The History of American Food

Listen to "059 Beer - That Good Civilized Drink, Cider is for Rubes!" on Spreaker. Link to the Episode:  Episode 59 Beer! That Good Civilized Drink - Cider is for Rubes Thank goodness, grain based beer is back on the menu, and Brewsters (women) and Brewers (men) are at work over the mash tuns.  Barrells are being made, so that they can be rolled out at the right time. Commerce has increased so trade also helps the beer quality. A few people are ordering beer from the home country, but that is often folly, as it almost always arrives foul - or possibly gets drunk along the way.  Much more reliable is the shipping of malt (the sprouted and toasted grain - almost always barley if you’re going to go to all the trouble of shipping it) and the shipping of hops.   But in America’s possibly first brainstorm in jumping over tradition to get to the desired result - Molasses Beer is born.  Far faster to make than the multi-step grain stuff, but based on both recorded comp...

Listen to "58 Tarts & Sweet Pies" on Spreaker.   Link to the Episode: Episode 58 - Tarts & Sweet Pies Pie generally was a marginal food in the 18th century North American colonies - due to lack of practice, lack of wheat flour and the whole outdoor oven situation. But tarts - the tiny cute hand held sweetie pies - were doomed from the start.  They are time consuming and delicate - and demanded expensive and hard to source ingredients, so the tiny American Tart was off to a bad start.   It will make a few appearances, but will never have the chance to develop into its own art.  No bakeries!  Foiled again. As an advocate of the Grape Pie - check out these recipes. 1) From the ever dependable King Arthur Flour site Made with concord grapes and everything. But try with any grapes you fancy. King Arthur Flour - Grape Pie Recipe 2) From Umami Girl who suggests Grape Tarts that would fit at the 1st savory course - or the 2nd sweet course You can of cours...

Listen to "057 Pie - Savory Kinds & the Original Hot Pockets" on Spreaker.   Link to the Episode: Episode 57 Pie - Savory Kinds and the Original Hot Pockets First - the nursery rhymes: Sing A Song of Six Pence (the blackbird pie one) Sing a song of sixpence, A pocket full of rye. Four and twenty blackbirds   Baked in a pie.   When the pie was opened, The birds began to sing. Wasn’t that a dainty dish To set before the king?   The king was in his counting house,   Counting out his money. The Queen was in the parlor,   Eating bread and honey.   The maid was in the garden, Hanging out the clothes, When along came a blackbird and pecked off her nose. The Queen of Hearts (here's the tarts & thievery one) It's used as a early 20thC flour advert and everything! The queen of hearts   She made some tarts     All on a summers day. The knave of hearts   He stole those tarts       And took them clean away. T...

Listen to "056 Wheat & Barley - The Rise of 18th Century American Tech" on Spreaker. Link to the Episode: Episode 56 Wheat & Barley – The Rise of 18th Century American Tech Tea taxes may have been the last straw – but was the beginning of British doom written in the rise of mill innovations in the colonies?  They were the foundational in the development of colonial industry. Horizontal water mill - based on the early Ancient Greek design From WaterHistory.org a mill in Murcia, Spain An example of a grandiose Roman style mill Roman construction invited huge wheels - and they could be.  Fed over top -   from an aqueduct, or under side fed along side bridges. Diagram of an 18th century mill - without the creeping American automation Visit The Mills Archive for an extensive history, pictures and other   drawings and diagrams of the stages of  grain milling.

Listen to "055 18th Century Legumes - Creating the American Bean" on Spreaker. Link to the Episode: Episode 55 18th Century Legumes - Creating the American Bean this is what the unripe pods of just about every   Phaseolus vulgaris or American (North & South) bean looks like. And yet - in America we regularly call them "French beans" or "haricot vert" which is French for green bean The most American bean, and the French grabbed the naming rights.  They’ve been pressing us to appreciate the baby vegetable since the 1780’s ( F.P. La Varenne ) – and we just thought baby vegetables were a 1980’s introduction.   So work this through with me.  So we sell, in our freezer cases, green beans that are cut short and split - or "frenched" to imitate the tiny "filet beans" served in fancy places that harvest baby vegetables. So while French Toast - is named after a Mr. Joseph French who was advertising his version of Pain Perdu or Eggy Bread or C...