NEWSLETTER VOLUME XXI NUMBER 1 SEPTEMBER 2000
[Return to www.foodbooks.com home page]As most of you know, we have been searching out new meeting spaces for those nights when we can’t meet at the Schlesinger Library. We’ve been very lucky. The Bunting Institute on 34 Concord Avenue in Cambridge has offered us meeting space. Although there is no parking, it’s just a short walk from Harvard Square garages and there’s often parking available on the street. Just watch out for those resident only signs.
In addition, Rebecca Alsid has offered room 117 at B.U., 808 Commonwealth Avenue in Boston for some of our meetings. That’s the old Peter Fuller Oldsmobile building for those who remember it. There’s parking in back of the building.
We are grateful for the generosity of these offers. However, this means that meetings won’t automatically be at the library. So remember to check the location and the time for CHB meetings. We’ll make sure all of the meetings are worth the trip, as Michelin Guides say.
PROGRAM
Monday Sept. 25, 2000 Bunting Institute, 34 Concord Ave. Cambridge 7:00-9:00PM
Phyllis Bober, author of Art, Culture & Cuisine: Ancient & Medieval Gastronomy (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1999), will speak on .”Culinary Arts in the Italian Renaissance.”
Wednesday October 18, 2000 Schlesinger Library Radcliffe 6:00 – 8:00 PM
Sandy Oliver, author of Saltwater Foodways: New Englanders and Their Food at Sea and Ashore in the Nineteenth Century (Mystic, Connecticut: Mystic Seaport Museum, 1995), will speak on why we ear fish and seafood, and why we don’t. Sandy is also the editor of Food History News, one of the best food/history newsletters around.
Wednesday November 15, 2000 Schlesinger Library Radcliffe 6:00 – 8:00 PM
Aglaia Kremezi, author of The Foods of the Greek Islands and several other books on Greek and Mediterranean cookery, will speak on the food traditions of Greece.
Monday December 18, 2000 B.U. Room 117 808 Commonwealth Ave. Boston
6:00 – 9:00 PM Kitchen Collectibles and Pot Luck Party
Jeri Quinzio has sent along a description of what will be an interesting evening.
We’re planning a very special CHB holiday meeting this year – a combination show-and-tell and pot luck supper. We’re inviting members to bring in their treasured kitchen collectibles and tell us all about them. Where they came from, what they were used for, how you acquired them, how old they are, whatever interesting story is behind them.
Your collectible may be an antique or a treasured family heirloom. It may be a duck press, a wafer iron or a unique pudding mold. If you think it’s interesting, if it has a fascinating story behind it, let us know and we’ll give you time to show it and tell everyone about it.
Plus we’ll all share in a pot-luck supper. Just bring your favorite holiday party foods, from appetizers to desserts for all to share. It promises to be a wonderful way to end the first year of the 21st century and another terrific year for the CHoB
Ground rules:
Show-and-tell: To make sure we have time for everyone who wants to participate in the show-and-tell portion of the evening, we need to know how many participants to expect. That way, we can allocate time for each, and no one will be left out. So, if you have something you’d like to bring in and discuss, call or email me, and tell me about it and I’ll put you on the schedule. (617 723-2580 / jeriq@rcn.com)
Whip up a dish. You don’t have to have a collectible to join in the fun. Just bring something delectable for the pot-luck dinner. If everyone brings a dish, everyone can join the feast. In the spirit of the season, why not bring some copies of your recipe as gifts for fellow CHB members.
Different meeting place: Thanks to the generosity of member Rebecca Alsid of the B.U. Gastronomy program, we’ll meet in Room 117 at 808 Commonwealth Ave.
PROGRAM NOTES FROM THE PAST
You will note as you read this material from past CHB meetings that some of the information is no longer completely accurate. Much has been learned in the last ten years. What these notes do is give us an idea of the state of our knowledge in the recent past. Please read these with a critical eye, and let us know of changes in our state of knowledge with reference to these topics today.
December 6, 1989 Clifford Wright “The Arab Influence on Sicilian Food”.
