Fair Prices and Fowl

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Quœ virtus et quant, boni, sit vivere parvo
"The stomach's angry roar with bread and salt. Whence can this rise, you ask, from whence the fault? In you consists the pleasure of the treat, Not in the price, or flavour of the meat. Let exercise give relish to the dish, Since not the various luxuries of fish. Nor foreign wild fowl can delight the pale, Surfeit-swoln guest; yet I shall ne'er prevail To make our men of taste a pullet choose. And the gay peacock with its train refuse; For the rare bird at mighty price is sold; And, lo! what wonders from its tail unfold! But can these whims a higher gusto raise. Unless you eat the plumage that you praise?" --Horace, Satires Read More...

Bleak House

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Bringing the greatest amount of happiness to the greatest number of people meant bringing greater misery to the already wretched
Bringing the greatest amount of happiness to the greatest number of people meant bringing greater misery to the already wretched The indignities suffered by Joseph Merrick, who would later become known as the Elephant Man, were great and many, thanks to a rare affliction that left him bent, hobbled and covered with tumors and bony growths. Unfit for most work, the small jobs he did find came so seldom and paid so little that he could not support himself. His father nevertheless drove him from the family home into the streets of Leicester, where he wandered until he found the workhouse, the city's sole refuge. Behind its tall gray walls he lived for five years, his fellow residents the elderly, orphaned, destitute and infirm. (more…) Read More...

Peccaminous Peckishness

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Sailing from the Tropic of Cancer to the Delta of Venus shouldn't be done on an empty stomach
"A full spirit creates an appetite throughout all parts and members of the body.... I would have relished anything at that moment which was rich, succulent and savory. Sinful food, that was what I craved. Sinful food and wines that were aphrodisiac." --Henry Miller, Plexus (1953) Read More...

Diner Forty Niner

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There may have been gold in "them thar hills," but there wasn't much to eat
There may have been gold in "them thar hills," but there wasn't much to eat Lewis Manly wanted nothing more than to be back at the dinner table in his father's Michigan home, a heaping plate of beans and bread before him. It was the winter of 1849. For weeks he had been traveling through the Great Basin Desert, "the most wonderful picture of grand desolation one could ever see," as he later described it. He had run out of food and water, and was lost besides. He could see nothing but salt-encrusted flats and low, black mountain ranges for miles around. Alkali dust filled the air. "Here was I," he lamented, "away out in the center of the Great American Desert, with an empty stomach and a dry and parched throat, and clothes fast wearing out... It was a… Read More...

No Taste for Industry

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Corporate hegemony bites
Sometime in 1910, renowned opera singer Feodor Chaliapin returned to his native Russia after completing a season with New York's Metropolitan Opera. His homecoming he capped with an audience with Nicholas II of Russia. Chaliapin reports having had with the tsar the following exchange: Czar: "I have heard the American kitchen is miserable. All the foods are prepared on a big scale and they have no individual taste or flavor. Is that true?" Chaliapin: "Yes, Your Majesty, that it true. They have a flavor of American corporations and speculation." Czar: "That I think is the drawback of the American conditions as far as I have heard. The trusts can manufacture iron and other industrial things on a big scale, but when it comes to the manufacture of food, there the commercial methods fail. As far as I have heard, they… Read More...

The Great Hog-Eating Confederacy

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Tobacco and cotton may have enriched the American South, but pork and corn fed it
Tobacco and cotton may have enriched the American South, but pork and corn fed it Of the many miles Swedish merchant and man of letters Carl David Arfwedson traveled throughout the United States some of the toughest, as he would later note in an 1834 account of his wanderings, lay between Columbus, Georgia and Ft. Mitchell, Alabama. Rutted, rock-strewn, sometimes disappearing altogether in dark woods, the way at one point sent wayfarer, horse and carriage tumbling headlong into a river. The perils of rough passage were compounded by those of rough company. Cutthroats and bandits stalked the area, adversaries against whom Arfwedson’s guide, a seven-year-old boy, would likely not prove much use. Eventually there came into view a hut hidden among the trees, a discovery Arfwedson no doubt made with relief. (more…) Read More...

