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New Year Luck and the Black-Eyed Pea
While many plantation owners relied heavily on the agricultural knowledge, labor organization, and crop‑specific skills of enslaved people, owners and contemporary histories often minimize, ignore, or reframe that expertise. The History This post…
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The Foods of Turtle Island & Rabbit Soup
“through these foods, we tell the story of who we are, where we came from, and wherewe can go from here” p. 15.
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Echoes of War: Food, Family, and the Legacy of WWII. Part 1: Soldier’s Sustenance: The WWII Experiences and Food Memories of Ralph D. Skadsen
Over the last several years my good friend Ben and I have repeatedly been brought back to conversations around our grandparents, WWII, the Holocaust, and food. While at first, food might seem out…
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All mischief comes after All Hallow; the Origins of Halloween, Samhain, and an Irish Feast
How fit our well-rank’d Feasts do follow/ All mischief comes after All Hallow -Richard Crashaw For this post, we made Shepards Pie a la Alton Brown, a dish commonly attributed to the United…
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Macaroni *Doodle* Pie, insights into the History of Mac and Cheese
There is a lot of mythology around pasta. Macaroni was invented in Rome, pasta in Naples. Marco Polo introduced pasta to Italy. Thomas Jefferson brought Mac and Cheese to America. Like most topics…
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Christkindle Markets Part 2: Lebkuchen-the gingerless gingerbread
Okay, on to part two-gingerbread! If you haven’t read part 1 yet, check it out. Traveling through the markets one of the most ubiquitous foods is lebkuchen, also known as German gingerbread. These…
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Christkindle Markets Part 1: History and Ties to the Nazi Party
This first post ended up kind of long, so I decided to make it two. This post focuses on the history of the markets. The next post delves into ginger! This past winter…
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Flaming cheese & copper all around the world
If an appetizer of fried cheese sounds good to you then you should definitely check out Saganaki. This Greek dish, named for the small two-handled pan it is cooked in (called sagani in…
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Khachapuri (Georgian Curdled Cheese Bread) and Roman Frescoes
The New York Times recently came out with an article on a mural (actually, would have been a fresco) from Pompeii showing a proto-pizza. If our identification of the imagery is correct, then…
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Bánh Xèo and a Dive into Ethnocentrism and Chopsticks
I was recently introduced to bánh xèo (pronounced bun say-ow)-Vietnamese crispy, umami crepes. To say I am obsessed is an understatement. It is like a better, crispier version of the French crepe (no offense…
