Food & Foodways Resource Guides Update

The majority of our staff was off at a conference last week and I, for one, took advantage of a great food scene. Playing catch up hasn’t left me with too much time to ponder a feature this week, but I thought I’d take a few minutes to post updates on some resources from Special Collections on the topic of food & foodways research. Since I last posted a link to these resources back in January of 2017, I’ve added at least one more.

The “Food & Drink History Resources @Virginia Tech” resource guide was created back in 2014 and there is a previous blog post about it. Since then, I’ve made period updates to content, fixed links, and tinkered a little bit with the layout, but it’s largely the same guide and serves the same purpose as when it was first created.

http://guides.lib.vt.edu/specialcollections/foodhistory

After that, I created a guide for the materials relating to infant, child, and family nutrition. This was partially to highlight this group of materials AND partially a response to a class I was working with at the time. It includes information about the collection, how to locate books and manuscripts in the collection, and some suggested online tools and resources.

http://guides.lib.vt.edu/specialcollections/childrensnutrition

Of course it didn’t take me long to get into the cocktail history materials, either. The guide for this group of materials is organized by time period and highlights some of the significant “eras” of cocktail culture in America. Each section includes a short introduction and a list of suggested resources. I’ve also put together some more general cocktail history and online tools.

http://guides.lib.vt.edu/specialcollections/cocktailhistory

Last (for now!), but certainly not least, at the start of this year, I put together a resource guide for the Introduction to Appalachian Studies course offered at Virginia Tech. It includes a breakdown of Appalachian resources by format and topic.

http://guides.lib.vt.edu/specialcollections/aps1704

One of the major sections is dedicated to food & foodways. It contains suggested resources in Special Collections relating to food items (i.e. cookbooks and research on food), as well as books about traditional folk medicine, farming, and agriculture. It’s a little bit broader that “just” food, but it’s another helpful place to collate information!

I’m still working on the latest guide, which will focus on aspects of food technology and production. I’m looking forward to getting it completed (or at least enough of it to go live), since this will talk about some other aspects of food history not covered in the same detail on other guides. This will include aspects of food technology, agriculture, food science, transportation of food products, manufacturing, advertising, and more!

So, if you’re doing any summer research on food, some of the resources above might help you out! The majority of the content covers print and manuscript materials housed in Special Collections, but most guides also contain some online resources, tools, and digital collection you can access wherever you are!

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Also, in the realm of manuscript collection updates, just this week, I processed the remaining backlog of the Ann A. Hertzler Collection. The finding aid has been updated and it includes materials donated by the late Dr. Hertzler in 2014: research and subject files on foods and people in the culinary history world, as well as several small boxes of magnets and other small artifacts. We moved of the digitized items  that weren’t from Cooperative Extension to the same platform and updated the links. Digitized items from her collection are online via the Special Collections website. Digitized Cooperative Extension publications authored or co-authored by Dr. Hertzler are available through the university’s institutional repository.

Appalachian Oral Histories at JMU

I’m thinking about a post for this week (welcome to 2017!), but in the meantime, something awesome happened this morning. Through the power of social media and happenstance, I discovered a resource I didn’t know about (but really should have). It relates in part to food, drink, agriculture, cocktails, medicine and other aspects of Appalachia, so I though I’d give a shout out to the great work of the folks at JMU! What is this amazing collection? The Shenandoah National Park Oral History Collection! There’s a page for the collection, that includes short summaries of interviewees/topics, along with transcripts and audio files. And for those of you who love a finding aid, there’s a larger description of the collection, too. Whether you’re interested in food preservation, education, or folk life, you might find something about Appalachia you didn’t know before!

Very (Cran)berry Goodness!

