Junket with Strawberries and Whipped Cream
Have you ever heard of junket, or junket tablets? Probably not. I first heard about junket tablets, a form of rennet, from a cheesemaking book several years ago, about the same time I first...
HISTORICAL FOODWAYS Blog
Stuffed Squid from The Book of Sent Soví
This recipe started out not with squid but with octopus. But sometimes things just do not work out the way you think they will, and that is OK. I was looking through my translated...
Ropa Vieja (Shredded Beef in Tomato Sauce)
Literally translated, “ropa vieja” (Spanish) means “old clothes.” But, let me tell you, this delicious beef dish does not taste like old rags! The reason for the name, apocryphal origin stories aside, is because...
Learning to Cook Cuban: A Personal Note on Food, Memory, and Identity.
This blog, dedicated to food history and historical foodways, has existed in one form or another for the better part of a decade (nine years this month) and during that time I have posted...
Fannie Farmer’s German Caraway Bread
It has been several months since quarantines due to Covid-19 began across the United States, and since then half of the country – if not the world – appeared to suddenly discover bread-baking with...
Mrs. Fisher’s “Plantation Corn Bread or Hoe Cake,” Or A Brief Introduction to a Real-Life Black Female Food Figure You Should Know About
The recent decision of the Quaker company to rebrand the Aunt Jemima line of products to remove the name and image on their branding, which they have acknowledged is a racist legacy from slavery...
Dandy Pudding
I think anyone who has been reading this blog for some time knows that I am very much attracted to sweet things, and that when I look for recipes to recreate here, gravitate towards...
Pineapple Bake-Ins
This recipe comes from a 1959 book titled Pillsbury’s Best 1000 Recipes: Best of the BAKE-OFF Collection. And before I get to the recipe, I want to tell you how I came to own...
Potted Beef: 19th-Century Food Preservation
Something not sweet for a change! Today’s recipe comes from an 1876 book by Mary F. Henderson titled Practical Cooking and Dinner Giving: A Treatise Containing Practical Instructions in Cooking; In the Combination and...
Mousse For Valentine or Washington’s Birthday
A couple of years ago I was at a food history conference (they DO happen!) and one of the attendants gave me a neat little stack of papers, sandwiched between two layers of cardboard...
Christmas Cake: a Mrs. Beeton Recipe
In case you have not figured this out, I have a huge sweet tooth. Not only that, but I prefer baking over all other kitchen activities. One of my goals for this blog for...
