Hungry for History: Culinary and Foodways History | A New York Minute in History

A New York Minute In History

This episode focuses on culinary history and the Pomeroy Foundation’s Hungry for History program. We discover that the history of what we eat, and how we eat it, can tell us much about ourselves and our shared pasts.

Markers of Focus: Hungry for History

Interviewees: Elizabeth Jakubowski, Senior Librarian, New York State Library.

You can follow the State Library and learn more about their Tasting History project at: Facebook, Instagram – @nyslibrary and X (formerly Twitter) – @NYSLibrary

A New York Minute in History is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio and the New York State Museum, with support from the William G. Pomeroy Foundation. This episode was produced by Elizabeth Urbanczyk. Our theme is “Begrudge” by Darby.

Featured Image: Salt Potatoes Hungry for History Marker near Onandaga Lake.

Further reading:

Jennifer Jensen Wallach, How America Eats: A Social History of U.S. Food, 2013.

Michelle Moon, Interpreting Food at Museums and Historic Sites, 2016.

Libby O’Connell, The American Plate: A Culinary History in 100 Bites, 2015.

Annie Hauck-Lawson, Gastropolis: Food and New York City, 2009.

Amelia Simmons, American cookery: or, The art of dressing viands, fish, poultry and vegetables, and the best modes of making puff-pastes, pies, tarts, puddings, custards and preserves, and all kinds of cakes, from the imperial plumb to plain cake. Adapted to this country, and all grades of life,1796.

Teaching resources:

John Rosinbum, “Teaching with Food History: Digital Collections, Activities and Resources,” American Historical Association.

Future Farmers of America Teacher Resources.

Follow Along

Devin: Welcome to A New York Minute in History. I'm Devin Lander, the New York State historian.

Lauren: And I'm Lauren Roberts, the historian for Saratoga County. Today, instead of focusing on just a single marker, we're going to focus on a program, one of the many, offered by the William G. Pomeroy Foundation. And this program is called Hungry for History. This is a rolling grant program, so applications are accepted all the time, and the focus of this is to celebrate America's food history by telling the stories of local and regional food specialties across the United States. The program is designed to commemorate significant food dishes created prior to 1970 in the role they play in defining American culture and forging community identity. Hungry for History is intended to help communities nationwide put the spotlight on their renowned, locally and regionally created food dishes with historic roadside markers.

All right, in order to get started, Devin, I'm going to give you a pop quiz.

Devin: Okay!

Lauren: There are six of these signs, and I want to know if you have had any of these six types of food. Are you ready?

Devin: I'm ready.

Lauren: Okay, salt potatoes,

Devin: Absolutely. I grew up in Western New York,

Lauren: Michigan hot dog.

Devin: That's a beloved favorite. I did my undergraduate studies at Plattsburgh, and the marker for that is located in Plattsburgh. So yes, I have had my share of Michigans.

Lauren: Chocolate jumbles.

Devin: So that's one that I have no idea what it is, and I had to actually look that one up and see pictures of it. I may have had one, but I have no memory of that name.

Lauren: Okay. How about Spiedies?

Devin: Yes, and I make my own Spiedies using speedy sauce that I buy at Hannaford.

Lauren: I'm impressed. All right, number five, barbecue chicken - and barbecued chicken in the sense of this sign denotes the gentleman who was able to innovate the way that large quantities of barbecued chicken could be cooked over time without charring. So for festivals and fundraisers and things like that,

Devin: I have definitely had that at festivals and fundraisers around New York. And I've also had Brooks House of Barbecue in Oneonta, which is wonderful, and also cooks in that style,

Lauren: Okay, and last, but not least, all the way out to Buffalo: beef on weck.

Devin: That's another one from my childhood, growing up in western New York that we would have frequently. In fact, one of my cousins at his wedding, that was the main dish for his reception was beef on weck, and it was delightful.

