Researching Food History

In 1980, Barbara Ketcham Wheaton, Joyce Toomre and Ann Robert started what would become the Culinary Historians of Boston. The first in th...

The versatile mess kettle - to cook, for coffee, to carry water, to wash clothes. "Food and Agriculture during the Civil War...

Several types of Scherbet were described by Friedrich Unger, the German confectioner to King Otto of Greece, in his 1838 book. The Scherbe...

Fire was one threat to flour mills, flooding was another. The Sanborn maps of all buildings in a town (earliest 1868) contained infor...

Holding an egg up to the light was one way to determine if it was newly laid as described by Hieronymus Fabricius of Aquapendente (died 161...

By 1794 a "manufactory for making bolting silk" was started in Wilmington, Delaware by Robert Dawson. He applied for a patent (got...

This recipe pull out card (recipe slide) of 1926, included 25 recipes for cakes and cookies, one being Hot Milk Cake, by Mrs. Lily H Wallac...

Memorial Day - To remember all who sacrificed their lives to preserve our democracy. The Manual for Army Cooks 1896 image of ...

Ofcourse not in the original Glasse (1708-1770) cookbook, but years after her death, her name was used for an 1843 book, which was copied...

Marvelous sketches of huge salt mines, the Salt Desert and a chapel of salt are in Aunt Martha's Corner Cupboard: or, Stories about ...

“… butter made in a cellar, was far preferable to that made in a spring-house.” More in my Milk Cellars in 1840s Del. and 1870s NC blog po...

From 1189 (Richard the Lionheart) to 1821 (George IV) large coronation banquets were held in Westminster Hall. The former Prince Regent...

Instead of sealing a corked bottle with melted resin or wax, the corks with wooden tops were easier to remove and able to reuse. There...

Eliza Acton and Elizabeth Raffald are two British cookbook authors featured in talks this month, as are two collections - Longone Culina...

Sailing in a tub. Contrary Winds (1843) by Thomas George Webster (1800–1886) in the Victoria and Albert Museum

Paas Egg Dyes were first packaged by a pharmacist named William Townley of Newark, NJ in 1880 and patent 8355, Ap 12, 1881.

Maria Amanda Massey Barringer (1827-1901) was born in Philadelphia to Quaker parents who moved to North Carolina. Her husband fought for...

The sugar and vinegar makes this a sweet and sour side dish that was found in Pennsylvania Dutch and German meals. It is different from cre...

Hattie A. Colby Burr (1841-1935) compiled a fundraising book, The Woman Suffrage Cookbook, in 1886. While it was the first in the United...

The first cookbook written by an American was American Cookery by Amelia Simmons, An American Orphan in 1796. But who was she? Perhaps...