Researching Food History

The famed cook Alexis Soyer (1810-1858) wrote Soyer's Culinary Campaign (1857) about his experiences to improve the cooking and bakin...

"1 wire chicken coop" was listed in a July 1818 kitchen inventory of the Virginia Governor's mansion, in the center of Richm...

The Preakness Stakes, "second leg" of horse racing's Triple Crown, features Maryland's state flower as the winner's ...

The first successful cafe in Paris sold lemonade, liquor, coffee, ices... and was across from the state theater Comedie Francaise. Its man...

Anyone tired of seeing the sunny yellow flowers in their lawn?  If you have a big yard with dandelions away from a road... and don't us...

Flour barrels in the Capitol at the start of the Civil War. A tale from the Revolutionary War, below, from an 1831 children's book, des...

Some revolutionary period bake ovens still remain in the Dordogne area.  Before the French Revolution began in 1789, rural ovens were owne...

There are several paintings... particularly from the 1600s... showing bird cages in the kitchen and taverns. Many of the paintings by the D...

Two jelly drink recipes made when "jams or jellies are too old" for "table use" contain vinegar and soda for effervesce...

Germans in Pennsylvania and Maryland dyed their eggs in brown onion skins or logwood, then scratched designs on the shells to give as gift...

Hampton, north of Baltimore, was the large home of the wealthy Ridgely family  completed in 1790.   The more well-known Hampton Court Palac...

Symposiums in England (Leeds, Oxford), Amsterdam, Australia and USA.

Chateaubriand - the vicomte not his steak - left France in 1791 during the Revolution to spend a year in America.  In his book, published in...

Fried apple slices dipped in a batter of eggs, cream, sugar, nutmeg and rosewater or apples chopped fine in a batter thickened with flour...

The Mexican women are grinding, forming and baking tortillas in 1835 Mexico.  The description of making tortillas, below, is in a book on Ho...

The flamboyant seller of gingerbread was "hailed as the King of itinerant tradesmen."  Dressing "like a person of rank...

Jefferson was given a 1,600 pound cheese from Cheshire, Mass. Every farmer brought his curd to be poured into a large cider press to make ...

In 1870, a charity cookbook was compiled by "Miss Tyson" to fund a new church building for the Protestant Episcopal Church in Oa...

The Baltimore connection. In 1801, newly elected Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) wanted the formerly enslaved (freed in 1796) James Hemi...

In last year's first season of the TV series "Victoria," chef Francatelli created a Bombe Suprise from ice cream and chocola...