Arab-Sicilian cuisine is not the cuisine of Arab rule in Sicily. It exists today. Cannoli is described by many Sicilians as of Arab origin. It is made from ricotta cheese, said to have been invented by the Arabs in Sicily. Like many Arab foods it involves stuffing a pastry tube which is then deep fried. Another Arab-Sicilian dish is “Pasta of the Wind,” made with orange blossom, honey, farina, flour, and rose water served on a bed of angel hair pasta with honey.
The Arabs invaded Sicily in 827. They ruled until 1091 when the Normans invaded the island, but the Arab influence lasted another 150 years. Norman rule was a tolerant one since they were enchanted by the glittering court and delicious cuisine.
The Arabs created small farm states. They introduced plants like artichokes and eggplants to the kitchen gardens of Sicily. In addition to artichokes and eggplants, the Arabs also introduced bitter orange, lemons, limes, dates, and tarragon into Sicily. Saffron was the most commonly used spice in Arabic food and it was expensive. Less expensive tomatoes, finely chopped, were used as a substitute for saffron in dishes such as baby octopus cooked with tomatoes. Other typically Arab ingredients were sultanas and pine nuts. Kasata, from kasad, the large pan in which it was baked, is another example of Arab-Sicilian fare
One pot meals are seen as typically Arab. Padella (paella) is a Sicilian dish whose ingredients are Arab rather than Spanish. Couscous is much lighter than hard wheat products and is combine with fish and olive oil (no animal fat). Hard wheat was first discovered in Arabia, and introduced into Sicily in the 9th century. It had the gluten content necessary to make pasta. Sicilians claim that pasta (tria) was invented in Sicily. The earliest Sicilian cookbook dates to the 19th century.
The range of spices in Arab-Sicilian food is limited and their use simple. Oregano, rosemary, cinnamon, nutmeg, sesame seed, caraway seed, and pine nuts are used extensively. Arabic-Sicilian cuisine is light, fresh, often stuffed or skewered, and relies heavily on fish.
February 25, 1990 Wilma Wetterstrom “Food Across the Ages”.
Notes by Ginnie O’Leary.
Much of what we know about what our ancient forebears ate comes from examining plant remains at archaeological sites. Wilma focussed on the way humans lived 2.3 million years ago. Significant changes occurred with Homo erectus who had an upright posture thus freeing her/his hands for tool making and using, hunting and food gathering. Hominids began in Africa and migrated to other parts of the world. Ten to twelve thousand years ago man crossed the Bering Strait into North America [there is some evidence today which pushes this time back considerably].
The changes that occurred in man’s food preferences were a function of bodily changes plus changes in the environments in which man lived. One of the most critical changes was the advent of fire. The availability of fire made an enormous difference in what could be done with food resources. It was a tool for processing foods.
Prior to the availability of fire, food had to be eaten raw. In the process of ingesting starches, man consume toxins such as tannin, cholinesterase and other protease inhibitors. Bulbs were used for their high sugar content as were fruits. The most common sources of protein were grubs, insects and reptiles. Before fire, the largest problem with meat was parasites.
The Australian Aborigines lived in small groups of 10-50. They hunted, gathered, and moved on. They had no formal leader and divided labor along sex lines, women did the gathering and men the hunting. The health of these people was good. Animal resources were plentiful and the ability to roast meat after the discovery of fire made it possible to consume meat without fear of parasites.
Environmental changes with migration introduced diversity into the diet. The various seasons brought them fresh foods of greater variety, although there was often a feast or famine situation. The diet of foragers was high in fiber and low in fat. Approximately 15,000 years ago changes in food sources brought about changes in diet. It took more work to get food when, for example, wheat had to be ground. A broad spectrum revolution occurred at this time. Small seeds were collected and processed. More extensive preparation of food was required. For instance, the preparation of manioc involved grinding, soaking and expressing the resulting liquid thus releasing the hydrocyanic acid contained in manioc. The fact that people had to put in a great deal of effort in order to obtain food, suggests that something happened to the environment which rendered food production more difficult. The population began to exceed the available food supplies.
