Have you ever thought how we got here - that farm land is all AWAY and houses are all in close? That products come to you... and packaging is often more important than the thing inside? That didn't happen over night. The fact that farms are there, house are here, and manufacturing stuff is a third place altogether is not an accident. Instead it's something that has been developing in America for about 200 year. To see WHY you don't have neighborhood farms - as well as why things like setting up ...
Jul 09, 2025•27 min
What happens when you grow more cows to make more milk to make more cheese and butter? You end up with more oxen that can't make milk - but are useful as a source of beef. And this works out well when you are living in a society that craves more meat, and are in a place with apparently wide open spaces that are just fine for feeding said cattle. A bonus when you have lots of growing industries that are willing to buy beef from you to feed their growing ambitions - whaling, the railroad, new fact...
Jun 25, 2025•33 min
So you are a typical early 19th Century American type... Is there a dairy scene? Yes. But are you drinking milk? Maybe... and probobly only for breakfast. Ok... but is it Raw Milk? Most likely not. In the early 19th century, most milk products were at least heated (cheese) or outright cooked - almost everything else - or downright boiled - your breakfast milk. Funny thing is, Americans have retained their passion for boiled milk at breakfast. We just flavor it with coffee and tea now. For more o...
Jun 11, 2025•34 min
Check out the NCPTT... while it's still there, and maybe find an unexpectedly cool place to live. Or maybe a cool woodworking job. https://www.nps.gov/subjects/ncptt/index.htm Hey - so were early Americans eating mushrooms? Yeah. But not all that much. Just enough for a mushroom industry to spring up in the end of the century - but only in one place, and only for one kind. But in the meantime - mushroom powder is DELICIOUS... and not that hard to make. Recipe for 1 quart/4 cups/1 litre of Mushro...
May 28, 2025•28 min
While last episode was drowning in information - this week when hunting down mushroom info... it's a bit of a desert. But no worries, there's still fun stuff to be learned - mainly just what is a mushroom? And how have humans crossed paths with it - in ways besides tripping out? Also - how is the lack of information and the limited presence of mushrooms in AMerican food related? Some answers are here. Also - The Fantasia clip of Tchaikovsky's "Chinese Dance" will let you see (among other things)...
May 14, 2025•29 min
This week - it’s time to look at the connection between westward American Expansion and the apple. How is the apple all tangled up with our creation of the 19th century tall tales we started to tell on and about ourselves? So get ready for a visit from some of the features/specters of that myth making that inhabited a huge part of the 20th century. Links: Johnny Appleseed Cartoon (1948) Paul Bunyan Cartoon (1958) John Henry Cartoon 1 (1973 – narrated by Roberta Flack) John Henry Cartoon 2 (2000 ...
Apr 30, 2025•33 min
As odd as it sounds, there was a time in American Food before oatmeal. And while that's wild on it's own, even more impossible to imagine is how much of agriculture used to be dedicated simply to growing food to feed the animals that allowed you to run the farm. Having solar panels and biodigesters to create power on the farm now is pretty wild... but it wasn't that long ago, all things considered when all the energy used on a farm was grown... on the farm! But it does help put into perspective ...
Apr 16, 2025•32 min
Finally - Recipes for early 19th Century Fried Chicken - sorta. IT's time to learn some chicken history and face the reality about what chickens were really for in the early 19th century - eggs! If you wanted bird meat there were lots of better birds out there to eat above and beyond the scrawny backyard chcicken. But that was about to change as the worlds chickens began to come to America. To learn about all that and more - listen in. And the old Temple in Turkiye / Anatolia Göbekli Tepe Scorpi...
Apr 02, 2025•41 min
Ever notice that fabulous dinner parties depicted on screen rarely take place earlier than the 1800's - and in America pretty much always after the Civil War? Well! That's because in just about every one of those situations the eating etiquette would look so different it would be unrecognizable - in fact it's likely people would be eating with their fingers! Americans have only been eating with forks - on a regualr basis for about 150 years! The earliest Americans ate with their hands - becasue ...
Mar 19, 2025•36 min
Yes yes... tasty pigs. But as you might have gathered I'm not entirely OK right now. Will there be a National Park Service -NPS.gov by next episode? Will I have access to the library of congress or is it going to get "Alexandira'd"? I don't know, but at least I do know that I can hook you up with both old school and modern methods of preserving pork when the power grid goes down. I the mean time take care, love your local food producers and be kind. Even and possibly especially to the people who...
