, but this time I'll be looking into the whole range of what was pickled (boy oh boy, it was more than cucumbers - it was more than vegetables), the different ways of pickling, how those pickles were stored, and how they were used.


Music Credit: Fingerlympics by Doctor Turtle
Show Notes: https://thehistoryofamericanfood.blogspot.com/
Email: TheHistoryofAmericanFood@gmail.com
Twitter: @THOAFood

Piggies piggies piggies. It's all bacon, salt and smoked hams in the 17th century. The images of Babe and Wilbur from Charlotte's Web are all off the mark. The early colonial pig was lean, mean, long legged and would bite you if it could. Some apparently even beat up on wolves. Come visit the colonial pig pen.

Music Credit: Fingerlympics by Doctor Turtle
Show Notes: https://thehistoryofamericanfood.blogspot.com/
Email: TheHistoryofAmericanFood@gmail.com
Twitter: @THOAFood

This week is History of Apples, and Solid Apples, Liquid Apples is next week. I hold myself open to a possible future Gaseous Apples, but draw the line at Plasma Apples.
The hegemony of the Apple is covered, as is the transformation of the Apple from its role as Biblical Bad Girl to Colonial Goody.

Music Credit: Fingerlympics by Doctor Turtle
Show Notes: https://thehistoryofamericanfood.blogspot.com/
Email: TheHistoryofAmericanFood@gmail.com
Twitter: @THoAFood
Instagram: @THoAFood

After dealing with the good, solid, respectable apples, this week we deal with liquid apples. There's the fermented juice - cider & the fermented fermented juice - vinegar. I throw in the rest of the fruit juices because it's essentially the same process regardless of whether it's a peach or a pear or a mulberry. So apple juice - briefly sweet, tipsy and then sour.

Music Credit: Fingerlympics by Doctor Turtle
Show Notes: https://thehistoryofamericanfood.blogspot.com/
Email: TheHistoryofAmericanFood@gmail.com
Twitter: @THoAFood
Instagram: @THoAFood

Back then chicken probably tasted not like our chicken. If you could catch one of the scrawny little birds. But of much more import were the eggs. All four iterations - whole eggs, the rich yolks, the strong whites, and the practical hard cooked egg. The 17th Century colonies was the land before omelettes.


Music Credit: Fingerlympics by Doctor Turtle
Show Notes: https://thehistoryofamericanfood.blogspot.com/
Email: TheHistoryofAmericanFood@gmail.com
Twitter: @THoAFood
Instagram: @THoAFood

Finally - the truth comes out. Why is this truly American bird called the name of a country it was never from? And is it true your Thanksgiving turkey came from… 16th century Mexico, and not New England… at all? And we’ll continue to follow the baffling saga of Colonists taking perfectly good domestic animals and letting them get feral.
All this and more on this week's episode of The History of American Food!
(*cue jaunty synth music from ‘80s evening magazine style show*)

Music Credit: Fingerlympics by Doctor Turtle
Show Notes: https://thehistoryofamericanfood.blogspot.com/
Email: TheHistoryofAmericanFood@gmail.com
Twitter: @THoAFood
Instagram: @THoAFood

Do you want to listen? You want to listen, and learn about why American food is the way it is. Grab a red Solo cup and some Popcorn.

Music Credit: Fingerlympics by Doctor Turtle
Show Notes: https://thehistoryofamericanfood.blogspot.com/
Email: TheHistoryofAmericanFood@gmail.com
Twitter: @THoAFood
Instagram: @THoAFood

What portion of what we think of American food has its feet in Dutch clogs? I'm not entirely sure, but the research tells me it is more than I thought. After a helping of Dutch history, I look at sweet bread things - and why it is cookie in America, but biscuits in England.

Music Credit: Fingerlympics by Doctor Turtle
Show Notes: https://thehistoryofamericanfood.blogspot.com/
Email: TheHistoryofAmericanFood@gmail.com
Twitter: @THoAFood
Instagram: @THoAFood

Part 2 of the 17th Century Dutch colonial influence on Modern American food. Doing doughnuts before they were cool - or maple bars. Also a quick peek at the why of Santa Claus vs. Father Christmas.

Music Credit: Fingerlympics by Doctor Turtle
Show Notes: https://thehistoryofamericanfood.blogspot.com/
Email: TheHistoryofAmericanFood@gmail.com
Twitter: @THoAFood
Instagram: @THoAFood

Caffeine, Nicotine & Theobromine - along with the printing press and sugar all arrived in a big way in Europe in the 17th Century. They each affected the colonization of America - some immediately... and some waited.
Do you think kids these days are bad? Well! Consider how crazy-making those guys (and in those days, it was the Boys) were with their propositions of allowing the Bible to be read in English, and establishing smoking in public. It was wild I tell you.

Music Credit: Fingerlympics by Doctor Turtle
Show Notes: https://thehistoryofamericanfood.blogspot.com/
Email: TheHistoryofAmericanFood@gmail.com
Twitter: @THoAFood
Instagram: @THoAFood

Wild horses, feral horses, eatin' horses - only 2 of those exist in 17th Century America. The eating and not eating of horses has shifted across European and American history - as have the reasons why. I'll explain that - and pronounce "Przewalski" - the P is silent!

Music Credit: Fingerlympics by Doctor Turtle
Show Notes: https://thehistoryofamericanfood.blogspot.com/
Email: TheHistoryofAmericanFood@gmail.com
Twitter: @THoAFood
Instagram: @THoAFood

Fat – and not for just this week, but next week too. I foolishly thought I could get through this in one week. Not so. As a result this week is fat overview and fat prestige rankings, and not until next week do I get on to the morality.
But you do get to hear about my up close and personal time with cracklings.

Music Credit: Fingerlympics by Doctor Turtle
Show Notes: https://thehistoryofamericanfood.blogspot.com/
Email: TheHistoryofAmericanFood@gmail.com
Twitter: @THoAFood
Instagram: @THoAFood

Less Food and more Religious Baggage! I really know how to liven up a conversation. I was so taken aback at the preserved ire at humans just living in so much of the early New England writing, and how vilified the fat, the lazy, the people who even acknowledge pretty things, or like flavors were - that I had to do an episode on it.
I was surprised at how old explicit fat-phobia, both in food and on bodies was in this country. So buckle up for the ride.

Music Credit: Fingerlympics by Doctor Turtle
Show Notes: https://thehistoryofamericanfood.blogspot.com/
Email: TheHistoryofAmericanFood@gmail.com
Twitter: @THoAFood
Instagram: @THoAFood

The debut of Rum - or Kill-Devil as it was known at first. Regardless, this was a bad liquor, and it was how you let other people know you were bad. Yo-ho-ho and all that.
Molasses was the origin, and if anything, molasses was the receptacle of all of the evils of the sugar trade. You can clearly tell by its color of course. (If you are not a listener, and don't know me - heavens child, this is called sarcasm).
And from this waste stream of white sugar, the Demon rum was born.

Music Credit: Fingerlympics by Doctor Turtle
Show Notes: https://thehistoryofamericanfood.blogspot.com/
Email: TheHistoryofAmericanFood@gmail.com
Twitter: @THoAFood
Instagram: @THoAFood

Soap - Just what is soap, and what makes soap... soapy? How do you make it? Is it better or worse than chemical detergents? And how were people getting clean before soap? I look into all that and more, and express my love for the 90's Comic Masterpiece _The Tick_.
But seriously - Chemicals are not The Enemy - profiteering off fear is.

