Researching Food History

Poets described the food that tenants gave to their landlords: capon at New Years,  fish for Lent, fowl at Midsummer [June 24], goose at Mi...

19th century dough for these highly spiced honey cakes (cookies) was "rested" for months to improve the flavor and texture.1553 r...

Thomas Tusser (1524-1580) composed a poem of activities through the year, including a Christmas dinner of beef, mutton, pork, shred pies [m...

An article in the Dec 14, 1850 Illustrated London News described the gathering of apples and the mills for producing cider.  In 1820 over ...

In the fall and winter, chestnuts were roasted in a “huge iron apparatus...cooking a bushel at a time" or on "charcoal-pans"...

Opened in 1812, Washington Market remained an extremely busy complex; by the 1860s its many buildings were "battered" and by the ...

“A drove of turkeys amounting to nearly four hundred from Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania just now passed the door on their way to Wash...

Alexis Soyer (1810-1858) was born and trained in France, became a famous chef in London, designed the Reform Club kitchen and other cooking...

The "Labours of the Months" for November was a depiction of pigs routing under oak trees - with the bottom limbs removed - for ac...

Like wassail, lambswool consisted of ale, roasted apples, sugar and spice and drunk to celebrate the apple.  The Celtic "la mas ubhal...

The father/daughter authors William Cobbett (1763-1835) and Anne Cobbett (1795-1877) each wrote about how Americans stored and transported ...

In October, 1750 Gottlieb Mittelberger arrived at Philadelphia (1st image 1761) after a grueling 5 month voyage which involved drinking ...

In winter a pan or container of burning charcoal roasted apples or chestnuts on a tin plate as shown in 1820 by Rowlandson and described in...

Fire pistons, (or fire syringe, pneumatic syringe, instantaneous light-giving syringe) were ingenious devices created out of wood, horn, ba...

It was hard work lighting and maintaining fires for cooking and heat.  A few coals could be saved from the previous day or coals borrowed ...

Six 'iron blowers' were in the 1818 inventory of Virginia Gov. Preston taken in the Virginia Governor's Mansion, built in 1811...

Boys and women sold matches in cities for a modest fee.  They whittled pine or cedar sticks, dipped the pointed end in brimstone or bought t...

Beautiful picnics in paintings from the 1530s to the 21st century.  A couple early ones involve "Halte de Chasse" or a break in t...

Robert Seymour (c1800-1836) drew a series of humorous sketches (including several on pic-nics) from 1834-1836.  Picnic problems included b...

The fluffy, yeast cake topped with peaches existed by 1910 when it was mentioned in a poem by a Baltimore Sun writer.  It was and is sold ...