Food on Internet turns 25

[MaxH]

A notice on the original public forum (still active) is Here.

I've observed in that 25-year interval that when people come on to the Internet (or write about it from outside, as in the American Scholar article cited in the message), their attention is more on what's novel than on traditions. But sometimes those are worth noticing, especially on a milestone like this.

Bon appétit! -- Max

[russ parsons]

interesting link. it got me wondering what/when most people's first connection with food on the internet occurred. my own came when i was an editor for prodigy (well, for the lat, but working part-time on a prodigy project). we'd hook up chefs and cookbook writers to do some short pieces and then answer questions from readers. i think this was in '88 or '89. had folks like wolfgang puck, marion cunningham, paul prudhomme. some good questions, mostly not. i remember one guy asked michael roberts for the recipe for the bob's big boy fudge cake (he complied with a molten center chocolate cake).

i was also pretty active on a group called "chefs and cooks on hte internet" that was more of a listserve. this would have been about '90, i think.

[MaxH]

i was an editor for prodigy (well, for the lat, but working part-time on a prodigy project).  ...  i was also pretty active on a group called "chefs and cooks on hte internet" that was more of a listserve. this would have been about '90, i think.

Yes, Prodigy was one of about a half-dozen major communications or computer-services enterprises that attempted commercial online networks separate from the Internet, with private content control (unlike the newsgroups or mailing lists, which were the standard Internet discussion-forum tools beginning in the 1970s). By the middle 1990s these independent networks had opened Internet mail service and (eventually) full Internet access to their subscribers.

[tino27]

This thread reminded me of this ...

Eternal September

I was a junior in college when this happened ... ah, good times.

It's nice to know that USENET and mailing lists are still around, including the food-related ones.

[MaxH]

This thread reminded me of this ...Eternal September

Thanks for the link, tino27. I well remember the original "September" cycle when new college students poured onto Internet fora. In those days it was possible to tell them that there are online customs, and that it is in their interest to look these up. (It was also more necessary, because the tools required slightly more savvy than today's do.)

Wikipedia (again) faithfully covers part of the story. (Its "1993" account is one standard "Eternal September" reference point long archived. Others reveal complications to the story because most AOL users received newsgroup access years after 1993, and the "Eternal September" tag became popular on newsgroups later too. The irony of AOL removing newsgroup access the following decade got remarks on newsgroups in 2005.)

Remember that large "online" service firms tried for years to sell private network and forum services in isolation and competition with the existing Internet. Starting in the middle 1990s they eventually opened Internet email, then full access, to their subscribers. This important online history is well reported in print (maybe also on Wikipedia).

Historical tidbit: The culture clash of "Eternal September" shows in this comment from a current Internet forum moderator who started in the 1980s: 'The first AOL posting I ever saw was on comp.unix-wizards, which was a group for Unix kernal hackers.* It begin with "I CLICK ON THE CLICKER AND I JUST GET ERROR MESSAGES" and it ended with "THE UNIX I AM USING IS AMERICA ONLINE."'

*The writer uses "hackers" in its standard original sense of enthusiasts, or hobbyists. As you probably know, this was its main meaning in the computer world before Hollywood, Dan Rather, etc., in popularizing the jargon word beyond its original community, also distorted it.