Books and other info I promised:
The Tick v. Dinosaur Neil: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1J8HxakmkWU

Scientific Soap Making: https://www.soapguild.org/cart/books/78/scientific-soapmaking.php
Lab Muffin - Make Your Own Soap!: https://labmuffin.com/make-your-own-soap-part-1-the-chemistry-behind-soap-making/

Music Credit: Fingerlympics by Doctor Turtle
Show Notes: https://thehistoryofamericanfood.blogspot.com/
Email: TheHistoryofAmericanFood@gmail.com
Twitter: @THoAFood
Instagram: @THoAFood

So I'm reading along about the Spice Islands and start to wonder - was #Dune just Frank Herbert vibing out in Big University Archives and smoking too many clove ciggies?
But seriously, the world really did turn in on itself over the dried plant bits from a couple of islands between India and Australia. (Was it #Aliens? It wasn't Aliens.) But I will explain how the busiest place in the world in the 16th Century was a place that is really hard to get to even now, but has food you really want to try.

The show notes will have spice lists in what looks like made-up languages, and a link to a PDF ( https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/8102 ) of the Forme of Cury.
Also - shoutout to @NYPL for having a bound version of this on display at 5th Ave - I got to see it!)

Music Credit: Fingerlympics by Doctor Turtle
Show Notes: https://thehistoryofamericanfood.blogspot.com/
Email: TheHistoryofAmericanFood@gmail.com
Twitter: @THoAFood
Instagram: @THoAFood

What critters are you willing to eat? If you were a certain kind of colonist, the answer would have been deer, or bird, possibly some certain fish, or none. And you would also likely be dead. The surviving children of these disasters and later arrivals had different opinions. Some because they were transported peasants and vagrants, other because they had just seen a whole bunch of people who were overly picky eaters die of starvation. But even the new adventurous eaters had standards. No one wanted to eat a skunk if they really didn't have to.
Listen up if you want a run down of the 17th century colonial Varmint scene.

Music Credit: Fingerlympics by Doctor Turtle
Show Notes: https://thehistoryofamericanfood.blogspot.com/
Email: TheHistoryofAmericanFood@gmail.com
Twitter: @THoAFood
When I figure it out - Instagram: @THoAFood

Without cars - there were no drive-thrus, so was every meal a sit down affair? Of course not. Too much to do - and as we'll soon see - nobody's got time for 3 hot meals a day. Besides, that was practically gluttony.

Apologies in advance for Nursery Rhymes.

Music Credit: Fingerlympics by Doctor Turtle
Show Notes: https://thehistoryofamericanfood.blogspot.com/
Email: TheHistoryofAmericanFood@gmail.com
Twitter: @THoAFood
Instagram: @THoAFood

Find out what fast food was in the Old World - and why it was often a better bet than home cooked if you lived in the city. And what is was in the New World. They really miss that eel pie and an ale pine in New Plimouth.

When this whole America project got started as a bunch of random colonies, it wasn't just the Colonists there, they brought their servants as well. While there was slavery right from the jump, nearly all the domestic help in the 17th century were actually Indentured Servants. I'm not sure the right lessons were learned.

Music Credit: Fingerlympics by Doctor Turtle
Show Notes: https://thehistoryofamericanfood.blogspot.com/
Email: TheHistoryofAmericanFood@gmail.com
Twitter: @THoAFood
When I figure it out - Instagram: @THoAFood

1660 - When England gets serious about money and stuff & makes some big changes to its laws. This is going to make some big changes to North America. But first - sugar is about to get cheap. Learn the one weird trick they used. Ok - it's not weird, its awful. But they did it - and so as not to do it again - time to learn about the how and the why.

Music Credit: Fingerlympics by Doctor Turtle
Show Notes: https://thehistoryofamericanfood.blogspot.com/
Email: TheHistoryofAmericanFood@gmail.com
Twitter: @THoAFood
When I figure it out - Instagram: @THoAFood

We've come to the end of Season 1. I'll answer some questions, give a preview and let you know about the future of the show. But mainly I'm just here to let you know there's going to be a break while I sort out exactly how Season 2 is going to go.
Don't worry I'll be back - I just need to get organized.

Music Credit: Fingerlympics by Doctor Turtle
Show Notes: https://thehistoryofamericanfood.blogspot.com/
Email: TheHistoryofAmericanFood@gmail.com
Twitter: @THoAFood
Instagram: @THoAFood

Intelligent Speech - June 25th - come hear me reveal possibly dangerous information about Gumbo.
https://www.intelligentspeechconference.com/

Regular Ticket Price: $30
Purchase Tickets before May 15: $20
Extra 10% Off? Use the code: FOOD

I read a whole bunch of stuff about distilling in the way back of history. It was messy and when it came to immortality potions and alcohol - kinda dangerous. Come hear about it, and all the places distillation happened - and how distillation seems to have met itself again in South America over Pulque.

Source of the, "Don't eat in the Lab or you might turn into a Dinosaur!" References - The Tick v. Dinosaur Neil: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1J8HxakmkWU

Music Credit: Fingerlympics by Doctor Turtle
Show Notes: https://thehistoryofamericanfood.blogspot.com/
Email: TheHistoryofAmericanFood@gmail.com
Twitter: @THoAFood
Instagram: @THoAFood

Welcome Back! Season 2 is just around the corner. With more kinds of food, a little less time spent in the prehistory of food and much more access to contemporary cookbooks.

Intelligent Speech 2022
Celebrating Independent Educational Podcasts

Year 4 - Theme: Crossings
https://www.intelligentspeechconference.com/

Tickets - $30, but Early Bird Tickets are $20 - Before June 1

For an extra 10% Discount
Use the Promo Code: FOOD

This time there will be an exploration of the unusual literacy of the population, and pineapples appear. I look forward to sharing with you the upcoming changes - as the population gets more sweets, gets drunker, and the bread oven moves indoors. I think I may have also found the roots of why America never really developed solid bakeries or its own street-food culture.

Music Credit: Fingerlympics by Doctor Turtle
Show Notes: https://thehistoryofamericanfood.blogspot.com/
Email: TheHistoryofAmericanFood@gmail.com
Twitter: @THoAFood
Instagram: @THoAFood

Welcome Back!
(Sorry about the late Ep - I thought it would be only 12 hrs late... but wood chippers)

Don't Forget - Intelligent Speech Con - 2022, June 25th
Come hear me reveal possibly dangerous information about Gumbo.
https://www.intelligentspeechconference.com/

Regular Ticket Price: $30
Purchase Tickets before June 1: $20
Extra 10% Off? Use the code: FOOD

Iron & Wood & Food are hopelessly entangled in the 18th C colonies
The short version is that there is more iron to cook more things - but the stuff you can import to Britain is limited. Which means the cash workers can earn is limited... so the trouble starts.

But more nails means more rooms in a house. 100% increase from 1 room to 2!

That and so much more, including the burning building for nails fight.

