Food History Articles and Links

[Tropicalsenior]

4 minutes ago, liuzhou said:

 

Now I enhanced the image and looked closer the plate says DC at the right

With their inflated ego they think that that's all they have to put on a plate and everybody will know what it is. And it would also explain why there is plenty of food available.

[liuzhou]

Bread oven, 16th century. Falkland Palace, Falkland, Scotland. Home of Mary Queen of Scots' father and her son James VI of Scotland who later (1603) also became James 1st of England upon the death of Elizabeth 1st of England. Now, that's history.

 

 

 

Edited October 8, 2023 by liuzhou (log)

[liuzhou]

1940.  Diner along U.S. Highway No. 1 near Berwyn, Maryland. Public domain.

 

 

 

[Tropicalsenior]

34 minutes ago, liuzhou said:

1940.  Diner along U.S. Highway No. 1 near Berwyn, Maryland. Public domain.

 

 

 

We still have a lot of this style in Costa Rica. They're little hole in the walls with about five or six stools in front. They set them up any place where they have room enough for a little Grill and a refrigerator. They're all called sodas. And therein lies a story. In around the 1920s, some Gringo came along and set up a big coffee house/diner style restaurant in the heart of San Jose and called it The Soda Palace. Shortly afterward, hundreds of little fast food places popped up and they called them all sodas.

There are all kinds of Legends and stories about the Central and South American  revolutions that had been plotted at the Soda Palace.

 

Unfortunately The Soda Palace closed in the early 2000s and in its place is a little food court filled with modern fast food restaurants. No one will ever plot a revolution at McDonald's.

Edited October 16, 2023 by Tropicalsenior (log)

[liuzhou]

 

The 10th-Century Master Chef Who Wrote Food Poetry

 

Quote

Kushajim, the 10th-century polymath, poet, and master chef, once described a certain snack in verse:

I have for friends when hunger strikes, qata’if, like piles of books stacked.
They resemble honeycombs—with holes and white—when closely seen.
Swimming in almond oil, disgorged after they had their fill of it.
With glistening bubbles, back and forth, rose water sways.
Rolled and aligned like purest of arrows, their sight the smitten-hearted rejoice.
More delicious than they are is seeing them plundered, for man’s joy lies in what is most hankered.

(Translated by Nawal Nasrallah)

 

The Kitab al Tabikh contains both recipes and poetry. Jpbrigand/CC BY-SA 4.0

 

 

Edited October 18, 2023 by liuzhou (log)

[heidih]

I enjoy Cathy.  Rite Aid in Chapter 11 bankruptcy. We shall see. Childhood memory. Son as well.  Interesting local history. https://la.eater.com/2023/10/17/23870912/thrifty-ice-cream-factory-los-angeles-el-monte-rite-aid

[liuzhou]

The teenage daughter of a an impoverished Arkansas farmer cooking during the Great Depression. Public Domain image.

 

 

 

[liuzhou]

Hot dog and lemonade cart in Manhattan, 1926

 

 

 

[liuzhou]

[liuzhou]

A water damaged menu from the Titanic has been sold in London for ₤84,000 / $103,000 USD.

 

 

Full story here.

 

 

[liuzhou]

Trader Vic's original 1934 menu and somewhat non-PC advertising.

 

 

 

 

Edited December 16, 2023 by liuzhou (log)

[Smithy]

My oh my, that's a busy picture!

[chromedome]

This is food history at a tangent: an impassioned defense of the hard-copy menu as a lasting document, in a world of QR codes.

 

https://thewalrus.ca/qr-code-restaurant-menu/

[chromedome]

...and today I learned that the Oreo was a knockoff of another company's cookie. Who knew?

https://thehustle.co/the-curious-case-of-the-disappearing-hydrox-cookies/

[Smithy]

8 minutes ago, chromedome said:

...and today I learned that the Oreo was a knockoff of another company's cookie. Who knew?

https://thehustle.co/the-curious-case-of-the-disappearing-hydrox-cookies/

 

I had no idea! I thought Hydrox was the cheap knock-off imitation when I was growing up!

[blue_dolphin]

2 hours ago, Smithy said:

 

I had no idea! I thought Hydrox was the cheap knock-off imitation when I was growing up!

Ditto that!

[Maison Rustique]

3 hours ago, blue_dolphin said:

Ditto that!

Same here!

 

[chromedome]

An interesting story about a little-known but influential Londoner and his impact on the UK's attitudes toward food.

 

https://www.theguardian.com/food/2024/jan/23/nicholas-saunders-forgotten-genius-changed-british-food

[liuzhou]

1 hour ago, chromedome said:

An interesting story about a little-known but influential Londoner and his impact on the UK's attitudes toward food.

 

https://www.theguardian.com/food/2024/jan/23/nicholas-saunders-forgotten-genius-changed-british-food

 

Wow! That's the second person mentioned on eG today that I have actually met.  I knew Nicholas quite well back in London must be 50 years ago. He was influential in many ways, not just on food.

 

Unfortunately, I can't open the Gruaniad at the moment.

 

(The other was Tao Huabi, the Laoganma lady, whom I've met a couple of times.)

 

 

Edited January 23 by liuzhou (log)

[chromedome]

25 minutes ago, liuzhou said:

 

Wow! That's the second person mentioned on eG today that I have actually met.  I knew Nicholas quite well back in London must be 50 years ago. He was influential in many ways, not just on food.

 

Unfortunately, I can't open the Gruaniad at the moment.

 

(The other was Tao Huabi, the Laoganma lady, whom I've met a couple of times.)

 

 

I'd suspected you might have crossed paths with him, given some of the other names you've mentioned.

 

...and also guessed correctly that you hadn't been to the Guardian yet this morning, or you'd have beaten me to the punch.

[liuzhou]

@Norm Matthews said

 

I imagine it would be really difficult to recreate a 1300 old recipe from a photograph. There were lots of things to wonder about in his reconstruction but something you said added a concern. You said savory wheaten foods outnumber sweet wheat foods by a lot.  If the original report mentioned the morsels found in the tomb were described as biscuits, ( presumed to be savory in the USA) but it is quite possible that someone from the United Kingdom read biscuits as meaning cookies, (sweet) When  English and Australians refer to biscuits it means cookies to lots or people everywhere elsewhere.

 

Technically, neither American biscuits or British biscuits are etymologically 'biscuits'.  Bis cuit (modern French) means twice cooked, which, so far as I can make out, neither are. The term entered British English (BrE) from Old  French bescoit in the early 12th century at the latest and originally referred to double cooked hard ship's biscuits. The American usage is 19th century, in language terms relatively recent.

 

Cookie is probably from the Dutch koekje, early 18th century referring to a baker's soft bun, both sweet or savory. It entered American usage in the late 19th century, referring to a hard, brittle sweet cake.

 

Scotland and northern England retain the original meaning of cookies as soft buns while all of Britain uses biscuit for the hard items. American English (AmE) does the opposite.

 

 

 

[chromedome]

Yesterday, on The Platform Formerly Known As Twitter, ag scientist Dr. Sarah Taber wrote a thread (because St. Patrick's Day) unpacking the roots of the Great Potato Famine. You may have heard the expression "crop failures are natural, famines are political"? This is what it means.
 

 

[liuzhou]

Summertime melon at a millworker's house in Person County, North Carolina. July 1939

 

 

 

[liuzhou]

 

[liuzhou]

Balham market, South London, 1950s. An important market in the day.

 

 

Edited July 13 by liuzhou (log)