With Thanksgiving around the corner, it’s a good time to talk about a favorite seasonal berry: The Cranberry! Underrated and sometimes forgotten, it’s more versatile than it’s typical jellied or un-jellied sauce or relish. And we have the pamphlets to prove it! Two different folders in the Culinary Pamphlet Collection (Ms2011-002) have booklets from cranberry-centric companies. First, there’s “Cranberries and How to Cook Them” (1938) from the American Cranberry Exchange:

This pamphlet for “Eatmor Cranberries” (seriously!) puts cranberries in baked goods, sauces, salads, relishes and even–yup, you guess it–gelatin! It has tips for using cranberries as a meat tenderizer and a recipe for cranberries as an omelet filling. It also includes a little bit of detail about where the berries come from and how they are harvested. Although our last example (below) contains a lot more detail on the history of cranberries. But first, “Cape Cod’s Famous Cranberry Recipes” (1941) from the National Cranberry Association. This organization was also known early on as the Cranberry Canners, Inc., but most of you will probably recognize it by the company’s current name:  Ocean Spray Cranberry, Inc.

This pamphlet presents the clever idea of using cookie cutters to produce shaped decorations for a surprising number of holiday meals–not just Thanksgiving, but also Valentine’s Day, Easter, and even Halloween (cranberry-sauce shaped turkeys, hearts, bunnies, and pumpkins respectively). In addition, of course, it’s full of recipes…including some meat dishes with cranberry accompaniments and a few interesting desserts (Cranberry Nogg?). Lastly, also from the National Cranberry Association, there’s “101 All-Time Favorite Cranberry Recipes.” (That’s a lot of cranberries!)

 This pamphlet includes many of the expected items, but it also has “Cranburgers” (hamburgers with a cranberry sauce), a range of desserts, and some punches and cocktails. At this rate, you could work cranberries into every course of your Thanksgiving meal. Or your everyday meals, really. So, however you enjoy them, sneak some cranberries into your holiday. You won’t regret it!

Summer (Cooking) School, Part 4: Back to Basics

This week in our summer cooking school series, we’re taking a step back to the basics, encyclopedia-style!

But don’t worry, it’s not just for grocers! This encyclopedia is packed with dictionary-definition terms and history, multi-lingual lists of foods, and black & white and full color illustrations. While it would certainly be useful for those in the food trade, it’s just as useful for the home cook who might be encountering something new or who wants to learn more about a common ingredient.

In addition to the strictly A-Z listing of grocery-related foods, the encyclopedia also includes 7 appendices. These include a 5-language “dictionary of food names,” short foreign language-to-English dictionaries (French, German, Italian, and Swedish), a list of culinary and menu terms, and a weights and measures table.

Page from “Dictionary of Food Names in Five Languages”

Sample page from Swedish-English dictionary of foods.

I’m still pondering the Swedish section. While I can see the common usage for the French, German, and Italian language sections, I’m curious about how much need there was for Swedish language food terms in 1911. Which sent me off to see if I could find anything out about the history of this publication. Artemas Ward, the author, first published a book in 1882 called The Grocer’s Handbook. A desire to improve on this first work led to a nearly 30 year side project of expanding it into The Grocer’s Encyclopedia. Ward was an author of biographies, journal publisher, and advertising executive in his daily life. And, it seems, we can credit him with the idea of putting advertising on public transit vehicles. There wasn’t too much to find on Ward, though what there was suggests he was a man of many projects and occupations. But, it didn’t bring me any closer to an explanation for the Swedish-English section. Some publishing mysteries aren’t easily solved…

The entire encyclopedia is online through Special Collections–all 748 pages of it! (We could barely begin to represent it here.) Sure, it may not have EVERYTHING, but between abalone and zwetschenwasser (the German name for “slivovitz,” a European liqueur made from plums), there’s quite a bit to discover.

What’s in the (Sugar) Bag?

This week, I thought we’d take a look at a “shaped” publication. (Also, I have plans to recreate an 1827 “Layfayette Gingerbread” recipe this weekend and I have sugar and molasses on the brain.) As we know from the wide array advertising materials we’ve looked at before, companies have all kinds of quirky strategies for attracting consumer attention. This booklet from W. J. McCahan Sugar Refining & Molasses Co. took a novel approach: they shaped the publication like a bag of sugar.