Music Credit: Fingerlympics by Doctor Turtle
Show Notes: https://thehistoryofamericanfood.blogspot.com/
Email: TheHistoryofAmericanFood@gmail.com
Twitter: @THoAFood
Instagram: @THoAFood

Don't Forget - Intelligent Speech Conference - 2022, June 25th
Come hear me reveal possibly dangerous information about Gumbo.
https://www.intelligentspeechconference.com/

Regular Ticket Price: $30
Purchase Tickets before June 1: $20
Extra 10% Off? Use the code: FOOD

I thought I was going to be talking about Labor and Charcoal and Iron... but instead - I am talking to you about the invention of Toast. New research and old things in my brains do interesting things sometimes.

The Toaster Project - Thomas Thwaites: https://www.thomasthwaites.com/the-toaster-project/

Douglas Adams - Mostly Harmless: https://hitchhikers.fandom.com/wiki/Mostly_Harmless

Michelle Obama - Becoming: https://becomingmichelleobama.com/

Music Credit: Fingerlympics by Doctor Turtle
Show Notes: https://thehistoryofamericanfood.blogspot.com/
Email: TheHistoryofAmericanFood@gmail.com
Twitter: @THoAFood
Instagram: @THoAFood

Don't Forget! Intelligent Speech Conference - 2022, June 25th
Come hear me reveal possibly dangerous information about Gumbo.
https://www.intelligentspeechconference.com/

Regular Ticket Price: $30
Purchase Tickets before June 1: $20
Extra 10% Off? Use the code: FOOD

Sugar! In the 18th century it entered the kitchen. As mostly syrup it was used in dessert. But it also changed the kitchen wine and the kitchen beer. One was made easier and one was frankly made kinda worse.
A detour about blue paper - because why not!

Music Credit: Fingerlympics by Doctor Turtle
Show Notes: https://thehistoryofamericanfood.blogspot.com/
Email: TheHistoryofAmericanFood@gmail.com
Twitter: @THoAFood
Instagram: @THoAFood

Do take a peek at Unchefed https://www.unchefed.com/about
https://twitter.com/unchefed
and me when I'm not just in Teacher Mode: The History of Fish Sauce
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-history-of-fish-sauce/id1578898329?i=1000563764347

Don't Forget! Intelligent Speech Conference - 2022, June 25th
Come hear me reveal possibly dangerous information about Gumbo.
https://www.intelligentspeechconference.com/

Regular Ticket Price: $30
Purchase Tickets before June 1: $20
Extra 10% Off? Use the code: FOOD

For a minute there, for the colonists, Corn was a "foreign food", a poor substitute to real food. But by the 18th century it had become American Food for real. This is a long wander through American pyramids, the precursors to hushpuppies and Jell-o pudding, along with the birth of Moonshine before it was Moonshine.

Music Credit: Fingerlympics by Doctor Turtle
Show Notes: https://thehistoryofamericanfood.blogspot.com/
Email: TheHistoryofAmericanFood@gmail.com
Twitter: @THoAFood
Instagram: @THoAFood

Do take a peek at Unchefed https://www.unchefed.com/about
https://twitter.com/unchefed
and me when I'm not just in Teacher Mode: The History of Fish Sauce
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-history-of-fish-sauce/id1578898329?i=1000563764347

Don't Forget! Intelligent Speech Conference - 2022, June 25th
Come hear me reveal possibly dangerous information about Gumbo.
https://www.intelligentspeechconference.com/

Regular Ticket Price: $30
Extra 10% Off? Use the code: FOOD

Everybody was eating fish for about 80 years there. Then too many people moved away from the coast, we did some not smart things to our waterways, and the fish utopia ended.
But during that time - this is how we ate all that fish. One way if you were rich, and another way if you were everybody else. And if we were making so much dried codfish - why don't we have recipes for it?
A little paper history, and a small !Escandalo! regarding just how original Caesar Salad dressing is.


Music Credit: Fingerlympics by Doctor Turtle
Show Notes: https://thehistoryofamericanfood.blogspot.com/
Email: TheHistoryofAmericanFood@gmail.com
Twitter: @THoAFood
Instagram: @THoAFood

Come Join the Fun!
Intelligent Speech Conference - 2022, June 25th
Come hear me reveal possibly dangerous information about Gumbo.
https://www.intelligentspeechconference.com/

Regular Ticket Price: $30
Extra 10% Off? Use the code: FOOD

But Salt!

Fish!
Pirates!
Possible Independence!
The Sugar Economy!
The accidental creation of the Cajuns!
18th Century Salt in the New World is responsible for all sorts of things. And Cherokee or as we know them now - Virginia Hams.


Music Credit: Fingerlympics by Doctor Turtle
Show Notes: https://thehistoryofamericanfood.blogspot.com/
Email: TheHistoryofAmericanFood@gmail.com
Twitter: @THoAFood
Instagram: @THoAFood

Come Join the Fun!
Intelligent Speech Conference - 2022, June 25th
Come hear me reveal possibly dangerous information about Gumbo.
https://www.intelligentspeechconference.com/

Regular Ticket Price: $30
Extra 10% Off? Use the code: FOOD

Oysters are EVERYTHING.
It's like cronuts meet 1990's fro-yo. Everyone is Obsessed.
Sure there are some other shellfish, but who cares about them? Throw in a crab for variety now and then.
But more importantly I address why prisoners got mad about lobster, why there was oyster ketchup, and the most ridiculous DoorDash order ever.

On a more serious note: The Townsend's YouTube Channel. It's the Bob Ross of 18thC living. A great escape, and really informative as well.
Mushroom Ketchup: https://youtu.be/29u_FejNuks

Music Credit: Fingerlympics by Doctor Turtle
Show Notes: https://thehistoryofamericanfood.blogspot.com/
Email: TheHistoryofAmericanFood@gmail.com
Twitter: @THoAFood
Instagram: @THoAFood

Come Join the Fun!

Intelligent Speech Conference - 2022, June 25th

Come here me reveal scandalous information about Gumbo.

https://www.intelligentspeechconference.com/

Regular Ticket Price: $30
Extra 10% Off? Use the code: FOOD

Mercantilism has more money now… so it also has more Pirates!

Is committing Murder and Bribery the worst a pirate can do?
Nope - being unsuccessful and not having the money for the Bribe, that’s what does you in.
That & doing too much to create the foundations of a rebel economy.

But really the bigger questions here are:
Is your town #Team Madagascar or #Team Curaçao?
There was a second Triangle Trade triangle?
Just where was Paul Revere getting his Silver?
And does Great Great Grandma actually have pirate treasure?

Tune in for this and more economic history - including how tobacco farming in the age before chemical fertilizer may have jumpstarted the Revolution.

Special Thanks to Dr. Jamie L. H. Goodall
And her books
Pirates & Privateers - from Long Island Sound to Delaware Bay
Pirates of the Chesapeake Bay - from the Colonial Era to the Oyster Wars

https://www.amazon.com/Jamie-L.-H.-Goodall/e/B07ZS2Z4T3%3Fref=dbs_a_mng_rwt_scns_share

Music Credit: Fingerlympics by Doctor Turtle
Show Notes: https://thehistoryofamericanfood.blogspot.com/
Email: TheHistoryofAmericanFood@gmail.com
Twitter: @THoAFood
Instagram: @THoAFood

I cannot let the story stand that abortion and management of fertility is only a modern issue in America. It has been part of the landscape before Europeans arrived. But I'm not even close to being qualified to comment on that.