When the glaciers receded, population density increased and the environment came to be at risk. This is when full farming began. Wild barley, wheat, oats and legumes were produced. This transition to agriculture began, as did human life, in Africa and spread to Southeast Asia, China, Mexico and the Andes region. By 5000 years ago, half of the earth’s population was engaged in agriculture. Animal herding began about 2000 years after the first farming efforts. Sheep, goats and cattle were among the animals herded…
Farming allowed for the support of a greater number of people. The crops used had to have primary advantages: 1) they were efficient and thereby could support more people; 2) they were rich in carbohydrates and low in protein and fat, thereby providing quick energy. Life becomes more sedentary in an agricultural setting. Villages spring up since people came to have an investment that they would not leave behind – stored crops. With the advent of village life, came a dramatic transformation of society. Larger groups developed with complex hierarchical structures. Storage of foods made this possible by creating a constant supply of foods.
The early village diet was comprised primarily of legumes and grain. Ovens were introduced in ancient Egypt and beer was able to be brewed since the stationary population had the time to wait for the grain to ferment. Pottery was introduced and soups and stews were prepared. Meat consumption declined in general with only the upper classes eating more. The consumption of game became a status symbol.
Skeletal evidence indicates that overall diet was poor. Infant mortality was high due to protein malnutrition. Anemia (evidenced by pitting in the back of the skull) was common among those whose diet was rich in corn (sic). [corn refers not to maize, but to any grain]. Changes in the teeth, cavities for example, coincided with the introduction of soft diets, gruels, corn bread, etc.
The hunters and gatherers were better nourished than the farmers. Originally people had to overbite where the incisors met. Farming changed that. In addition, a reduction in stature accompanied the advent of farming as did the diseases of civilization – cancer, diabetes, hypertension and coronary artery disease. There have been other genetic changes over the last 10,000 years. Lactose intolerance (suffered by about 40% of the population over 40) is an evolutionary lag that has not kept up with our lactose rich diets of ice cream, cheese, etc. Human beings were not well prepared for the dietary changes that accompanied the broad spectrum revolution.
March 19, 1990 Heather Lechman “The Potato in Andean Culture”.
These notes were written by Barbara Wheaton.
Heather Lechman was, at the time of this meeting, the Director of the Center for Materials Research in Archaeology and Ethnology at MIT.
Then and now the potato is the staple food crop, and hunger is defined as being without potatoes. Dr. Lechman showed us pictures of the Festival of the Immaculate Conception which she saw some years ago near Lake Titicaca. After solemn ceremonies in the church, and splendidly colorful festivities with dancing to the sound of pan pipes and cymbals, a dramatic moment comes when the church ceremonies and the dances cease. A statue of the Virgin is carried out of the church on a flower-decked platform; two figures kneel before her and they hold garlands, not of flowers, but of potatoes the most life-sustaining gift that can be offered.
To understand why potatoes hold this significant place in the culture as they have for millennia, one must understand the ecology of the Andes, and specifically the area around the Peru-Bolivia border in the central Andes. A cross-section taken across the mountains there shows a culture operation in a vertical setting. Reading from west to east, we see a coastal strip which is no more than 20 to 30 miles wide. It is crossed by river valleys which are also very important. One must remember that the whole Andean chain is only about 125 miles across, which means that the gradient is tremendously steep. The consequence of this is that there are many different micro-environments, with rapid changes from place to place because of changes in temperature, the amount of oxygen in the air, of sunlight, rain, wind. Therefore there is a very wide variety of species overall, but in any single microclimate there are very few.
The focus here is on the Pacific slope. At the ocean coast one finds a desert. The ruins of the largest adobe city in the New World date from before the arrival of the Spaniards. Unbaked clay like this can only survive where there is virtually no rain. Only the river valleys can support cultivation, by using irrigation techniques. Outside the valleys only cacti and other desert plants will grow. These desert conditions continue up to about 2,000 meters above sea level. Some of the main crops in this coastal region are ocean fish ( a major enterprise), and sea birds, and on land, in the river valleys, cotton.
Between 2,00 and 3,800 meters we find the Qiswa, the main agricultural zone. This precipitous, harsh region is environmentally fragile, but it, intelligently used, supported the Inca empire. Some gravity-fed irrigation is possible. In addition to potatoes, oca and other important tubers were grown as well as maize, quinoa, squash, beans, and peppers. The environments change so rapidly that we find different varieties at every 300 feet of altitude. As one goes higher, there are no more squash or bean, just tubers and quinoa. The land is heavily terraced, with some terraces being only two to four feet wide, each with as few as two or three rows of plants. In some parts of the Qiswa zone there are valleys between the mountain peaks and in some of these are rivers which make irrigation farming possible.