 

“McCahan’s Sunny Cane Sugar” was published in 1937, but as you can see from one of the images above, this was far from the first edition. The 88 pages are packed with information on the history of sugar, types of sugar produced by the company, recipes, and kitchen/cooking tips. The recipes primarily provide instruction for desserts (not surprising), but there are also sections for meat and vegetables. Because of course you’ll want to get sugar into every dish of your meal!

We have a couple other pamphlets from a different sugar company that are shaped like sugar bags (these are only about two pages long each) in the collection. My guess is, the sugar bag shape is relatively easy to create, since it involves the removal of the corners. I’ve also come across some can-shaped pamphlets and one strange booklet that’s square at the top, but features the image of a wooden salad bowl on the cover. The bottom of the booklet is rounded like a bowl. More recently, we acquired a book on peanuts shaped like–you guessed it–a peanut! Now, if only we had a bread-loaf shaped one to go with it, we would be part way to strange looking peanut butter sandwich…

Celebrating the Food Encyclopedia

July is, among other things, National Culinary Arts Month* ! So, I thought we might look at some culinary arts reference books in the History of Food and Drink Collection–namely, some encyclopedias. They are from the more modern parts of the collection in terms of publication dates, but they represent hundreds of years of culinary arts history. So, it all works out in the end, right? 🙂

First up, The Encyclopedia of American Food & Drink from 1999.

The Encyclopedia of American Food & Drink, 1999, front cover

The Encyclopedia of American Food & Drink, pg 1

The Encyclopedia of American Food & Drink, pg 160

The Encyclopedia of American Food & Drink, pg 260

The Encyclopedia of American Food & Drink, pg 324

Next, The Encyclopedia of Food and Culture, 2003.

Food and Culture, 2003, Volume 1, Front cover

Food and Culture, Volume 1, pg 290

Food and Culture, Volume 1, pg 601

Food and Culture, Volume 2, pg 212

Food and Culture, Volume 2, pg 546

Food and Culture, Volume 3, pg 254

Food and Culture, Volume 3, Color images

And last, but certainly not least, The Oxford Encyclopedia of Food and Drink in America, 2013. (We also have the 2004 edition of this awesome set, which was issued in 2 volumes. It’s now up to 3!)

The Oxford Encyclopedia of Food and Drink in America, 2013, front cover

The Oxford Encyclopedia of Food and Drink in America, v.1, pg 444

The Oxford Encyclopedia of Food and Drink in America, v.2, pg 214

The Oxford Encyclopedia of Food and Drink in America, v.2, pg 740

The Oxford Encyclopedia of Food and Drink in America, v.3, pg 266

The Oxford Encyclopedia of Food and Drink in America, v.3, pg 517

As you might notice, none of these volumes cover topics in quite the same way. The Encyclopedia of American Food & Drink includes hundreds of recipes scattered among its pages. The Encyclopedia of Food and Culture takes a broad, global look at food and its connection to general culture. And The Oxford Encyclopedia of Food and Drink in America focuses on food/drink items, technology, history, advertising, and more. These approaches are a good thing that reflect the multiple approaches many scholars take to doing research. Some are more comprehensive that others, but they all offer different perspectives on the foods and food cultures that play such important roles in our lives.

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July is also National Baked Bean Month, National Bison Month, National Grilling Month, National Hot Dog Month, National Ice Cream Month, National July Belongs to Blueberries Month, and National Picnic Month. July 18 is also National Cavier Day. I promise, I don’t make these things up! There are SOOOO many fun food holidays to know about!