Instead this is a deep dive into the back of cookbooks of the popular and widely available 17th and 18th century cookbooks that were to be found in British Colonial and American Kitchens - and the fact that they contained recipes and instructions for both ending early pregnancies and helping along childbirth.

Fertility and reproductive care was the province of women and unregulated by legislation. Until it was.

In the 20th and 21st century, the legend was, access to fertility regulation in the past had always been treated as A Big Secret. I'm here to tell it wasn't. The how tos were available in the contemporary equivalent of the Julia Child cookbook. Don't believe me - listen in.

Music Credit: Fingerlympics by Doctor Turtle
Show Notes: https://thehistoryofamericanfood.blogspot.com/
Email: TheHistoryofAmericanFood@gmail.com
Twitter: @THoAFood
Instagram: @THoAFood

Lemons - they solved scurvy right? Or was it limes. Neither. These little ovoids were way WAY too precious to use on the common sailor like that. But find out where lemons came from and how they were used in food in the 18th century. How long ago was oyster with a squeeze of lemon a thing people were into?

And pineapples - where are they from, and how did they get to Europe and North America?
Is there a reason that there are a million pineapple household decor things, but barely any pineapple recipes? Yes! Yes there is. Find out what it is.

And an introduction to the madness of why scurvy was allowed to ravage British (and American) shipping into the 20th century. No - really.

Music Credit: Fingerlympics by Doctor Turtle
Show Notes: https://thehistoryofamericanfood.blogspot.com/
Email: TheHistoryofAmericanFood@gmail.com
Twitter: @THoAFood
Instagram: @THoAFood

Tea -

We did a big tea history last time. This time, it's smaller time. More details, more ceremony, more farce. But if you are curious what tea was drunk when, and how the Dutch lost ground to the English - stop by to find out.
And pirate plunder shows up on the tea table - both as tea and tea pot.

Music Credit: Fingerlympics by Doctor Turtle
Show Notes: https://thehistoryofamericanfood.blogspot.com/
Email: TheHistoryofAmericanFood@gmail.com
Twitter: @THoAFood
Instagram: @THoAFood

Mary Mary, Quite Contrary , How does your Garden Grow?

Or more importantly what grows in it, is it geometric or naturalistic, and who's doing the spade work?

Gardens in 18th century America run the gamut from pure survival to combining pleasure and purpose, to being show pieces entirely - Just like the Dowager Lady Grantham's

Most Important (and very readable) Book for this Episode:

Leighton, Anne. _American Gardens in the Eighteenth Century: For Use or Delight_
Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1976

Music Credit: Fingerlympics by Doctor Turtle
Show Notes: https://thehistoryofamericanfood.blogspot.com/
Email: TheHistoryofAmericanFood@gmail.com
Twitter: @THoAFood
Instagram: @THoAFood

Orange - a strange word, and important fruit - not just in the kitchen, but as a political symbol as well.

Come hear about it all, and some mythbusting about the origins of marmalade - and the defense of onion marmalade as well.

Link to Townsends recipe for Orange Fool: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T2AG545WIsg

Link to Orange Syllabub with the Kitchn (I would suggest orange flower water instead of the rose water): https://www.thekitchn.com/recipe-orange-syllabub-166177

Feel free to do an orange liqueur tasting! Choose from the very many options.
Cointreau
Triple Sec
Grand Manier
Curaçao (blue or clear - either is fine)
Bols Orange Liqueur
Pierre Ferrand
Gran Gala
DeKuyper
Combier
Clement Creole Shrubb
Naranja Liqueur
and so on...

Music Credit: Fingerlympics by Doctor Turtle
Show Notes: https://thehistoryofamericanfood.blogspot.com/
Email: TheHistoryofAmericanFood@gmail.com
Twitter: @THoAFood
Instagram: @THoAFood

What better time to explain scurvy (a very gross disease) - than right after my paean to the 18th century orange?

Learn it's causes, what it looks like, how to prevent and how to cure it - including, eat your cabbage!

This is the first in what will be an ongoing series in the diseases of deprivation that haunt us humans. Stay tuned for the greatest hits that includes things like pellagra, rickets and goiter! And become much more grateful for some of the food additives and cooking rules that are part of our daily lives - now that food prep is considered "so easy anyone can do it".

Music Credit: Fingerlympics by Doctor Turtle
Show Notes: https://thehistoryofamericanfood.blogspot.com/
Email: TheHistoryofAmericanFood@gmail.com
Twitter: @THoAFood
Instagram: @THoAFood

What a disappointment, beans.

The green bean - the French bean - how this quintessential American food got that name, I'll explain - is the only fancy tasty bean. The rest, and sad stand-ins for when there's no meat.

And since the British diner - at home or in the colonies - doesn't use garlic, except as a cough remedy, it's unlikely they could even enjoy beans.
Except down south, where spiced and smoked pork, the cayan pepper, and rice are all conspiring to bring the black-eyed pea to a good place.

But alas - overall, the 18th century bean is a bummer. No garbanzos, no lentils - but surprise! Soy Beans!

Music Credit: Fingerlympics by Doctor Turtle
Show Notes: https://thehistoryofamericanfood.blogspot.com/
Email: TheHistoryofAmericanFood@gmail.com
Twitter: @THoAFood
Instagram: @THoAFood

America has long been known as a Destination for Innovation. But what if I told you the innovation was ...
a) just editing on the hard work of many individual from many civilizations?
&
b) lots of the hard scut work was done in colonies before there were even was an America?

OK... ok ok there's more to it than that. But it is high time we recognize that sweeping innovations are ALWAYS the result of immersion in the contemporary environment. Sure, some jumps are bigger than others, but no innovation can exist without the thing it is innovating.
There's no boiling water without the recognition of fire and containers.

I'm not saying the best marketer shouldn't get rich - just that all the people assembling the widgets should also have food & shelter & water too!

Mechanized Milling - the start of American Prosperity, but not without problems.
So enjoy your bread - but can we make sure there's bread for all?

Music Credit: Fingerlympics by Doctor Turtle
Show Notes: https://thehistoryofamericanfood.blogspot.com/
Email: TheHistoryofAmericanFood@gmail.com
Twitter: @THoAFood
Instagram: @THoAFood

Spelling Guide:

PIE & PYE

Sea Pie - the English version with no fish. Fancy or only 2 meats as you will.
Cipaille, Cipâtes (spelling like the filling is up for debate, if not inviting argument) - Quebecois. 3 meats is most common. Regional variations with vegetables and spices or not. Onions almost always.

Six-Pâtes as you will - higher and with more meats is best for that true Louis XIV Sun King feel. An historical curiosity.

Head on over to the blog for nursery rhymes, coffin lids, and spanakopita hand pie recipes.

Music Credit: Fingerlympics by Doctor Turtle
Show Notes: https://thehistoryofamericanfood.blogspot.com/
Email: TheHistoryofAmericanFood@gmail.com
Twitter: @THoAFood
Instagram: @THoAFood

We have the bored rich to blame for tiny little bite size tarts. As busy colonials with outdoor ovens and too many things to do, we made our tarts big - and to go at meal times.

We will, alas have to wait for the coffee cake.

The liver pudding could go in the second course, but honestly, everyone would prefer the marrow pudding.
Even more than that - lets go with the fruit tarts - because that's what the busy cook and the sugar happy colonials want. Like so much spice - complex sweet savory puddings might just be a bit weird.

