Michael Weeks is Lecturer of History at Utah Valley University. This interview is based on his new book, Cattle Beet Capital: Making Industrial Agriculture in Northern Colorado (University of Nebraska Press, 2022). JF: What led you to write Cattle Beet...
food
The Author’s Corner with Carla Cevasco
Carla Cevasco is Assistant Professor of American Studies at Rutgers University. This interview is based on her new book, Violent Appetites: Hunger in the Early Northeast (Yale University Press, 2022). JF: What led you to write Violent Appetites? CC: In grad...
The best pizza in the country
OK, I am a bit biased. The Reservoir Tavern is located just outside my home town. I’ve eaten dozens and dozens of meals there. I recommend ordering a pie, a cup of pasta e fagioli (Joy’s favorite), and a side...
The “Global Domination” of Pizza
I couldn’t resist this piece at History Today. The author is Alexander Lee, a fellow in the Centre for the Study of Renaissance at the University of Warwick. Here is a taste of his “A History of Pizza“: Pizza is...
The Religious History of Corn Flakes
Last night I was reading some old posts at The Way of Improvement Leads Home and I was reminded about that time in the 2016 presidential campaign when Donald Trump attacked Ben Carson for being a Seventh Day Adventist. Politics aside,...
Christian James on Digital History, Slavery, Food, and Archives on Day Two of the 2015 AHA
Christian James weighs in one more time. Thanks, Christian! It was great hearing from you this weekend! –JF Saturday at AHA packed in more great programming on archives, digital history, and public history. I started with the Contested Archives panel...
Gino’s Gives You Freedom of Choice
Here is your 1970s nostalgia for the day. Anyone ever eat at Gino’s Hamburgers? When I was a kid I remember going to a Gino’s in Parsippany, New Jersey. (It eventually became a Roy Rogers). Every now and then the...
What Did Revolutionary War Soldiers Eat?
The blog of the Museum of American History answers this question with its latest post. Here is a taste: Even before a food supply system was organized, on June 10, 1775, the Massachusetts Provincial Council set the daily allowance or...
What Did Abraham Lincoln Eat at His Second Inaugural Ball?
Abraham and Mary arrived at 10:30pm and feasted on a menu that included oyster stew, pickled oysters, terrapin, beef, veal, turkey, chicken, grouse, pheasant, quail, venison, ham, tongue, chicken salad, lobster salad, almond sponge, macaroon tart, pound cake, sponge cake,...
Did Feminism Kill Home Cooking?
Progressive food writer Michael Pollan thinks so and he is not the only progressive who does. There is even a small movement of “punk neo-feminist housewives” who are reclaiming the role of homemaker. Writing at The Atlantic, Emily Matchar argues...
Poppy Cannon: The Can-Opener Gourmet
Last week I tweeted (JohnFea1) about Natalie Burack’s Messiah College history honors thesis on 1950s celebrity gourmet Poppy Cannon. (Her thesis director was my colleague Jim LaGrand). A few of you were interested in the topic so I thought I...
Dispatches from Graduate School–Part 41
Cali Pitchel McCullough is a Ph.D student in American history at Arizona State University. For earlier posts in this series click here. I first read Michael Pollen’s Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals in 2007, just after I […]
Eating on Research Trips
I am a terrible eater on research trips. I always start my research excursions with good intentions. I go to the grocery store and buy stuff to create healthy meals. This lasts for a few days and then I find […]
Super-Sizing DaVinci’s Last Supper
The Los Angeles Times reports on a study that shows how the portion sizes in DaVinci’s “The Last Supper” have been growing consistently larger over the years. While one might think such a study would appear in a scholarly art […]
Gelatin and White Middle Class Life
This afternoon was the inaugural lecture in the Messiah College History Department’s annual Alumni Lecture Series. Since our history graduates are doing such great things we thought it would be a good idea to invite them back and share some...