An Early Dictionary of Food

In 1830, Richard Dolby, cook at the Thatched House Tavern in London, wrote something “never hitherto attempted.” One might spend quite a bit of time pondering what Dolby produced that, in his own words, seemed so groundbreaking in the culinary world. It wasn’t a recipe/cook book (well, not exactly). It wasn’t an encyclopedia of food history (well, not exactly). And it wasn’t a guidebook for young housewives (well, not exactly). It was, however, The Cook’s Dictionary and House-Keeper’s Directory: A New Family Manual of Cookery and Confectionery, on a Plan of Ready Reference Never Hitherto Attempted.

Title page

From a historical perspective, we can’t speak to the accuracy of his claim that such a book was never attempted. For all we know, a work was finished, but never published. However, it’s entirely possible a work like Dolby’s was never published before. There certainly were food encyclopedias, guidebooks and household management books, and there was at least one botanical/medical/agricultural dictionary that pre-date 1830. Still, Dolby’s method of blending information about foods along with recipes in a dictionary-like structure seems pretty unique for its day. And it meets its goal of simplicity, as the introduction suggests:

Advertisement, pt. 1

Advertisement, pt. 2

The meat of the book (pun intended, of course!) is an alphabetical listing of foods, food groups (classifications of recipes, rather than what we might think of as contemporary food groups), and recipes that are representative of foods. Even when an entry blends all three, it is provided as a straight narrative, recipe included, which is characteristic of many pre-20th century cookbooks.

Sample page

Sample page

Sample page

Sample page

Sample page

Nor does Dolby abandon his readers after he finishes the “Zs.” His leaves us with two helpful additions: One, a short list of terms used throughout the book, and two, a calendar year list of when certain foods are available in season. While the latter may not be accurate today, nor overly helpful outside the UK, where growing seasons may differ, it’s easy to see how they could be useful to readers in 1830.

Explanation of some terms, pt. 1

Explanation of some terms, pt. 2

Table of items in season, pt. 1

Table of items in season, pt. 2

You can find the full text of Dolby’s dictionary online here. If you’re curious to see what he included, it’s very much worth the look. Plus, it’s in alphabetical order, so there’s no difficulty in finding an ingredient!

From Root to Table: Raw Foods in the Early 20th Century

This week, we’re featuring Uncooked Foods & How to Use Them: A Treatise on How to Get the Highest Form of Animal Energy from Food: With Recipes for Preparation, Healthful Combinations and Menus by Mr. and Mrs. Eugene Christian. This particular volume is a recent addition to Special Collections. Published in 1904, it’s actually the 5th edition, so this husband and wife team seemed to be on a roll…

Front cover

Opposite the title page is a portrait of the authors.

Title page

The table of contents includes a list of narrative and recipes sections.

The table of contents includes a list of narrative and recipes sections.

The book has a number of narrative sections at the beginning, including one defining raw foods.

The authors included several pages of USDA charts on the values of food. They did include meat so that readers could compare the benefits of other proteins.

But their focus was really on fruits, veggies, and other foods that could be consumed uncooked.

Some sections include an introduction, like this one, explaining why soup recipes were added to the book.

Sample vegetable recipes! Raw turnip anyone?

Sample sandwich recipes….which aren’t as unique as some of the things we’ve seen on the blog before.

Sample salad recipes, most of which would still appeal to people today.

Sample dessert recipes. Mmmm, desserts…

There are several pages toward the end of the volume containing suggested menus, like these…

…and these.

Eugene Christian was the more prolific of the pair, authoring a variety of books on food, diet, nutrition, and health in general between 1900-1930. His wife co-authored a several books with him, however. Uncooked Foods & How to Use Them features a little bit of everything: directions on how and what to eat, how to prepare foods (very little!), sample recipes, sample meal plans, and some about why the idea of eating raw foods was important to the authors. For Special Collections, this piece is a great new addition. While we have a number of volumes on vegetarianism in the 19th and 20th centuries, this is the first book we have on raw foods and the raw foods movement. (Now, we’ll be on the lookout for more!)

