by Casey Ireland (2014)
"From the early days of ThomasJefferson's Garden Book at Monticelloto the hustle and bustle of the modern City Market on Water Street,Charlottesville has an illustrious culinary history. The city's cuisine ischaracterized by a delight in locally raised ingredients. The locavorementality appears at all levels of Charlottesville's food industry, includingthe nationally acknowledged methods of Joel Salatin's Polyface Farms, thesourcing of local pork for Chipotle's Charlottesville location and theaccessibility of regional ingredients everywhere from Whole Foods Market toonline favorite Relay Foods. Author and food enthusiast Casey Ireland explores how Charlottesville's residents have created a food culture that is all theirown"-- "A history of food culture past and present in Charlottesville, VA"--
Fred Sauceman
"Traversing Appalachia from an Italian kitchen in Pennsylvania to a soda shop in South Carolina, 'Buttermilk and Bible Burgers' is a tribute to people loyal to the land and proud of their culinary heritage. Sauceman describes the common bond of breaking beans, the dignity of the barbecue pit, the nobility of the black-iron skillet, and the transformative power of a glass of Tennessee buttermilk." --
Sarah Ridley
Everyone has memories of the food they ate they had when they were growing up. This book gives young children access to people's memories alongside photographs to help them build up a picture of the past. From family meals to wartime rationing, young children can explore what has changed and what remains the same.
Cathy Luchetti
This colorful account of cooking on the frontier from 1700 to 1915 describes the foods, preparation techniques, and recipes of pioneers by providing excerpts from their diaries, journals, and letters. Every kind of pioneer seems included: seafarers, trappers, military personnel, cowboys, homesteaders, clerics, mountain men, boarding-house cooks, chuck wagons on the cattle drives, various ethnic groups, etc. By profiling selected individuals in each category and weaving together their stories, recipes, and photographs (unseen), the author illustrates how the pioneering process democratized cooking and contributed to the culinary pluralism of the Old West. Dependent upon the weather, which determined available crops and food sources such as deer, wild fowl, and fish, many settlers subsisted on meager rations. Many original recipes are given, such as "A Recite for Peach Cordial," which calls for two gallons of "good old whiskey," and for cake made from flour and water shortened with coon oil and fried in coon fat, complete with actual spellings and abundant capitalizations. Documented throughout with primary sources, this well-researched history is amusing as well as educational. Black-and-white photographs poignantly and emphatically illustrate the harshness of their lives and the primitiveness of their facilities.
Ilaria Gozzini Giacosa
Modern Italians still refer to an elaborate dinner as "a meal worthy of Lucullus," commemorating a Roman general famous more for culinary prowess than any apparent military skill. And our images of ancient Rome usually do include one of an outrageous feast of camel and flamingoes and nightingales' tongues. But, as Ilaria Giacosa reminds us in this fascinating book, Romans did not eat the exotic every day. Here are the real foods of Rome - the rustic and the refined - in more than 200 tested recipes adapted for today's kitchen. Drawing on the writings of Apicius, Cato, Martial, Petronius, Juvenal, and other observers, Giacosa recreates a 2,000-year-old cuisine, from a hearty winter soup of barley and ham to an elegant salad of truffles in an herbed vinaigrette, from appetizers to desserts. Each recipe includes the original (in Latin and translation) and a modern rendering, with substitutions for difficult-to-find ingredients. The repertoire is wide and includes along with more exotic creations solid, satisfying dishes that still grace many Italian tables: a frittata or omelet of young asparagus and sharp Romano cheese; roast chicken with leeks and a garden of green herbs; a salad with peasant bread and cracked olives; and a fresh cheese pie scented with bay and honey. You'll find recipes for breads, porridges, and sauces, including the ever-present garum, which, Giacosa notes, is not very different from the soy and fish sauces of Asia; a guide to preserving fruits and vegetables; seasonal menus for everyday and elegant dining; and a rich social history of Roman eating, drinking, shopping, and entertaining. This is cooking before tomatoes, pasta, oranges, lemons, or even coffee entered the Mediterranean diet. Yet with its intriguing sweet-sour flavor combinations, its lavish use of fresh herbs and fragrant spices, and its base in whole grains and fruits and vegetables, the foods of Rome will be a revelation to serious cooks ready to create new dishes in the spirit of an ancient culture.