Researching Food History

Alaska, a state for 60 years (Jan. 3) - only 60?! - was bought from Russia in 1867.  Soyer's may have been the first recipe in English,...

Printed in 1830, the image shows a well fed farmer, whose wife is slicing the plum pudding for dessert.  The children sit at a stool, while...

Holly and other greens not only festooned homes, taverns, churches and "Christmas sports," they also decorated plum puddings, boa...

Oysters were sold on the streets 'on the half shell' and served with vinegar, salt, pepper, and/or cracknels.  The following image...

"American Foodways: The Jewish Contribution" was an exhibit at the Longone Culinary Archive, University of Michigan Library.   ...

Pumpkin chips using vinegar, sugar or honey, cinnamon, mace and cloves are pictured, left.   The darker chips on the left were made with h...

In 1878, three farms in CT raised 10,000 turkeys each year!  The following article described how turkeys were raised on a farm in "Wa...

After her husband traveled to New Orleans in 1850 (he missed Cafe du Monde, 1861), Jane Gilmor Howard (Mrs. B.C. Howard) included a recipe...

This year is the 100th anniversary of the end of The Great War.  The photograph shows a World War I rolling kitchen from 1918.  Library of...

Dijon, France produced 60,000 pounds of buckwheat honey - very dark and too strong for "table use" but perfect for gingerbread, a...

By the 1840s  "cellars under houses... are coming to be preferred for the purpose of keeping milk to either milk-houses, milk-vaults...

The storeroom described in the 1835 book The English Housekeeper was to be kept dry by a flue from the kitchen fire.  Open shelves for pr...

"Horse trading is not to be compared to it" was how an 1888 article in a trade journal described closing the deal on a new stov...

This interesting farm image with tools is from a book published in London by 1844. Closeup of the sketches (click to enlarge) and descripti...

1630s thin "wafer biscuits" (left), "Fine French Wafers", "gaufres Cigarettes,"  Cornet (cone) or Horn Gaufre...

Kata irons made a 19th century Japanese cookie, a precursor to the Fortune Cookie.  More information - including a nice slide show -  avail...

"Cheese Toaster with double bottom for hot water" image from Bishop, 1852.  A Toasted Cheese or Scotch sandwich, when mustard w...

Flies were a nuisance and a danger, such as "fly blown" - flies leaving eggs on meat which turned into maggots.  Punkas - large ...

Sir Joseph Paxton (1803-1865) was the gardener at Chatsworth House for 30+ years, built it’s Great Conservatory (left, 1830s) and later bui...

While people may know about the tri-colored Neapolitan ice cream (past post HERE ) there once was a notable layer cake.   Neapolitan Cake...