According to Stanford University linguist Dan Jurafsky in his book, The Language of Food, just published by WW Norton, the words we use for everyday foods contain clues to the food’s origin and evolving use around the globe. Take ketchup for instance, a word dating back to 200 BC, apparently. “..…
The Food Museum's latest entry at Mother Earth News explores what food heritage lurks in an old photo.
The latest food heritage entry from The Food Museum on Mother Earth News explores some of the oldies but goodies...
Forgive the sarcasm, but really, did we all think that early uprights ate only the flesh of humungous beasts, slaughtered with the teamwork of a group?
Females undoubtedly wandered forth, gathering berries, roots, mollusks and greens, and netting small animals, in order to keep the group and its …
You may not want to shell out $500,000 for a 65-year old bottle of ketchup, but what if it stands 170 feet high? This classic piece of roadside Americana is for sale. It promoted Brooks Old Original Rich and Tangy Catsup, produced nearby in Collinsville, Illinois, until the 1960’s, a product now …
We are three entries into a new commitment, at the invitation of the editors, to spotlight food heritage sites/initiatives in the Real Food section of motherearthnews.com. This one focuses on an old bakery in Jaffa, Israel. You can find the others by searching the tag "food heritage."
Ivan Day posts on a blog called Food History Jottings, which we have just added to our blog roll, center column. ( His website is historicfood.com)
Here's what he says about himself: "I am an independent social historian of food culture and also a professional chef and confectioner. I run practica…
The poet Walt Whitman visited and supported the Civil War wounded in DC, carrying goodies in an old leather bag. According to the WaPost, "Moved by the horror of the war’s damage to helpless young patients, Whitman made hundreds of visits, toting the haversack packed with fruit, brandy, sweets, to…
We've been saying this for 40 years---"First, we eat, Then we do everything else." It's our motto, words from the fabled food-oriented writer MFK Fisher.
Whether preparing to battle our fellows in war, or raise babies, we need to eat.
So now we see that food as a pursuit is coming into focus in ma…
7500 years ago or so, farmers from what is now Turkey, apparently brought agricultural practices to Europe, according to a report in LiveScience. "...the earliest farmers in Germany were closely related to Near Eastern and Anatolian people, suggesting that the agricultural revolution did indeed brin…
Our foodie fore bearers needed helmets, apparently. Their heads were split open fairly frequently, according to a study published in the February issue of the American Journal of Physical Anthropology.
"Linda Fibiger, an archaeologist at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland, and her colleague…
The National Museum of American History has launched its first all-food project called FOOD, Transforming the American Table, on show in Washington, DC for the foreseeable future.
And--Running through August 11 at the American Museum of Natural History in New York, "Kitchen" examines the w…
"Experience a behind-the-scenes look at the Washingtons’ kitchen through the new exhibition, Hoecakes & Hospitality: Cooking with Martha Washington. On display inside the Donald W. Reynolds Museum, this temporary exhibition explores how foods were prepared and presented at 18th-century Mount Ver…
Salem, NJ, was home both to Lewis Bassett, founder of Bassetts Ice Cream in Philly, but also to Col Johnson who did NOT stand on the steps of the courthouse eating a tomato....
"A Well Preserved Florida Shell Mound in St. Petersburg" is The Food Museum's latest food heritage entry at Mother Earth News.