Above the timberline comes the Puna. This is a very high-stress environment; the oxygen content of the air is poor, and the temperature swings between night and day have been described as a climate where one goes from summer to winter every day. The winds are ferocious. The principal agricultural enterprise is the herding of wild guanaco and alpaca. Stone corrals and thickly thatched herders’ houses dot the barren landscape. All travel is by foot. Between this level and the snow-topped mountains one finds only miners seeking gold and minerals, as they have since prehistoric times.
Descending the Andes to the eat one passes again through the Puna (at a somewhat higher level), down through a rainier zone, and on down to the “eyebrow of the forest” where coca (for survival uses) is grown, and finally to the forest where crops of maize, manioc, peanuts, and tomatoes are grown.
This then is the physical context in which potatoes grow. They are grown in the Qiswa, at 2,200 miles and higher. There are some 90 wild species and more than two thousand named cultivars in this fragile, unpredictable, vertical environment characterized by exaggerated extremes.
How can civilization develop in such difficult environments? The evidence shows that the Andean peoples took advantage of the variations, minimizing their risks by using the differing quantities of the diverse zones. It has been called “a system of vertical archipelagos” – isolated mountainside islands. The settlers of one little niche would send out kin to settle other pockets of cultivation. Because of the isolation of these microclimates, natural plant hybridization was impossible. It happened only with human intervention. Students of the area have speculated that hybridization began some 10,000 years ago when hunter-gatherers in the area gathered potatoes in different places, and that some of these potatoes were discarded together, cross-breeding in kitchen middens. Those which had qualities useful to humans – frost resistance, resistance to disease, perhaps even flavor – would have been deliberately cultivated. The earliest potatoes that archaeologists have found so far are tiny, pea-sized ones, dating from 8000 B.C. Experts can determine whether potatoes are cultivated or wild by examining the wrinkle patterns on their skins and by comparing the shapes of their starch grains with other known tubers, and with the starch grains of potatoes known to be wild or cultivated. Quite early we find phytomorphic (plant-shaped) ceramic vessels, and the potato is often reproduced. Their presence in coastal sites shows that they were known and valued there as well.
What is found in Andean potato fields today? They are full of a mixture of potatoes and weed. Among the weeds are wild varieties of potatoes which allow ongoing cross-pollination. Thus new varieties continue to arise, a distinct advantage in an environment which is always needed. This practice keeps the genetic variety great; a large gene pool with new germ plasm is a critical survival strategy (unlike Ireland in 1845, which was dependent on a single kind of potato, and, when it succumbed to disease, people died of hunger). Each time the fields are dug, the best varieties are selected. Potatoes are eaten at every meal, but there are many different kinds, put to many different uses. They do not inbreed. Other tubers are used as well, especially the oca.
A market scene shows many sizes, shapes, and colors. The inhabitants of these regions have an elaborate classification system for naming their many potato varieties, based on size, shape, color of skin and flesh, position and depth of the eye, and texture. There are two principal divisions: the akshu which can be steamed and eaten without other treatment, bur which are not frost resistant, and the shiri-akshu, which are bitter, and must be freeze dried before eating; they are frost resistant. It has been found that within the local area, people can recognize…with nearly 80% accuracy, plants that are truly different genetically; this is much better than botanists can do without instruments. (The inhabitants also give individual names to all the animals in their flocks of as many as a thousand animals, and call them all by name.)
Documenting the lives of indigenous peoples is difficult when they have no system of writing. Much of what we know of this pre-Columbian like in this region comes from a (Spanish) codex of about 1615, which shows the agricultural cycle month by month. We see them using a foot plow (it looks much like a narrow spade), which, not digging too deeply, is well suited to the steep slopes. Crops are carried in sacks to the storehouses which were a crucial part of the food-supply system.