You’ll notice that there are a few cooked/prepared foods in the book, though they seem to be carefully chosen and few and far between. The section on soup, for example, is prefaced by the statement that: “We give here a few recipes for soups only because the soup habit is so firmly fixed in the mind of the housewife and the epicure that they can hardly conceive of a decent dinner without them. All soups may be warmed sufficiently to serve hot without cooking.” All but one of the few meat or fish dishes are smoked or dried. The others are all raw, including a beef tartare recipe.

So whether you’re hankering for egg-nog with fruit juice, raw carrot and turnips with (or without) salad dressing, or prune pie, this book could be for you. You’ll just have to come by and see. Until then, happy eating!

Fruits, Veggies, Milk, Meats, Wheats, and Something Sweet

Some of the books in the Ann Hertzler Children’s Cookbook and Nutrition Literature Collection are stories, some are full of basic and simple recipes. Other items, like those we’re featuring this week, are about education. Jane Dale’s series of five books each focus on a key food group, contain lots of black and white photos, and are written in a simple, explanatory way. All five books were published around 1940 by the Artists and Writers Guild (Poughkeepsie, NY). They make heavy use of news outlet and USDA photographs.

The series consists of:

• Fruits and Vegetables: Their Kinds and Uses
• Meat: Flesh Foods from Farm, Range, and Sea
• Milk, Our First Food
• Sugar: Sweetening Foods from Many Plants
• Wheat for My Bread

Each book includes background on the food group and specific foods within the group. There is information about processes involved in getting foods from their original source to the table, too. The volume on wheat talks about planting and harvesting techniques, while the book on fruits and vegetables talks about farming and growing plants. Other volumes contain details on food technologies and processing: the book on meat has information about fishermen making nets and even skinning cattle at the stockyards; the book on sugar has details on how sugar cane is processed in a factory.

While some of the details may seem a bit–graphic (do we really want to SEE someone checking the viscera of sheep for disease?)–the history and facts Dale includes are wide-ranging  and educational. Which is really the point, it seems. The series represented an opportunity to teach children about the foods they need to grow.

We were lucky enough to acquire these books as a set in April of this year. Although a number of other public and academic libraries have some holdings, we appear to be the only one with a full set. So, if you want to know what equipment might be in a small, local creamery or what a boat full of 40,000 sardines looks like, we might just be able to help.

“An Ideal Home”: A Scrapbook Guide to Setting Up Roots

Last December, we found a catalog description that intrigued us. When the item arrived, it was better than we imagined. A scrapbook filled with cut out images from newspapers and magazines, depicting everything you might need to get started as a new homemaker.

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This scrapbook, wonderful as it is, reflects one of the challenges for archivists. Sometimes, when we acquire an item or a collection, it’s obvious. We know the who, what, where, why, and when of it. Sometimes we think we know, discover we’re wrong, and find out something new. And other times, we get, well, a scrapbook like this.

As you may notice, the images in the gallery do not indicate anything about identity. Unfortunately, neither do any of the other pages. There’s no name of the compiler, who took the time to find and place the clipped items, no name of the person who came up with the lists and prices, and no name any owner. Without a clue to the creator, we’re left with the other questions of “why?” and “when?” This item may very well have been a gift to a new bride, a scrapbook full of advice about setting up a household for the first time. Alternatively, it may have been a school project, perhaps a home economics assignment for a student. Not all mysteries can be solved, but that doesn’t mean we can’t glean a few interesting facts or lessons from the scrapbook, either (though sadly, you won’t be able to buy a house and fill it for $12,500 today!):

• Kitchen appliances and items never go out of style. (Well, they might go out of style, but whether it’s avocado green or stainless steel, you still need a refrigerator these days, as well as pots and pans and knives.)
• Organized closets make it much easier to find things.
• It never hurts to be over-prepared for the cocktail hour.
• Plan your menu, especially if you’re having company.

We hope to be posting the whole scrapbook for online viewing in the near future, as we’re experimenting with some new software. (Currently, you can view the finding aid here.) Once it’s all set, we’ll be sure to post an update! Or, come by and see it in person!