Lauren: Wow,so you did really well, five out of six. I'm impressed. I'm only at about 50% here I've never had,

Devin: Let's ask you, then which ones have you had?

Lauren: Okay, So I have had barbecue chicken, of course, chocolate jumbles and salt potatoes, but I have never had Spiedies, beef on weck or a Michigan Hot Dog. I know!

Devin: We'll have to do something about that.

Lauren: So in talking about these types of food, most of us, even if we haven't tried them, have heard of these. And interestingly, they are peppered around the state; beef on weck is from the Buffalo area, the barbecue chicken sign is out in the Finger Lakes area near Cayuga Lake. Spiedies are from Binghamton, Chocolate jumbles from Schoharie County. Salt potatoes, of course, from the Syracuse area. And as Devin mentioned, the Michigan from Plattsburgh. These are all great examples of communities that are erecting signs because they're proud of their culinary history and thinking about food ways and culinary history in a larger context. Why is it important that we're recognizing where these regional foods are coming from, and why is it so important to our historical memory?

Devin: Well, those are great questions, and I think what we've seen in the last few decades here has been an increase in awareness of regional cuisines and thinking about things like family history and cultural and social history. You know, cuisine and cooking really can shed a light on a variety of topics related to that, from immigration, regional identity is a big part of this cultural identity as different communities immigrated to the United States and then moved around within what is now the United States, and the interaction between cultures, going back to the very earliest immigration of Europeans and contact between Europeans and indigenous people in this country, it's just a variety of things that can be drilled down into through the field of culinary or foodways history,

Lauren: One of the other pieces of the puzzle is family history. I think a lot of us have memories, either growing up or in our own families, of spending time in the kitchen with our relatives or friends, and there were certain recipes that were always a part of family gatherings. I'm pretty sure we can all think back to some sort of family gathering, whether it's a picnic or a block party or maybe a religious gathering. And there's a certain recipe that you think of that was always there. Maybe it's on Thanksgiving, and there's always somebody's pie that you had. And so the thought of that specific kind of pie brings you back to memories of holidays, family gatherings, being in a certain place. But I think food is so connected to memory, because we all have to eat, and we all have traditions, things that we like, things that we don't like, and things that we are brought up with, raised with, that become part of our family history.

Devin: So one of the things that's been very exciting over the last few decades, with the increased interest in culinary and food history has been an explosion, really, of interpretation happening at historic sites, museums, libraries, archives that really investigate the methods of cooking In the past but also interpret how things were prioritized, what ingredients were used, and what does that tell us about different cultures, cultural assimilation, how cultures interact with each other and have interacted and shared resources over time. And one of those cultural organizations that is doing this work is the New York State Library, and we sat down with Elizabeth Jakubowski, who is a senior librarian at the State Library and is leading an initiative there and a program called Tasting History.

Devin: How's it going?

Elizabeth: Morning!

Lauren: Morning. So it just so happened we had a tornado a couple weeks ago, and my neighbor is having all the tree work done right now. So it's very loud here. They're taking down all of the half broken trees so… but thank you very much for doing this.

Elizabeth Jakubowski: Thanks you for having me. I appreciate it.

So hi, I'm Elizabeth Jakubowski. I'm a senior librarian in the New York State Library's Manuscripts and Special Collections unit. Primarily, I help process and describe collections. I also answer reference questions and assist researchers who want to use our materials. I've been at the State Library for about five and a half years now. Before that, I worked in public libraries, both in the capital region and out in Rochester, New York. I just want to point out that I am not a chef or a food historian. I'm a librarian who loves history and historical recipes, and I'm really lucky to work with other people who share those same interests.

