November holidays - Thanksgiving, Hanukkah, Stir-up Sunday talks

400 years after the first 'Thanksgiving' dinner in 1621. Image for Veterans Day or Armistice Day on 11/11 - Union soldiers with a turkey wishbone after Thanksgiving meal in 1864 by Winslow Homer.

Halloween posts and talks

'Snap-apple Night' painting, 1833, shows several games - snap-apple, diving (duck/bobbing) for apples, and divining one's future. Also snapdragon, turnip lanterns, Colcannon Night, (Soule) Cake Night and Day of the Dead (Nov 2). Click to enlarge

Korean foodways

There are several talks on Korean food coming up this week: Kimchi and the town Kimchi, temple foods, Harvest Festival, Korean food history, drinks and 3 course meals.Photo c1910-20, click to enlarge.

Baking over a fire in a "pot oven" or "cottage oven"

An interesting one minute film clip from 1950s or 60s Wales, shows a pot oven baking bread hung over a peat (turf) fire with coals. Chunks of burning peat are placed on the flat lid to bake. There is no lip along edge of the lid (so differs from dutch oven top). Excerpts mentioning Ireland and Scotland. Film clip below.

Farm fences – Stone walls, Hedgerows, Waddle fences

These endangered fences using rocks or trees/bushes should be preserved... or at least appreciated. There are several upcoming hedgerow talks and some very good talks on a variety of stone walls, that were taped.

Mustard seeds and vinegar makers in 1765

Mustard seed merchants had to wait until vinegar makers, who also made mustard, had inspected and chosen the seeds they wanted. Large scale mustard grinding from Diderot's encyclopedia. Upcoming talk on Colman, the "mustard king."

German foodways - in Germany and US

German immigrant cookbooks, industrialization caused changes in German cheese production, and Octoberfest talks.

Peach Cordial 1845

Elizabeth Ellicott Lea's Cordial recipe was included in her slim first edition of 1845 and the enlarged 1846 and 1851 editions (reprinted for 40 years). Her Peach Cordial required peaches, sugar, brandy, mace and blanched peach kernels. Born in 1793 in Ellicott City, Maryland, Lea included many peach recipes, which have been great, as have her other recipes. I have not made a cake flavored with her Peach Cordial, yet.

Mexican foodways

National Hispanic Heritage Month is from September 15 to October 15.

There are many past tape talks on cookbooks, foods and Dia de los Muertos.

Cast iron and metal pot

This unusual cooking pot is not entirely cast iron. It has a cast iron bottom which extends 3/4" up the thinner metal body. Both sections feel and sound different, and are probably from a three part mold. My great grandmother used it on her wood stove or at the large stone hearth in an outbuilding on their eastern Penn. farm. Perhaps it's a transitional iron pot from hearth to cookstove?

Edible England - national festival and UK talks

The theme for this year's Heritage Open Days is food and related topics, with online and in person activities throughout the country from Sept. 10 to 19.
Edible England search HERE and general information HERE

Dining out - Restaurants, Diners, Fast food, Street food, Picnics, Trains and Taverns virtual talks

Tapes of talks on restaurant histories, types of restaurants, eating on trains and ships, WWII municipal restaurants ('British Restaurants') and Paris' Cabarets of Death.

German Sweet Pickled Peaches

It's August, so yet another peach recipe from Maryland. Tyson's 1870 recipe called for equal amounts of vinegar and brown sugar, with cinnamon. Marylanders Howard's Peach Chutnee is equal, but Lea's Spiced Peaches used 4:1 sugar to vinegar. As for the German in the title...

Rice puddings

My grandmother's recipe, baked in her rice pudding bowl (left). Another baked for 4 hours adding milk every half hour until extremely thick. Or boiled around an apple in a cloth. Or a c1800 MD manuscript recipe boiled with suet. Or used rice flour. Or burnt rice...

Bank Barns and taped barn & farm talks

The Bank Barn was set into a hill to allow the horse and wagon to enter the upper story to unload the hay, which would be dropped to the lower floor to feed the cows, horses, etc, who could exit on that level through doors under the overhang.

Feeding the poor and needy

Soyer's Soup Kitchens during Irish Famine (image) more HERE, Americans sending aid to Ireland in 1847 and Europe after WWI, workhouses, almshouses and other ways to help the poor.

Ice cream cone molds in the 1910s

An ice cream cone factory in 1917 Oklahoma depicts making the cones, and other images show various US patents. The metal molds were heated, thick batter poured in, then the top mold was lowered into the bottom.
This is a test email since the blog email server was switched. Click images to enlarge.

Change in delivery of blog posts

The service to send out emails for each new blog post is being discontinued. This came at a busy time for me, so I just picked a service that is supposed to be popular. Hopefully there will not be too much of a difference in emails when I switch over this week. Let me know if you don't get the emails. My blog, and the Calendar of food history talks (first on links list, right side), will stay at researchingfoodhistory.blogspot.com.

Beaten Biscuit Brake demo

This Friday there is a demo making Beaten Biscuits on an 1877 biscuit brake (not this pic), Cold Water Biscuits from Malinda Russell's cookbook. Just heard about it today... thanks Foodways Pilgrim for posting on Facebook!

Chinese foodways, restaurants

Several interesting upcoming talks - one on Chinese workers in early Napa Valley wineries, evolution of restaurants in Southern Cal, and China's eight regional cuisines. There have been many tapes on restaurants, tea, even chili peppers.