And check out a recipe for Grape Pie:
https://www.kingarthurbaking.com/recipes/concord-grape-pie-recipe

Or fancier Grape Tarts - go 1st or 2nd course with this recipe:
https://umamigirl.com/grape-tart/


Music Credit: Fingerlympics by Doctor Turtle
Show Notes: https://thehistoryofamericanfood.blogspot.com/
Email: TheHistoryofAmericanFood@gmail.com
Twitter: @THoAFood
Instagram: @THoAFood

Beer! It's as American as apple pie. Or maybe its English? Or German? OK - Colonial Beer has a bit of an identity crisis. Can you call it beer if it doesn't even contain malted grain?

Anyway spruce is the trendy thing - or hop tea? Anyway, there's not much dry hopping because the little buggers are expensive, the best way to get the most power out of them is to boil the dickens out of them... right?

Look - lots was going on in 18th century beer. Come along and find out. And discover if you would have been a dirty Royalist hop importer or a rustic home brewer.

Music Credit: Fingerlympics by Doctor Turtle
Show Notes: https://thehistoryofamericanfood.blogspot.com/
Email: TheHistoryofAmericanFood@gmail.com
Twitter: @THoAFood
Instagram: @THoAFood

For more of Me & Jess talking about Spice
Visit: https://theflakyfoodie.com/
Watch: https://youtu.be/K_2pZ3VhbwQ
Listen: https://theflakyfoodie.com/2022/09/447/

For Juneteenth - https://theflakyfoodie.com/2022/08/19-juneteenth-365-with-nicole-a-taylor-watermelon-redbirds/
Grilled Cheese: https://theflakyfoodie.com/2022/09/21-grilled-cheese-restaurant-impossible-with-tim-of-the-melting-truck/
And Finnish Sandwich Cake: https://theflakyfoodie.com/2022/05/16-finnish-food-sauna-culture-and-more-with-rachael-jukarainen/

This week - cider takes center stage, hip checking beer out of the spotlight. And it comes with opinions on liberty and labor. Carrie Nation will come for cider later, but in the 18th century was the virtuous drink, over wine, brandy, rum and even beer.

Also learn about Apple Jack and how it was different, initially from Apple Brandy.
And whatever you do, don't drink rubbing alcohol.


Music Credit: Fingerlympics by Doctor Turtle
Show Notes: https://thehistoryofamericanfood.blogspot.com/
Email: TheHistoryofAmericanFood@gmail.com
Twitter: @THoAFood
Instagram: @THoAFood

American Rice - Voyage the First

Some of the rice might have started from Asia, but all of it came directly from Africa.
But which side - the West, or from Madagascar?
How from Madagascar - isn't that all the way over on the east side?

Yes to all of this. The who and the when - kindof - are all covered. And learn what a monocot is. You'll have to look up the spelling of cotyledon on your own. Oh wait. You can see how it's spelled there.

But a video to look at Old Colonial or at least Early American rice field sight.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s3fcEvGmmXE

And check out the blog for Old School Navigation

You have to wait until next week to get the foods - but this week, learn how rice got here.

Music Credit: Fingerlympics by Doctor Turtle
Show Notes: https://thehistoryofamericanfood.blogspot.com/
Email: TheHistoryofAmericanFood@gmail.com
Twitter: @THoAFood
Instagram: @THoAFood

So many Links this week!

But great places to visit - a blog, a rice foundation, a shop for all things (many things?) Carib - I admit I'm excited about that one. There's not much Caribbean representation on my Global Shopping Street.

But most exciting of all - the exposure of fakes and the possibility of breaking news!
Rice pretends like its a background player - but it's a drama grain.

A savory calas (rice croquette) recipe: https://www.poppytooker.com/calas
Oh - just look up Poppy Tooker, this a New Orleans name of note. (I know the French are the Enemy right now, but its OK) https://www.poppytooker.com/this-weeks-show

Woah - can no longer find the digital version of the Lucayos Cook Book I snagged. Sloppy of me... and it looks like I have a pirated book! As a work published between 1924 and 1978 - it has a 95 year copyright... So I won't be slapping up a PDF. But! When do my bonus episode, I will be providing extensive recipes as quotations, and you'll definitely get the flavor of it.

In the meantime, a fair selection of smaller University libraries seem to have a copy of those book, so you can check it out.

Modern-ish take on Carolina Snowballs with Turnspit & Table
https://www.turnspitandtable.com/uncategorized/carolina-snowballs-re-do/

Anson Mills - https://www.ansonmills.com/
Get some Carolina Gold - regular rice, or rice grits - https://www.ansonmills.com/products
Carolina Gold Foundation - http://www.thecarolinagoldricefoundation.org/

But you can buy the red rice from Trinidad! Caribshopper:
https://caribshopper.com/blogs/caribshopper-blog/moruga-hill-rice-the-red-grain-with-a-great-story-and-taste

Links to the better red rice information:
Michael Twitty - https://leitesculinaria.com/325844/writings-the-history-of-rice.html

Abena Offeh-Gyimah - https://abenaoffehgyimah.com/blog/oryza-glaberrima-and-the-decline-of-indigenous-african-foods

Music Credit: Fingerlympics by Doctor Turtle
Show Notes: https://thehistoryofamericanfood.blogspot.com/
Email: TheHistoryofAmericanFood@gmail.com
Twitter: @THoAFood
Instagram: @THoAFood

This week the ox stops being fancy food for fancy people and becomes workaday food for city people and sailors alike. But it also became manly party food all at the same time.

I explain why its ox, not cow - but will be cow again.

Here's Bugs Bunny in the Bull Fighting Ring - nostalgia or new? Just watch it. It's all fun.
https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x7yzp40

Not up on yourColonial History of New Spain? Here's a cheat sheet on Coronado - https://www.desertusa.com/desert-trails/coronado-expedition-cibola.html

And one on Oñate (just wikipedia, but hey I have deadlines here) - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juan_de_O%C3%B1ate

And the Boat Stuck reference was to the Ever Forward getting stuck in the Chesapeake in March 2022 (for 5 weeks!). This of course was the sister ship to the notorious Ever Given (or the Evergreen Shipping Lines) that got stuck in the Suez Canal in March 2021. Leading me to be #Team "Beware the Tides of March".
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2022/03/ever-forward-chesapeake-bay-boat-shipping-supply-chain.html

But the Beefsteak makes it first appearance as do Beefeaters, Paddington Bear & the first appearance of Barbecue.

Music Credit: Fingerlympics by Doctor Turtle
Show Notes: https://thehistoryofamericanfood.blogspot.com/
Email: TheHistoryofAmericanFood@gmail.com
Twitter: @THoAFood
Instagram: @THoAFood

Enter the Dairy Maid - or Milk Maid, I'll accept either answer.
They were one of the these groups of women who used to be a skilled worker, but that pesky no being able to sign contracts or own stuff really stifled the ability to do any business beyond work for wages. Funny that.

But in the 18th century and the rise of Dairies as stand alone businesses because there was
A) land to have them
and
B) large bustling cities that worked as a customer base

you could start to get cream skimmed by someone else, summer cream cheese became a thing, and you could even buy a swallow of milk on the street - maybe to cool your fiery palate from that mug of Pepper-Pot Stew you got from the other street vendor.