So it was back in 2021 I was in our Rare Books room to retrieve some materials, and I spotted these two books which looked interesting. They were Mary Elizabeth's Wartime Recipes and Amelia Dodger’s Liberty Recipes. I was flipping through them, and both books featured sugarless recipes and other sort of substitution recipes based on their titles. I thought they were from World War Two, because I think of that war when I think of wartime cooking. But then I noticed that both of these were published in 1918 so I dove into the history of the books. I really wanted to know more about who these women were and where these books had come from. And as I did that, I started to share my enthusiasm with my colleagues, Matt, who is a fellow librarian in manuscripts, and Jamie, who's an archivist in the state state archives, were both interested in the cookbooks too. So we decided that each of us would choose a recipe, make it at home, and then bring it in so we could all try it together. We wanted to taste the recipes instead of just reading about them.

I brought in the first recipe. It was called a stuffed peach salad. Basically it was half of a peeled and pitted peach stuffed with a cottage cheese and salted pecan mixture that you sprinkle with some paprika and top with a little vinaigrette dressing. It was good. It was a little mushy. We had a really good time trying it. There were lots of leftovers, because I always make too much food. I'm really glad it worked out that way, though, because two more colleagues joined in, based on our excitement and offers of slightly strange snacks. I'm on the library social media team, and with everybody agreeing, I decided that we could share the cookbooks we used the recipes and our end results with a wider audience. We thought it would just be fun to share using our collections in a different way.

We've covered four different time periods in total, so I've already talked about World War One, which was our first era. Those cookbooks came from the State Library's rare book collection, which is in my unit: manuscripts. We definitely saw the need for substituting in different foods. The stuffed peach salad I mentioned; the recipe specifically said, “Don't use cream cheese for this. It's needed for the soldiers.” And when they said sugarless recipes, they meant white sugar, so brown sugar, honey and other kinds of sugar substitutes were being pushed. I don't think a lot of us realized that was going on in World War One. So that was very interesting to learn for the next era we did the 1930s those recipes came from the New York State Archives collections. It was a series called the Federal Writers, project directors, publication working files. Doesn't sound like we'd have that much in it, but it included a bunch of projects that were undertaken at the state and local levels. Research material was collected in preparation for publishing Travel and Tourism guides to New York State and local communities. So there are records relating to the state Almanac and the state encyclopedia for the 1930s. It was interesting because it wasn't a cookbook. It was average folks being asked what recipes they're using. So they sort of ranged in a gamut. Most of what we learned in that series was that there was a lot going on throughout New York State in terms of food culture. There really wasn't an overarching theme. Mostly it was the techniques in the recipes, the language being used. Obviously, ovens back then didn't have the thermometers and other regulators that we have now, so there was a bit of guesswork as to what a “hot oven” meant, or a “fast oven.” We learned a lot.

The third era we did was the 1950s. I chose four books from the State Library's Main Collection for that, all four books were published in the 50s, and all four focused on various food trends in that era, so things like convenience food, help for the hostess and early celebrity chefs were all sort of represented by those choices. What we learned about in the 1950s was: Jello. Jello was a very prevalent ingredient. I think we had three or four recipes that involved jello in some way. It was interesting, though. One of the recipes that was made was called a cucumber salad mold, which I didn't think was going to taste very good, and it ended up being very summery and light and not too bad. It started with lime jello, and you added vinegar, horseradish, onions and cucumbers, and the person who made it, the colleague who made it, insisted that we were all going to love it, and he was right. It really wasn't bad.

Devin: That's interesting. I think I knew I'd seen some of the ads and recipes from that era that highlighted the prevalent use of jello, which, you know, is good for us, with jello being a New York State invention, and having the jello Museum in New York State, that's that makes sense for us, I guess.

Elizabeth: Yeah, I'veactually been to the jello museum when I was living in Rochester. It was fabulous.

So our most challenging era was the 18th century. We used American Cookery by Amelia Simmons. American Cookery was the first cookbook published in America by an American for an American audience, manuscripts and special collections. Has a second edition, which was published in Albany in 1796 that was very challenging, because recipes of that time assumed knowledge. They assumed you knew certain things, techniques. They were very, very short. In fact, one of the recipes, a cranberry tart, said to “season until grateful.” Still not sure what that means.

