We often assume that the way things are today isn’t the way things used to be; we live in very different times compared to our ancestors. Take, for example, attitudes toward food. A lot of our attitudes about food are … Continue reading →

Years ago I read in some food history book or another that the South, before the 20th century, was a culture with a serious drinking habit. The United States as a whole back then drank a lot–most of it in … Continue reading →

Martha McCulloch-Williams’s Dishes and Beverages of the Old South, from 1915, is quite a unique book. McCulloch-Williams had grown up on a plantation in the years before the Civil War, and the book is a combination of cookbook and reminiscences … Continue reading →

I’m looking through an 1893 cookbook titled Cooking for Profit, which, as the subtitle explains, is a cookbook “Adapted for the Use of All Who Serve Meals for a Price.” It has menus and recipes for all the sorts of … Continue reading →

Frederick Marryat was an Englishman who traveled through America in the early 1800s. Like many nineteenth-century European travelers, he published a book about what he found here. He was in New York City for the Fourth of July celebrations in … Continue reading →