Oh yeah, and people were noticing that dairy maids were doing better than the general population as a couple of waves of The Smallpox washed through the colonies. What to do about that? Not clear yet.

Music Credit: Fingerlympics by Doctor Turtle
Show Notes: https://thehistoryofamericanfood.blogspot.com/
Email: TheHistoryofAmericanFood@gmail.com
Mastadon: @THoAFood@Mastadon.social
Twitter: @THoAFood
Instagram: @THoAFood

By the end of the 18th century - we are SO CLOSE to ice cream - but we are not there yet. But I want to set the scene that dessert is becoming a thing, and that all the pieces are there. Sitting there, just waiting to be ice cream.

I mean Jefferson has a recipe in his own hand - likely told to him by his enslaved, Paris trained, French speaking, Black cook, James Hemmings. And George Washington had an ice cream freezer among his presidential party throwing accoutrements - likely used by his masterful enslaved cook - Hercules.

But none of that happens until AFTER the war. This episode is to let you know, ice cream did not come out of thin air. This is the background. Find out what it is!

Music Credit: Fingerlympics by Doctor Turtle
Show Notes: https://thehistoryofamericanfood.blogspot.com/
Email: TheHistoryofAmericanFood@gmail.com
Mastadon: @THoAFood@Mastadon.social
Twitter: @THoAFood
Instagram: @THoAFood

Biscuit Biscuit Biscuit

There are few baking words that can elicit so much general consternation.
Cupcake - maybe? But mostly not since most of the world can agree on cupcake, but biscuit is a word that means so many and yet also some deadly specific things to some people.

How did this mess get stared? I don't claim to have all the answers - but I do have some.

Rock hard - to middle stage to fluffy - I can explain!

So come along, and find out what the heck!

Check out the blog for details. Calm down - it'll be up after Thanksgiving 2022. I'm busy.

Anyway - if this is the future - anytime after Dec 1 2022 - just hit up the blog and all the promised links and recipes are there see below.

Music Credit: Fingerlympics by Doctor Turtle
Show Notes: https://thehistoryofamericanfood.blogspot.com/
Email: TheHistoryofAmericanFood@gmail.com
Mastadon: @THoAFood@Mastadon.social
Twitter: @THoAFood
Instagram: @THoAFood

I was almost done with this super cool look at wood and charcoal - and then my computer went down. I have to completely rewrite the 6 pages I already had - AHHHHH! Even the outline I wrote for myself went POOF!

But enough doom and gloom. Instead of killing myself, I'm hitting the kitchen to make béchamel and lots of delicious other stuff. And you can revisit my Tour de Turkey.

Plus a blast from the past of 1901.

See you next week - back in my usual form.

------

Finally - the truth comes out. Why is this truly American bird called the name of a country it was never from? And is it true your Thanksgiving turkey came from… 16th century Mexico, and not New England… at all? And we’ll continue to follow the baffling saga of Colonists taking perfectly good domestic animals and letting them get feral.
All this and more on this week's episode of The History of American Food!
(*cue jaunty synth music from ‘80s evening magazine style show*)

Music Credit: Fingerlympics by Doctor Turtle
Show Notes: https://thehistoryofamericanfood.blogspot.com/
Email: TheHistoryofAmericanFood@gmail.com
Twitter: @THoAFood
Instagram: @THoAFood

Wood! It is back, and now it's worth money.

You get to hear about how the iron industry wrecked English wood stocks, the King's Broad Arrow, crusty New Hampshire-ians & the Pine Tree Riot, fancy woodworking and just how there were so many MANY barrels rolling around the New World. Oh and how you can date pictures approximately by looking at the hoops on barrels.

This week the blog will also have really pretty pictures of marquetry - that is - fancy wood inlay.

Music Credit: Fingerlympics by Doctor Turtle
Show Notes: https://thehistoryofamericanfood.blogspot.com/
Email: TheHistoryofAmericanFood@gmail.com
Twitter: @THoAFood
Instagram: @THoAFood

Wood continues to do it all!

But this time, mainly as charcoal. It makes iron, it ages booze, it's necessary for barbecue, it makes gunpowder.

Charcoal - where did it come from, how does it happen, and a whole list of things it can do.


Music Credit: Fingerlympics by Doctor Turtle
Show Notes: https://thehistoryofamericanfood.blogspot.com/
Email: TheHistoryofAmericanFood@gmail.com
Twitter: @THoAFood
Instagram: @THoAFood

Deer are really cute. Well baby deer are cute. We've been making pictures of them for ages. We've been making pants and shoes and stuff of deer generally for even longer though. And while people generally agree that deer are darn tasty, Americans continue to regard them as either exotic meat or food for the fancy rich or the rustic poor - but never everyday food for normal people. Not for regular Americans on a regular basis anyway.

Some of the the why may lie in the 18th century colonial adventures with deer.

Music Credit: Fingerlympics by Doctor Turtle
Show Notes: https://thehistoryofamericanfood.blogspot.com/
Email: TheHistoryofAmericanFood@gmail.com
Twitter: @THoAFood
Instagram: @THoAFood

OK - No regular episode, just a bonus one. But the season of Misrule is just going to do that to us here in the 18th Century. It's kindof a chemistry class - but worry not - no tests and no homework.

This feels like a timely episode for those of us in the snow belt, since it helps you understand why salting the sidewalk prevents ice. But mainly I take the long way - through fire and dynamite - to explain why you make ice from water by causing already frozen ice to melt using salt.

Chemical bonds are interesting little things, and the phase changes of matter are strange places where energy exchange can cause things to happen that don't make sense at the human scale.

Oh - and snowflakes have six sides becase of the bent shape of water molecules - and the fact that they have a negative middle and positive ends.

All sorts of tiny trivia that will make the mundane ice - water - steam cycle seem interesting and possibly dangerous. Or at least inspire you to use hotpads in the kitchen.

As always - you can catch the Dinosaur Neil Episode of the The Tick here:
"Don't eat in the Lab or you might turn into a Dinosaur!" References - The Tick v. Dinosaur Neil: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1J8HxakmkWU


Music Credit: Fingerlympics by Doctor Turtle
Show Notes: https://thehistoryofamericanfood.blogspot.com/
Email: TheHistoryofAmericanFood@gmail.com
Twitter: @THoAFood
Instagram: @THoAFood

This week one of my cats makes his debut in sound design. His playing about in the closet makes me it seem as if I have Very Strong Feelings about trends in rich people food.

But mostly this is a look into the past of large-whale eating on a global scale up until about the 18th century. There are also surprises around how long it took Europeans to agree that whales are not fish. The pre-modern relationship to fat comes in to play - when you are most of your own heating source for most of the day, consuming fat has a different purposefulness.

And I spend a fair amount of time sorting out why most Americans have probobly never met anyone who knows what whale meat tastes like.

Music Credit: Fingerlympics by Doctor Turtle
Show Notes: https://thehistoryofamericanfood.blogspot.com/
Email: TheHistoryofAmericanFood@gmail.com
Twitter: @THoAFood
Instagram: @THoAFood

Well, well, well. Still not eating whale are we? Why in the heck are you talking about whale in a food podcast then? Turns out the global trade that lead to the pelagic (open ocean) whaling trade is a follow on of the "food for sea" in development.
The same thinking about food in action (travel food) will become essential to soon-future-America's expansionist and war dreams (not always different).