Devin: Interesting.

Elizabeth: It was very interesting. It was also interesting to see some early American recipes represented there. You could do a whole traditional Thanksgiving meal based on recipes in that book. There was a turkey to roast stuffing. There was even - she calls it a pompkin pudding, but it was truly a pumpkin pie. It was just sweetened with molasses instead of sugar, but everything else was basically the same. So it was very cool to sort of dive into that.

At the State Library, we really do have a wide range of cookbooks, recipe books, but we also have other sources that have recipes, including magazines. We have ladies magazines that usually feature recipes and newspapers, so we have plenty of source material. When I was in public libraries, we had those local recipe books, like you said, church groups or civic societies coming together and producing those cookbooks. And I love the local recipes like you said. It does reflect the area and the time period in which they were created. So it's pretty awesome. So my favorite recipe book, in terms of usefulness, the 1950s started to have more instructions than the earlier eras, so those were very useful. Just in terms of personal interest, I would say that Amelia Simmons American cookery was my favorite. I loved learning more about early American foods. The fact that it's the first cookbook that uses the word cookie. It's sort of fun. She uses the Dutch word, or it comes from the Dutch word, which is, pardon, all of your Dutch listeners, “koekje” - I believe it's how it's pronounced. So she uses the word “koekje,” and she, like I said, reflects what we think of as traditional American foods, turkey stuffing, cranberry sauce, pumpkin pie, it's all in there. I love that sort of reflection of, you know, the 18th century. We had a cookbook I was looking at when I was looking at books for the 50s, and it was a cookbook for bachelors. And they were very simple recipes, very straightforward, meat and potatoes. I think that also reflects the time period in which it was created, what gentlemen might be expected to be able to handle in a kitchen. Devin I sure you've come a long way.

Devin: Maybe not.

Elizabeth: Oh no! But, I love those sort of quirky, niche sort of cookbooks.

We had a bit of a clunker of a jello salad in the 1950s. It was called an applesauce salad, which doesn't sound nearly as offensive as a tuna salad, but it really didn't work. It was lime jello with applesauce. The recipe just said nuts and olives. So the person who made it put in pecans and sliced black olives. It didn't work, those nuts got really moist and mushy overnight, as it chilled and the texture was lumpy because of the applesauce, the olives were sort of rubbery. It was this neon green color. It just, it really wasn't good. I felt really bad. He walked by my desk before we had our tasting and just sort of hung his head. But, you know, we all tried it. That's the one of the rules of tasting history is you - as best you can - try as many of the recipes as you can with an open mind. So we did all have a bite.

Lauren: I was just gonna say it seems like a lot of the jello - I took a class on the 1950s when in my undergrad American Studies major - and I remember, like, the popularity of using a fish shaped mold for jello. I'm not really sure why, but it seems like everybody wanted to mold their jello into the shape of a fish. So I'm wondering if maybe the tuna had something to do with that. Maybe one suggestion is my grandmother, I have recipe books from my grandparents, and she had one that was for wild game, because, you know, my my grandfather, they, you know, they lived through the Depression, and they were big on hunting, and they ate lots of different game. So I can remember seeing the recipe. She was a home act teacher, so she had tons of recipe books, and she was a great cook. But one was for crow pie, oh, and, and they talked about the ways to actually dress the the bird. How, like, how do you pull its feathers off, and how long do you cook it? And how, you know, all these different things that you could do with different parts of the of the animal as well. You know, squirrel there were a lot of squirrel recipes. I mean, it was a whole recipe book just for wild game. So you know that also, I think, reflects the times that of the food that might have been available in a place, in a rural place in New York during the Depression.

