Researching Food History

Salem Gibralters, created early 1800s, still sold today. Hawthorne wrote about them - rock hard, white and wrapped in white paper. Black J...

Starting at 11pm to make the dough, nap on flour sack over the kneading board (on the trough). wake at 2am, start kneeding and forming the ...

October 15 was the traditional start to selling muffins on the streets of London (past post and the small bell HERE ). This image and th...

Dog powered wheels are different enough that I have written about turnspits HERE and treadmill to churn butter HERE . This excerpt shows ...

In 1856, Gail Borden (1801-1874) patented a Vacuum Pan "for the Concentration and Preservation of Milk." Barbados deforested ...

Rest in peace Queen Elizabeth.

This 1865 article described the modern options to get water from a small well. September talks are now up, and the first week's...

There were many breeds of chickens but the 'plain' common ones around the farm were termed Dunghill fowl (Markham 1614) and Barn d...

Like now, a variety of useful and useless items were tossed into drawers of the kichen table and dresser, making them "untidy hidingp...

Ann Augusta Forman Cooley (1810-1890) filled this composition book with recipes, possibly started as a school project. Raised a Quaker in ...

Quotes from people who dined with the President. Honore Julien (1760/1–1830) was Thomas Jefferson’s French chef for both terms (1801-1809)...

Richard Walker spent many years developing "artificial cold" - making ice using chemicals (writings from 1787 to at least 1832)...

Rice pudding with peaches on the bottom from Elizabeth Ellicott Lea's Domestic Cookery , 1845... the first Maryland cookbook. Rice was...

This unusual oven in the Kew Palace kitchen was made by the famous Carron Company of Scotland, and was restored in 2012 to its 1789 appeara...

Dry herbs in sun, no, dry in shade (Miller 1769). Hang in "small bunches" no, that dried them too much (Loudon 1835). Dry in oven...

In time for Wimbledon... where they still serve Strawberries and Cream... a sketch by Robert Seymour, 1835, with cream pitcher, sugar cont...

June is National Iced Tea month... though not sure if it is official... and June 10 is Iced Tea Day. There are several talks on tea. Even a...

There is an intriguing talk this Thursday on late 17th century glass hives. GLASS! In this 1772 example, bees entered the bottom section ...

The other year I noticed while doing a blog post HERE on the 6 cookbooks (describe freezing pots/tubs and sabotieres) by people who wor...

Memorial Day... never forget. During the Crimean War, the chef for Prince George (Lt. Gen. & cousin of Queen Victoria) was preparing ...