history of American women through food

[phoebe]

I subscribe to a daily e-mail service from Powells Bookstore in Portland, Oregon that features a different book title every day based on reader recommendations. Today's book sounds really interesting. It's A Thousand Years over a Hot Stove: A History of American Women by Laura Schenone. There's a publisher's description of the book at Powells site here: http://www.powells.com/cgi-bin/bibli...7-0393016714-0

Has anyone seen it yet? How is it?

I am a little confused though: a thousand years? American women?

[Grapefruit Moon]

Originally Posted by phoebe

I am a little confused though: a thousand years? American women?

From the review:

Here is the first book to recount how American women have gathered, cooked, and prepared food for lovers, strangers, and family throughout the ages. We find native women who pried nourishment from the wilderness, mothers who sold biscuits to buy their children's freedom, immigrant wives who cooked old foods in new homes to provide comfort.

(highlighting mine) So I guess Schenone means the thousand years literally, but perhaps not the hot stove. I would be very interested in seeing her sources for these earlier recipes, especially if she gleans recipes from groups with an oral, but no written tradition. How does one know a recipe is an accurate depiction of a thousand-year-old dish, and not instead the "new and improved" version only a few generations old?

[phoebe]

OK, so I just skimmed the review . Thanks Grapefruit Moon. You've solved my non-mystery . And your point about Schenone's sources is well-taken. If I get a chance this weekend, I'll see if I can scare up a copy and take a look at her citations. I still think the idea for the project is excellent, but the amount of time covered seems a bit ambitious even for 400 pages.

[Grapefruit Moon]

I was thinking about this...one could certainly infer a great deal about the menu from archeological data (all the best data come from garbage dumps, it seems); what plants and animals were used, a (very rough) estimate of some proportions, an idea of what sort of cooking was done based on broken implements. I suppose once one had the basic list of ingredients and techniques (to the extent possible), it might be a simple matter of experimenting to see what tastes good.

I would be very interested in seeing how such recipes (if they are in the form of recipes) were deduced; historiography can be fascinating!