Excavations of an Inca administrative city located further north of Lake Titicaca have revealed ranges of hundreds of store houses on the mountainside overlooking the city. The individual occupants of this city did not live there continuously, but came there to serve (as part of the corvee labor system) for weeks or months at a time. An assured food supply was therefore essential. These sore houses, set above the city, in the Puna itself, used the harsh climate as a refrigerator, and their forms were adapted to the storage needs of their contents. The store houses in the lower ranges are round; they were used to store the maize which was used to make beer, which was made in enormous quantities. The corn was sealed in round ceramic vessels. Stored corn was most at risk from insects, rodents, and fungal attack. The ceramic vases kept out the rodents and insects; if the corn spoiled the sealed vases limited the spread of fungal disease. The corn could be kept this way for a year. The store houses in the higher levels are rectangular, and were used for the storage of wrapped and baled potatoes. Potatoes are most at risk from sprouting or rotting. These buildings were designed to prevent both by keeping the potatoes at a low, stable temperature. The floors were covered with loose stones, which allowed the cold air to circulate; the buildings had windows which were opened at night, letting more cold air in. Potatoes could be stored for four years in this sophisticated system.
To minimize the risk, a second strategy was used with potatoes, with other fleshy vegetables, and even with animal tissues (charqui or, as we now say, jerky): they were freeze dried. Bitter potatoes (shiri-akshu), a very frost resistant variety which had to be freeze dried before eating to remove the alkaloids, were used in this process. They will grow only at the higher altitudes. Maturing in the dry season, they are laid out in the day time to dry in the heat of the sun, and left to freeze in the bitter cold of night. After 4 or 5 days of this treatment much of the moisture has been driven out and the potato shrivels. They are then cautiously trodden to remove the last of the moisture and the alkaloids. Reduced to 30% of their original size, the potatoes, now called chuna, will keep for 30 years. Light, and ready to eat without further preparation, it is used as travel and survival food. The largest potatoes are the most highly valued, and are served to honored guests; the medium ones are eaten by the family, and the smallest ones are used as animal fodder. Thus these peoples make use of what seem to be the disadvantages of their environments.
How can we preserve this important genetic pool? The National Potato Institute near Lima has tried to introduce new varieties which are resistant and high-yielding, but watery and useless in making chuna; the farmers grow them as a cash crop to sell for use in the city, but they do not eat them themselves. They understand the significance of having many varieties so that if something goes wrong at one level there will be something else at another. The germ plasm bank in Colorado includes tubers in its refrigerated collection, but it is at risk in case of power failures. Some people are now arguing that genetic preserves should be established which would exclude non-indigenous varieties.
PLEASE NOTE: Marge Leibenstein is still in need of people to donate blood or platelets. She wishes us to note that anyone donating platelets should be aware of the tact that it takes a few hours but is painless. Marge has been a member of the CHB since our earliest years, has served twice as President and has been on the board for a long time.
If any of you could help her out at this time by donating, please call 617 632-9085 to set up an appointment.
In response to a query in the July newsletter with reference to the above herbs, Ellen Messer has informed us that distaff is cane or thistle, or perhaps a recipe for female pigs. Dittany is a species of oregano.
Peï Salat
In a private inquiry to Nancy Harmon Jenkins, we asked if she knew anything about peï salat which Alan Davidson mentions, but does not explain, in the entry under garum in the Oxford Companion to Food. She responded as follows:
It took me a while to figure out what Alan Davidson is talking about since the spelling was totally unfamiliar to me but finally the penny dropped: pissalat is the more conventional spelling and it’s the word that gives us pissaladiere (which is not, contrary to what everyone thinks, from pizza). If you look on page 273 of Mediterranean Seafood, you’ll see his [Alan’s] discussion of it. I have never had pissalat (or peï salat and have never seen reference to it except in history books, but pissaladiera is a staple of Neapolitan street food and very delicious too, although conventionally made with anchovies these days. I’m surprised Alan doesn’t say more about it in the Oxford Companion to Food.