Mar 05, 2025•33 min
Turns out all I was able to squeeze in to this episode was the fresh pork - more or less. How to keep pork will be around next time. But the big lesson is - boy do we need our hands held when it comes to recipes. Is 50 words not enough for you to prepare boiled poik and pease porridge? It certainly isn't enough for me. I'd be absolutely sunk. Though it does explain why enslaved cooks could learn the recipes that were read to them out loud. The recipes weren't that long. Just small notes getting ...
Feb 19, 2025•31 min
To Market to market to buy a fat pig Home again home again jiggety jig... But how did those pigs get to market in the first place? On their own 4 feet! That's right, there's more than one way to concentrate corn down for better transport and not all of it is Bourbon / Corn Whiskey. Also learn about how early mechanical America only kept moving due to the presence of pigs. Big contributions to the script from Mark Essig's _Lesser Beasts_ Be sure to look up the Canadian Super Pigs... and the probl...
Feb 05, 2025•26 min
This week I've gone crackers. I've wondered for awhile why it's biscuits everywhere else - but sometimes ... it's crackers. I mean, the most British of British claymation - Wallace and Grommit, when they go to the moon to get cheese, even they bring crackers.... not biscuits. That, and a few other things had me wondering if crackers and biscuts DIDN'T come from the same source? Rather did the two just meet in America. Turns out - that's what it was. It was Douglas Mack of The Snack Shack that go...
Jan 22, 2025•30 min
Sure - people say America is built on A LOT of things, but the rise of Industrial America depends on two things - Bread and Steel. Steel to make the Great American Dessert into the Great American Bread Basket - and all that wheat would make the steel of the railroad make lots of sense very quickly. If you are curious just what steel is - and how all that early American iron is related, this is your episode. Sure - I'm a food podcast, but this time it's all about Geology, Steel and some bread. Th...
Jan 08, 2025•35 min
For those of you listenting along at home - a little reminder, these are just filler episodes from the other podcast project I was playing around with. If you want that feed and not this one - hop over there. But for those of you who need something to tide you over - listen along to the Hot Nonsense (and a little Cristo Fernandez appreciation). Again - this is not the safe for everyone part of the feed. And some of the bonus contect will be just fine. But this is to simply avoid a blank space if...
Dec 27, 2024•1 hr 4 min
Welcome to the messy alcoholic beverage scene in the early 19th century. Migration, mechanization and new profit centers are all going to shift how alcoholic beverages are made and regarded in early America. They are less part of community exchange, and instead become part of the flow of economic life. Any sense of aged or carefully constructed liquors will never develop. Instead alcohol will have more of an identity as a cog in the economic wheel. And becaseu booze is about to become big busine...
Dec 18, 2024•34 min
*THIS* is the don't listen at work part of the feed. I'll include this for all the naughty episodes. And Zorro - he's a Bad Boy? Bad Girl? Oh heck... it's just how bad people can be when it all becomes about money, power and entertaining TV. So have you been following along? Now that we have our major players set up - and the relationships are established we can really get the plates spinning: Secret Societies - check Love Triangle - check Twin Brothers - check Mysterious/Nefarious Death - check...
Dec 13, 2024•1 hr 14 min
This episode wwas one for the books. So many many books. And the reading and researching of all those recipes showed me that - once again - some of the assumptions I went in with were way off! Chicken and dumplins... dumplin - are not typical early 19th century fare. But plenty of other stew type things are. And there are lessons in the recipes for all us modern cooks - regardless of how we cook our stew. The biggest big deal - brown your meat! The other thing - freshen up your seasoning right b...
Dec 04, 2024•39 min
This episode is a not a love letter, more of a crush note about Romania. I’m at the point of fascination. I don’t know a lot about Romania, really, and they definitely know nothing about me, but what I got to see in a short amount of time has me wanting to know more. If Romania strikes you the same way – here are all the links I mentioned to look up cool and tasty stuff. Along with the Russian History (None of this is beng done on a promotional basis - I get nothing out of this. I just wanted to...
Nov 29, 2024•40 min
Did you know there was no "stew" before the 18th Century? OK - there was stew, it's just that it went by all sorts of other names. While the concept of stew is old, the word "stew" itself is only about 300 years old. I know I was shocked as well. To find out about stew, gravy, soup, braise and all sorts of other words - and more importantly how YOU can make your stews better, come along and listen for a bit. And then next week I'll tell you about all the regional styles of stew that are going to...