Anyway - reading at night used to smell like whale oil... if you were lucky.
Look at that glow of your phone a bit differently my friend.

Music Credit: Fingerlympics by Doctor Turtle
Show Notes: https://thehistoryofamericanfood.blogspot.com/
Email: TheHistoryofAmericanFood@gmail.com
Twitter: @THoAFood
Instagram: @THoAFood
Post: @THoAFood

This week we are about to lose an original member off the leader board.

But before the pumpkin slips away for a few seasons, I'll share with you why American food pumpkin dishes are so boring, despite this country being the home of the pumpkin, plus another slightly terrifying but very surprising fact.

So enjoy!

Music Credit: Fingerlympics by Doctor Turtle
Show Notes: https://thehistoryofamericanfood.blogspot.com/
Email: TheHistoryofAmericanFood@gmail.com
Twitter: @THoAFood
Instagram: @THoAFood
Post: @THoAFood

Hey!
Hey, Guess what?
Did you know that pigs have many names... and many fats. No, please. Wait. Don't run away from me. I'm really here to talk about dental health and delcious sausages. Does this sound like a strange pairing. You migh be correct.
Anyway. I just got back from a Boucherie. For the 5th time, so maybe that's a lame excuse. Really, what I'm trying to say is there is no modern American breakfast without piggies. Ask me how. I dare you? No I mean that nicely. I have sausages I desperately want you to like!

Music Credit: Fingerlympics by Doctor Turtle
Show Notes: https://thehistoryofamericanfood.blogspot.com/
Email: TheHistoryofAmericanFood@gmail.com
Twitter: @THoAFood
Instagram: @THoAFood
Post: @THoAFood

Eggs & Chickens

In the 18th century eggs made practical and fancy food (cake!). Chickens made fancy food. Or at least special occasion food. If you wanted bird meat, you usually ate it wild.

Chickens on the other hand were always underfoot. They were just there. Until it was time to develop the fancy chicken. Hear all about how the rising demand for more art, and the changing economics of paintings lead to lots and lots of chicken art!

Music Credit: Fingerlympics by Doctor Turtle
Show Notes: https://thehistoryofamericanfood.blogspot.com/
Email: TheHistoryofAmericanFood@gmail.com
Twitter: @THoAFood
Instagram: @THoAFood
Post: @THoAFood

Horses - it's an issue we've basically used the whole country and most of history to run away from. Find out how the American horse problem started - and far we have not come in 300 years.

Also - does your town have a Race St? FInd out why today!

I'm not going to solve the American Horse problem, but I hope you can be more thoughtful about it - and maybe then you can solve it?

Music Credit: Fingerlympics by Doctor Turtle
Show Notes: https://thehistoryofamericanfood.blogspot.com/
Email: TheHistoryofAmericanFood@gmail.com
Twitter: @THoAFood
Instagram: @THoAFood
Post: @THoAFood

Was there wine in the North American British Colonies?

No, but yes. There was pricey imported wine, and there were also other fruit wines - including stuff made from some of the American grapes.

But no one was selling wine, and definitely no one was exporting any.

All the reasons why, and the most maddening bug in the wine world all get described.

Music Credit: Fingerlympics by Doctor Turtle
Show Notes: https://thehistoryofamericanfood.blogspot.com/
Email: TheHistoryofAmericanFood@gmail.com
Twitter: @THoAFood
Instagram: @THoAFood
Post: @THoAFood

THe 17th century was the age of Rum. The 18th century has a new fighter, Whisky or Whiskey - choose your spelling.

How is happened, and where it was most important are all explored. There's some brandy and such, but these other things aren't as important, and don't shape the economic futiure the way whiskey and rum do.

This week follow their adventures - you'll have to wait for next week to learn about all the mixed drinks - tasty and otherwise of the age.

Music Credit: Fingerlympics by Doctor Turtle
Show Notes: https://thehistoryofamericanfood.blogspot.com/
Email: TheHistoryofAmericanFood@gmail.com
Twitter: @THoAFood
Instagram: @THoAFood
Post: @THoAFood

Turns out colonists were making mixed drinks in America... before there was America, or cocktails (officially). Some were elborate and required prep-work (syllabub, cherry bounce), some were super familliar (whiskey Tod?), and some were just a shot and a beer - but together - probobly.

If you want to know what the equivalent of rolling up to the bar and asking for a Jack and Coke in the days before either of those existed, stop in for a listen.

And yes - the Mint Julep is older than America, but not the version with chipped ice. That's later.

If you want to hear me do a bad job of pronouncing Portuguese, this is also your chance. Aguardente.

Music Credit: Fingerlympics by Doctor Turtle
Show Notes: https://thehistoryofamericanfood.blogspot.com/
Email: TheHistoryofAmericanFood@gmail.com
Twitter: @THoAFood
Instagram: @THoAFood
Post: @THoAFood

All the "normal" colonial vegetables were foreign. Or they were imports anyway. Except for the famous ones - pumpkins (which are a fruit) and corn (which is a grain - mostly). But what is up with potatoes?

All about potatoes - both kinds - and the general inability for English people to come up with useful descriptive clearly definative names for new stuff.

Alsp how the Incan potato and the sweet potato did a complete status switcharoo in the colonies, and how pumpkin pie and sweet potato pie are the first American successes at fusion food.

Music Credit: Fingerlympics by Doctor Turtle
Show Notes: https://thehistoryofamericanfood.blogspot.com/
Email: TheHistoryofAmericanFood@gmail.com
Twitter: @THoAFood
Instagram: @THoAFood
Post: @THoAFood

This week it's fruit's turn, and time to learn which fruits are locals, which are imports and how they got to North America, and into the colonial pantry.

We glance briefly at fruits we've covered, mention familiar imports and look at the known locals - cranberries & blueberries and the surprise - strawberries!

Then we examine the famous imports - tomatoes, melons and chilies and see where they came from and how they got here. I spend time pondering how the eggplant may have determined who liked tomatoes first. And why watermelon with chili and lime is a fusion food we need to thank Mexico for putting together.

Music Credit: Fingerlympics by Doctor Turtle
Show Notes: https://thehistoryofamericanfood.blogspot.com/
Email: TheHistoryofAmericanFood@gmail.com
Twitter: @THoAFood
Instagram: @THoAFood
Post: @THoAFood

If for no other reason, listen this week to hear me say "Worcestershire" while looking at the word.

This week it's ketchup - and what it was before tomatoes got involved. You'll learn about the history, and find out about all sorts of sauces that can reasonably stand in for the 18th century no sugar versions.