Lauren: Devin, when we were talking to Elizabeth, you and I were somewhat reminiscing about interesting recipes from our past, and it prompted me to bring out a cookbook that belonged to my grandmother called the American woman's cookbook that was published. This edition was published in 1939 so just prior to World War Two, although there was also a special edition published during the war that focused on ways to stretch your rations. How can you make your the food you did have access to last longer for a family? But this cookbook in particular is well loved and well worn. I think the mark of a great cookbook means that there are lots of stains on the pages, lots of earmarks, increased corners for our favorites that we turn back to.

Elizabeth: the last round of Tasting History, the one that I'm still editing, is going to be family history recipes. So for this series, I asked participants to choose a family recipe, something they grew up eating, or something they share with their families, or they could, like, dig into their family history and try a recipe from their genealogical past. The range of recipes that people brought in was huge, and the stories that everybody shared went from silly to sentimental. I chose this theme to highlight the genealogical materials held by the State Library. That one was a lot of fun. People very much got creative. There was something called divorced dads’ dessert.

Devin: Okay?

Elizabeth: It was ice cream with canned fruit. I brought in my mom's macaroni salad. We'll be sharing those recipes on the New York State Library's website, as well as when we post them on social media. So we're very excited to start sharing those. The next one might be a surprise, but I do have a couple ideas lined up for some future eras to explore. It's funny, you mentioned the Gilded Age. That's one of my future “I-definitely-want-to-cover” eras. We have a lot of ladies magazines from that time period, and I would really like to use those as a resource and sort of dig into Gilded Age recipes. Jamie, who I mentioned earlier, who's in the State Archives, she located some state supplied World War Two era recipes, so like suggested recipes for folks that were put out in handbooks or brochures. So that sounds like a lot of fun. I know I mentioned newspapers as a source, I would definitely like to dig into that; the State Library has one of the largest collections of newspapers, so I definitely want to use that. I was also interested in possibly exploring the Civil War. My brother was a Civil War reenactor, and I accompanied him on any number of reenactment trips, including Gettysburg, which was amazing. And he always ate some Dinty Moore beef stew, because my mother didn't think he could handle much more of that than cooking that. So I would really like to see what was going on with Civil War recipes, anything beyond hardtack I don't know if I want to be making. So yeah, there's lots of different eras to explore. Someone even jokingly threw out the idea of having a gelatin salad-off. So using the 1950s cookbooks again, identifying other interesting jello salads, sweet or savory, and then having all of our participants taste them and maybe vote on them and see which one comes out on top.

Lauren: The Association of Public Historians of New York State has their annual meeting coming up in September. We move around the state. This year we're meeting in Long Island. The theme is, how to tell a good historical narrative. What makes a good narrative that is engaging to the public? And actually, one of our presentations this year is from a person at a historic site who does a food program. So we are definitely jumping on the bandwagon with talking about ways that food can be interpreted at historic sites,

Devin: That's great. So a way to summarize the importance of culinary and food history and how it can be used in interpretation by cultural organizations is given by the historian Michelle moon, who wrote a book called Interpreting Food at Museums and Historic Sites. She writes, “Food experiences can help us imagine away the barriers of time, getting a little bit closer to inhabiting the thoughts and experiences of people in the past, the intimate, daily and very personal world of food, what people ate and thought they should eat, the sensory pleasures and public identities food afforded them can create a kind of communion with the past, an understanding of how people thought and felt about the times in which they lived.”

Elizabeth: I think it's because memories are made around food. Food is so closely tied with our senses. You can hear sounds from the kitchen, people cooking and chatting. You can smell the food cooking. You can see a beautiful meal laid out on the table. You get to touch food as you prepare it and you eat it. Like you said, cultural history is passed down in families through recipes and cooking techniques. A lot of our holidays involve food, so it's something we can all sort of relate to. So I think when people are presented with historical recipes, they get to draw on their own experiences to engage with them. They don't have to have an existing framework of knowledge about the era the food comes from in order to appreciate it or to have an opinion about it. So I think when we share historical recipes, it's a way to welcome people in and have them want to learn more about the history surrounding the food.