Researching Food History

Mary Randolph Randolph was a distant cousin of Thomas Jefferson, as was her husband; and her brother married Jefferson's daughter.  Th...

Three weeks before Easter, in the middle of Lent, was Mothering Sunday, Mid-Lent Sunday or in Bury, England - Simnel Sunday. Simnel Cake (b...

Snow instead of ice was used in Naples. The snow was stored in the "cliffs and caverns on the mountain of San Angelo, between Castell...

Olio was an extravagant stew of many meats, vegetables, herbs and spices served in it's own "close-covered" cooking "oli...

Winter butter was pale, but was enhanced with carrot juice, marigold, annato, turmeric and even egg yolks for selling in the cities.  ...

How great would it be to own a c200 year old Rumford Roaster!  This Rumford Roaster, made by Elijah Fuller of Salem, was originally in an 1...

Although there are many images of chicken ladders in Germany through the centuries, HERE I haven’t seen a chicken ladder going into...

Robert Roberts (c1777-1860) was a free African American who wrote the marvelous The House Servant's Directory in 1827. 

Without a steady means of refrigeration, butter could be bitter in the winter if (according to 18th and 19th century sources) ... the milk...

Five years ago I did a post on this gifted slave who escaped to freedom on Washington's birthday and was never found.  Well, now he ha...

Instead of a Twelfth Night Cake, waffles were among the holiday's foods in the 17th century, painted by Jan Steen (1626-1679). Click on...

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...