A link so you can make your own:

Towndends - How to Make Mushroom Ketchup - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=29u_FejNuks

Links to some podcasts that go deep on Fish Sauce - if you you're interested:

Unchefed: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/unchefed/id1578898329?i=1000563764347
Gastropod: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/gastropod/id918896288?i=1000570523345

All those sauces I mentioned:

Mushroom Soy Sauce - https://umamicart.com/products/lkk-mushroom-dark-soy-sauce
Oyster Soy Sauce - https://japanesetaste.com/products/asamurasaki-natural-oyster-soy-sauce-600ml
Salsa Lizano - https://www.amazon.com/Lizano-Salsa-Sauce-23-7/dp/B078FHCJG7
Kitchen Bouquet - https://www.hiddenvalleykitchens.com/products/kitchen-bouquet/browning-seasoning-sauce/
Gravy Master - https://myflavormaster.com/
HP Sauce - https://www.hpsauce.co.uk/
Maggi Seasoning - https://www.nestleprofessional.us/maggi/maggi-seasoning-6-x-27-fluid-ounces
Knorr Liquid Seasoning - https://www.knorr.com/ph/knorr-products/knorr-liquid-seasoning/knorr-liquid-seasoning.html


Music Credit: Fingerlympics by Doctor Turtle
Show Notes: https://thehistoryofamericanfood.blogspot.com/
Email: TheHistoryofAmericanFood@gmail.com
Twitter: @THoAFood
Instagram: @THoAFood
Post: @THoAFood

I love coffee and I love sugar (and tea and chocolate for the record). This is clearly a typical human response. I am also unhappy about their history and their present conditions of production.

This episode is dedicated to understanding the history & why I think these things are luxuries - and should be somewhat condiered so - but also that treating the people producing them will not only make ALL our lives better but preserve the agricultural health of the planet.

Seriously - good working conditions for agricultural labor only makes all human life better. It ain't bad for the animals either.

Anyway - hit me up if you are playing around with coffee cherry products.

FYI - Here's one translation of Bernardin St. Pierre's Diary. I was not making it up:
https://books.openbookpublishers.com/10.11647/obp.0088/ch1-32.xhtml

Music Credit: Fingerlympics by Doctor Turtle
Show Notes: https://thehistoryofamericanfood.blogspot.com/
Email: TheHistoryofAmericanFood@gmail.com
Twitter: @THoAFood
Instagram: @THoAFood
Post: @THoAFood

This week I deal pretty frankly with the facts of turning animals into food. There is a little discussion of blood and guts - and how removing them from an animal transformed it from a dead animal into meat - that is, food.
These are essential transformations we don’t think about much - but they are unavoidable steps if you are going to eat meat. ANd it is a lot of work we almost never see anymore.
Beyond that - it’s a look at what animals most people were eating most of the time. And what circumstances helped arrange things that way.

In other words, yes, another episode of lists of animals.

The two cool books:
US History in 15 Foods by Anna Zeide
The Larder - Edited by by John T. Edge, Elizabeth S.D. Engelhardt & Ted Ownby
This week the essay, “Bodies of the Dead” by Wiley C. Prewitt Jr. was particularly useful

Music Credit: Fingerlympics by Doctor Turtle
Show Notes: https://thehistoryofamericanfood.blogspot.com/
Email: TheHistoryofAmericanFood at gmail dot com
Twitter: @THoAFood
Instagram: @THoAFood
Post: @THoAFood

Pemmican Week - Part 1 - the intro. (Part 2 comes in a later season)
It’s a favorite food for a variety of American Fad diets that cost a lot to follow. Yet it has a skilled and knowledge filled past, along with its own origin story.
Learn what pemmican is, why we call it that, and some wicked foreshadowing as you learn how it’s about to turn the prairies of the Americas upside down.
Oh yeah, and I make a wild leap of logic about the sexism of European translation of the Cree language. I sure know how to provide fun party conversation ideas.
Anyway, learn about salmon pemmican and the origin of modern American Army C-rations, if not MRE’s.

Music Credit: Fingerlympics by Doctor Turtle
Show Notes: https://thehistoryofamericanfood.blogspot.com/
Email: TheHistoryofAmericanFood at gmail dot com
Twitter: @THoAFood
Instagram: @THoAFood
Post: @THoAFood

Tell me about your local library or history resource!

Round 1: Kelsey Creek Farm - sheep shearing, farm life and animal care

https://bellevuewa.gov/city-government/departments/parks/community-centers/kelsey-creek-farm/visiting-the-farm

Looking for a great Spring Dish - that's mostly greens and herbs... with just aenough egg to hold it all together? Kuku Sabzi:
http://persianfoodtours.com/kuku-sabzi-persian-herb-frittata/ (you can sub dried cranberries – as lightly sweetened as you can find them or unsweetened – for the barberries if you can’t find those.)

Look - Americans don't forage. Or we don't forage much. Or we pay for other people to forage.
Why have we lost to knack of it? Well, we've been working to make foraging weird or only for profit, and no longer for fun - for centuries as this point.

Anyway - look up local foraging books AT YOUR LOCAL LIBRARY!
or follow @BlackForager on the Insta
and join your local mushroom club.

And send me your questions for the end of season question show!

Music Credit: Fingerlympics by Doctor Turtle
Show Notes: https://thehistoryofamericanfood.blogspot.com/
Email: TheHistoryofAmericanFood at gmail dot com
Twitter: @THoAFood
Instagram: @THoAFood
Post: @THoAFood

Tell me about your local library or history resource!

Round 2: Her Half of History - written and presented by Lori Davis
https://herhalfofhistory.com/

This week - how did stuff get around the colonies, and back out into the world?
Why were port cities the only big cities?
Were they all the same? Who did what where?

For part one of the answer join me this week to see why food export was not the game north of the Mason-Dixon line. Also learn just how old that line was, and how petty the reason for its existence was.
The philosophy of the these colonies was markedly different from that of most of their southern neighbors. Find out how this week. And I'll wrap this all up next week - including how weird North Carolina was.

And send me your questions for the end of season question show!

Music Credit: Fingerlympics by Doctor Turtle
Show Notes: https://thehistoryofamericanfood.blogspot.com/
Email: TheHistoryofAmericanFood at gmail dot com
Twitter: @THoAFood
Instagram: @THoAFood
Post: @THoAFood

Time to send me question for the end of Season 2 question show!

Getting around the colonies.
South of the Mason-Dixon Line, there is way more water transport than I had realized. Which lead to fewer roads and more little trails than I expected. And the political philosophies tied up in why it was that way go deeper than I ever knew.

So yes, there's discussion of roads or no roads - but we end up a little bit in the political philosophy weeds.


Music Credit: Fingerlympics by Doctor Turtle
Show Notes: https://thehistoryofamericanfood.blogspot.com/
Email: TheHistoryofAmericanFood at gmail dot com
Twitter: @THoAFood
Instagram: @THoAFood
Post: @THoAFood

Deep Fat Frying has come to the North American British colonies... how far away could the French fry be?

Not the question I'm answering. Not yet. Instead, it's a look at the arrival of savory deep fried food in (pre) America. What are it's roots, and how it came from a different place than sweet fried foods.
Incredible.

And why fried foods were a bigger thing in the south east than everywhere else in the country before the railroad showed up and scrambled everything up.

Oh! Check out these pictures of the ridiculously huge oil bean seeds (plus a recipe for using them):
https://ounjealadun.com/2022/10/25/ofe-ugba/

Send in Qestions for the End of Season 2 show in just 3 (or maybe 4) weeks!

Interested in @notyourmommashistory (insta) Cheyney McKnight or #letstalkaboutslavery ?
Find her on fb Not Your Mommas History, gmail; notyourmommashistory@gmail.com or http://www.notyourmommashistory.com/

See how to really use a spider.

Music Credit: Fingerlympics by Doctor Turtle
Show Notes: https://thehistoryofamericanfood.blogspot.com/
Email: TheHistoryofAmericanFood at gmail dot com
Twitter: @THoAFood
Instagram: @THoAFood
Post: @THoAFood