I also have references in Jacques Médecin’s Cuisine Niçoise, although the recipe he gives comes from E[lizabeth] David’s English Bread [& Yeast Cookery]! And in another book, by Bernard Duplessy, Cuisine traditionnelle en pays niçois, it is said to be made by layering fish with salt (lots of salt), thyme and bayleaf, and leaving it for a month, stirring it up weekly. Acc[ording] to Duplessy, peï salat means pisson salee, or pesce salata, since the niçois dialect is a delicious amalgam of French and Italian.
We checked Alan’s Mediterranean Seafood for the reference Nancy mentioned. Alan notes that “sardines and anchovies in their larval state are known in Provence as poutine…Poutine also serve to make a garum-type preparation known as pissalat (peï salat). If this is mixed with a purée of onions and spread on a thin disc of baker’s dough, topped with black olives and baked in a very slow oven for half an hour, the result is pissaladiera (often sold ready made, and with fillets of tinned anchovy on top of the onion purée instead of pissalat mixed in with it).
Please see EVENTS for notice of the Mediterranean Food History Course Nancy will offer in the spring
From an article in The Forward by Matthew Goodman. Thanks to Esther and Idah Salzman for this. “But our greatest delight in all seasons was ‘delicatessen’ – hot spiced corned beef, pastrami, rolled beef, hard salami, soft salami, chicken salami, bologna, frankfurter ‘specials’ and the thinner, wrinkled hot dogs always taken with mustard and relish and sauerkraut…At Saturday twilight, as soon as the delicatessen store reopened after the Sabbath rest, we raced into it panting for the hot dogs sizzling on the gas plate just inside the window. The look of that blackened empty gas plate had driven us wild all through the wearisome Sabbath day. And now, as the electric sign blazed up again, lighting up the works Jewish National Delicatessen, it was as if we had entered into our rightful heritage.” (From A Walker in the City by Alfred Kazin.)
Matthew Goodman commented that “For those immigrant boys, the true holy site was not the synagogue but the delicatessen; the feeling of their Jewish heritage arrived not on Friday night, with the ceremonial Shabbat meal, but on Saturday night, with a thin, wrinkled hot dog.
In a recent note to Nancy Stutzman, Susan Alexander requested that we inform our members about this new journal. She noted “Gastronomica is a brand-new scholarly journal from University of California Press due to commence publication in February 2001. A multidisciplinary publication, Gastronomica aims to make readers aware of food as an important source of knowledge about different cultures and societies. One if its missions is to unite the many segments of the food world, with articles from any field that deals with the history, production, uses and depictions of food. Combining the latest research with an appreciation for the pleasures and aesthetics of food, Gastronomica will provide a forum for sharing ideas, provoking discussion, and encouraging thoughtful reflection on the history, literature, representation, and cultural impact of food.”
The February 2001 issued will include articles by such prominent food historians as Gillian Riley, Rachel Laudan, Charles Perry and Alicia Rios.
The editor of Gastronomica is CHB member, Russian literature scholar Darra Goldstein. This alone indicates the very high quality of articles selected for publication.
If you wish to subscribe now, you can save %15 off of your charter subscription. Send a check for $34 for an individual subscription or $23.80 for student or retiree to University if California Press Journals, 2000 Center Street, Suite 303, Berkeley, CA 94704.
A note in the Worcester Telegram on June 18, 2000 announced that the AAS is currently accepting applications for fellowships for historical research. Research projects should be on any topic related to American history before 1877. The deadline for submission is October 5. For details, contact the Artist Fellowship Program, American Antiquarian Society, 185 Salisbury St. Worcester, MA 01609-1634; 508 363-1131; wyoung@mwa.org.
808 Commonwealth Avenue, Boston.
A Remembrance of Things Past: The Bialy Eaters: The Lost World of Bialystok’s Jews and the Bread That Sustained Them
Mimi Sheraton, former New York Times food critic “will take us on a journey through time and share personal histories of people’s experiences and memories of a special bread that was baked and eaten by Jews who lived in a city in Poland called Bialystok.” Those attending will receive a copy of The Bialy Eaters.
October 16, 2000 12:30 – 4:40 PM French and Chinese Herbs
Marie Stella Byrnes informs us that Barbara Wheaton will be the guest lecturer on French Herbs at a meeting of the New England Unit of the Herb Society of America’s Culinary Herb Symposium to be held in the Putnam Building at the Massachusetts Horticultural Society, Elm Bank, Dover. The afternoon will include tea and sweets. Tickets are $23 and may be ordered from NEU, Herb Society of America, P.O. Box 503, Belmont, MA 02478. For further information call 617 484-4841.