Nov 20, 2024•27 min
This week’s bonus episode is an interview I did with Rich Napolitano of the delightfully dark and decidedly educational podcast highlighting the Age of Sail - Shipwrecks and Sea Dogs - Tales of Mishaps, Misfortune, and Misadventures Bring along all the Cabin Girls & Boys - this one is for everyone. Rich does me the favor of quoting vivid primary sources to back up all these things I’ve been saying about food at sea. In a word: Terrible. Check out Shipwrecks and Sea Dogs ( https://shipwrecksa...
Nov 13, 2024•58 min
Can I just be a black cat now? Anyway - what are Baked Beans really, how did they come about, and why, in my opinion are they America's first influential fusion food? Also, why did America pass up the chance to become a pottery power house - and give it all up in favor of steel and glass (is it becasue we think art is secretly decadant and a waste of time?) Come along for the journey, give pork a chance and don't give up on mustard. We all need it. Music Credit: Fingerlympics by Doctor Turtle Sh...
Nov 06, 2024•29 min
Look - I should really plan better when I take an unexpected trip to Romania. But I did not. Enjoy all the same. #NSFW Things just get more. More more. Oh you were confused last week? Well it doesn't get any better this week. If anything it gets worse... more soupy, more sloppy, more salacious. Greta badly speaks more Spanish - but mainly in the service of the 2! DOS! Zorros issue. Jamie is baffled by the twins issue - not twin Zorros, just regular Telenovella twins. Excitement as we are in New ...
Nov 02, 2024•1 hr 17 min
Have you ever thought about how there are so few North American foods that are globally available - or even regular foods for people living in North America? Well wonder no more. Or at least slightly less - and explore some of the major items that are native to Norht America, and yet almost made it to "famous because they are yummy" but not quite. Also - what are the possible global superstars in waiting. Music Credit: Fingerlympics by Doctor Turtle Show Notes: https://thehistoryofamericanfood.b...
Oct 23, 2024•36 min
As long as you remember... this is the NSFW Bonus part, come on along. We are back in Alta California when the wine was Spanish, and the churches were all adobe. Americans were eyeing the other side of the continent... but only in a desultory manner. Snd the richest people of the land - were giant jerks with no thought of the little people actaully doing all the labor, or the local tribes who had been there for a minute. Like a real long time. Anyway - if you'd like to Telanovela up your history...
Oct 18, 2024•1 hr 9 min
This week - First a tribute to the forever changed Blue Ridge Parkway. But mainly a look at how little American Diet Culture has changed in almost 200 years. We came up with some very sticky ideas about how diets should work - including general cluelessness about complex ideas, fuzzy recolections of a fantastic past and the fact that you need more money than you have to follow it correctly. Sylvester Graham and his boring approach to vegetables is going to lead the way in how America is going to...
Oct 09, 2024•40 min
In case you are new here - these are the NSFW Eps. Not serious food content, fit for sharing with everyone. Instead, we are being silly about media - mostly about the 19th Century. And there are swears. Sharing this becasue this Zorro series wonderful escapist nonsense. Catch Season 1 of Zorro on Amazon Prime Video to watch along This episode is where this show goes mask off and shows it’s Telenovela True Colors. Go watch this episode first on Amazon Prime. Twists, Turns, Escándalo! & we jus...
Oct 04, 2024•1 hr 11 min
Women's Work - The Untold Story of America’s Female Farmers has its PBS Premier on September 26 on KSPS serving the Spokane, WA area! And heads up Western Washington - it will be out on KBTC (Broadcast Channel 28) in November How long has America been following diets to improve our health and gain ever more vitality and possibly super-human powers? Almost since the beginning of the country. While we seem to always beleive that the past was somehow a food golden age, the goals and targets of diet...
Sep 25, 2024•24 min•Season 4Ep. 129
May 8, 1886. American pharmacist John S. Pemberton sells the first glass of Coca-Cola at a pharmacy in downtown Atlanta, a drink he originally bills as a cure-all tonic. This week - here's a cross post from History Daily , presented by (not that) Lindsay Graham. In this episode we jump ahead a very little bit to when soda fountains and health elixirs are both starting to travel across the country to change America's beverage landscape forever. Listen in to hear where and why Coca Cola got its st...
Sep 18, 2024•16 min
A BUSY WEEK! 1st hooray - Women's Work - The Untold Story of America’s Female Farmers has its PBS Premier on September 26 on KSPS serving the Spokane, WA area! But seriously - let's talk about jelly. Yeah - I definitey learned great disdain for Jell-O as I grew up - cheap and ceerful, and it seemed like tawdry empty calories. The research for this episode showed me it has a long and proud history as an exclusive food that us moderns poorly understand. As an American I am incredibly suspicious of...
Sep 11, 2024•32 min