Ill-Digested Plots

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"Nature does not smile upon the consumptive and dyspeptic"
"Old friendships are destroyed by toasted cheese, and hard salted meat has led to suicide. Unpleasant feelings of the body produce corresponding sensations of the mind, and a great scene of wretchedness is sketched out by a morsel of indigestible misguided food." --Sydney Smith Read More...

The People's Kitchen

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Does the modern workplace cafeteria owe its existence to one 19th-century activist's effort to feed the laboring multitudes?
Does the modern workplace cafeteria owe its existence one 19th-century activist's effort to feed the laboring multitudes? Though the phonograph and the funicular railway were the two marquee attractions of the 1897 World's Fair in Stockholm, Sweden, crowds flocked to another marvel that had garnered its share of buzz. Stockholm's famous People's Kitchen, which happened to occupy a space in the vicinity of the exhibition, served bowls of hearty soup, slabs of beef, pork and fish, plates of steaming vegetables, slices of rye bread, and mugs of weak beer known as iskällardricka. To partake of this smorgasbord cost a mere 40 øre (the equivalent of less than $1 U.S. today), a price that famished fair-goers found every bit as astonishing as the recorded human voice or alpine transport. (more…) Read More...

Hex Before Marriage

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Turning on the charm used to mean something quite different
Turning on the charm used to mean something quite different Whatever loneliness or boredom the workers of Salzburg's famous salt mines endured they eased with an unusual pastime. They would find a tree branch, strip away its leaves and toss it in an unused pit. Two or three months later they would haul it out and delight in its transformation. Every one of its twigs bejeweled with salt crystals, it appeared more a scepter of some elf king than any piece of forest litter. It and others like it the miners would hand to tourists, who marveled at the splendid gifts. (more…) Read More...

Social Habits

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A stay at a medieval monastery often featured a lavish meal hot from the friar
A stay at a medieval monastery often featured a lavish meal hot from the friar During a trek through the Bavarian Alps, German troubadour Walther von der Vogelweide paid a visit to the famous cloister of Tegernsee. Its monks, rumor had it, served sumptuous dishes, decanted excellent wine, and generally entertained in grand style. The day was hot, his exertions great. The poet reached Tegernsee monastery's gate keen on refreshing himself. Yet no sublime vintage, no comfits and sweetmeats greeted him. He received a carafe of lukewarm water, and nothing besides. (more…) Read More...

The Austerity Kitchen at Large

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Medieval cuisine, the wonderful Land of Cockaigne, and modern notions of a balanced diet -- all in my article for Max Joseph
Oh, that land of Cockaigne is so good. It rains there in all fair parts Sweets, pastries and cooked tarts. In that land flows a river Of good wine, of good beer, Muscatel and fine claret, Sherry for men as well This may men drink at no expense Whether wine or whatever they want With ginger and with nutmeg Are what they use to pave the street Everything there is going well There of riches man has no need. So what men there in the land find lying That may take men without asking twice. And do it like it is deserved Sure that it truly is their own. --From "The Land of Cockaigne" (Dutch version, ca. 15th century) If you can read German, I invite you to check out my article, entitled "Woher Kommt das Schlaraffenland?," which you can… Read More...

Hunger Gamesmanship

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At some point they come for the butter, so you better grab your guns
Thanks to the new machines, the money that had allowed a hundred weavers to live safely and comfortably could now be saved by the factory owner, or spent on himself. Of course, he still needed workers to manage the machines. But only unskilled workers, and not many of them. (more…) Read More...

Serving the Rich

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The meek shall inherit the earth -- if the mighty don't consume it first
The meek shall inherit the earth -- if the mighty don't consume it first One midsummer evening in 1947 a Seattle policeman named Bill Hill entered a steak-eating derby. He decided this on a whim. His great appetite, he figured, made him a formidable contestant. In little more than an hour he wolfed down seven steaks and chased them with a strawberry sundae. When the derby official declared him the victor he blushed and said: "I could have eaten more, but I didn't want to show off." (more…) Read More...

The Austerity Kitchen on the Radio

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Home ec table talk coming to you from Bushwick
Today I spoke with Linda Pelaccio, host of Heritage Radio Network's A Taste of the Past, about my article on Juliet Corson, community-supported agriculture, and home economics -- its history and amenability to progressive politics. You can hear the interview by clicking here or by visiting the page for the episode that features me.     Read More...