Now through November 5, 2000 Drink and Be Merry: Wine and Beer in Ancient Times. Jewish Museum, 1109 Fifth Ave. (92nd St.), NY.
This exhibit organized by the Israel Museum in Jerusalem “includes nearly 200 objects from Greece, Rome, Egypt and the Middle East, like Italian wine jars inscribed to King Herod and a portion of the Dead Sea Scrolls on the festival of new wine…There is also a reproduction of an ancient wine shop.”
Thanks to Jeri Quinzio for this one.
Michele Topor Food Tours
September 21 – October 6 Michele will lead a tour of Magna Graecia including visits to Calabria, Basilicata, Campania, Puglia and Taormina in Sicily.
November 2 – 11 will be a tour of Sicily.
Michele is thoroughly grounded in the food and history of these areas. Both will be a treat for both the eye and the palate. For further information, contact Michele at 617 523-6032 or mtopor@aol.com.
Radcliffe Seminars Spring 2001
Two very special one week intensive food history seminars will be held in the spring semester, both taught by CHB members.
February 11 – 16 Mediterranean Culinary History - Nancy Harmon Jenkins
This seminar will examine food and culture in Mediterranean history. Nancy has lived in a number of areas in the Mediterranean and has a deep knowledge of and love for the food and the people. This will be a rich week.
June 10 – June 15 Reading Cookbooks as Social History – Barbara Ketcham Wheaton
Barbara’s twenty some love affair with cookbooks and food history will provide a framework for analyzing cookbooks and ferreting out hidden information.
Each week long seminar is $840 including materials and lunches but excluding the Sunday evening meal at a local restaurant. For further information or to register, contact the Seminars office at 617 495-8600.
Diamond, Jared. Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies. NY: W.W. Norton, 1999. In this Pulitzer prize winning book, Diamond tries to answer the question of why “history unfolded differently on different continents”. His answer: “History followed different courses for different peoples because of differences among peoples’ environments, not because of biological differences among peoples themselves.” There is much in this work which will be of interest to CHB members. Diamond has chapters on the causes of the spread of food production, the development of ancient crops, and animal domestication.
Laudan, Rachel. “Birth of the Modern Diet.” Scientific American, August 2000. Pp.76 – 81. In this article, Rachel traces the changes in European diet from 1450 to 1650 to a substantial change in the medical model of diet and nutrition. Prior to 1650 the ancient doctrine of humours formed the basis for nutrition. This changed in the 17th century when the ideas of Paracelsus (early 16th century) spread throughout Europe. This is a very interesting article. Rachel is currently working on a book on the history of diet.
Thanks to Joyce Toomre for alerting us to this article.
Maggio, Theresa. Mattanza: Love and Death in the Sea of Sicily. Perseus Books. There are only a few places left in which the mattanza still takes place as it did in ancient time. The mattanza is a method of taking giant bluefin tuna using nets. Maggio spent a great deal of time in Sicily with fishermen in order to record what was once a commonplace task in the ancient Mediterranean. The book if reviewed in the September/October 2000 issue of Saveur.
Chicken legs in Russia were called Bush’s legs after former President George Bush. Because of America’s tendency to avoid fat and hence exhibit a preference for chicken breasts over chicken legs resulting in a surplus of legs, an entrepreneurial immigrant Russian began exporting chicken legs to Russia.
Cooks, Food and the French Revolution
Rebecca Spang notes in her recent The Invention of the Restaurant that the female cooks of aristocratic households were more likely to escape with their lives than their male counterparts. (289).
In September 1793, the French National Convention passed price fixing regulations known as the Maximum. Under these regulations the cost of “articles of prime necessity” was set. These necessities included bread, wine, cheeses, butter, honey and sausages. (107)
The newsletter is published six times per year. We rely on you for information. If you have a paper, book review, information on events, new books, factinis, please send them to Pat Kelly, 345A Neponset Ave. Dorchester, MA 02122-3103. 6187 282-0478.
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