I want to sit down with Michael W. Twitty and talk food with him for about a million hours. Twitty is a food historian who specializes in American antebellum slave cookery – what slaves were cooking and eating during the period of American Slavery from 1619 to 1865. He is especially interested in the evolution of slave cookery to “Southern Cooking” and how the introduction of food and techniques from Africa through the forced migration … Continue reading The Cooking Gene by Michael W. Twitty →
It’s been too hot to cook, and one thing that’s good to do when it’s really hot is to go to museums. They’re air conditioned and educational and, if you play your cards right, you can go for free! The Harvard Art Museums and the Harvard Natural History Museum/Peabody Museum of Archeology and Ethnology are free for Massachusetts residents on Saturday (Art) and Sunday (Natural History) mornings from 9 until noon. This post is also … Continue reading RedHeadedGirl’s Historical Kitchen: Who Lives, Who Dies, Who Cooks Your Story →
This has been a full month for me, so I thought I’d give you all a couple of examples for historical drinks that are good for hot weather, so when you’re on the beach with your beach reads, or sitting on the porch with your porch reads, you have some solid options to choose from. Throughout a lot of history, drinking water hasn’t always been that safe to drink straight, and it’s often just not … Continue reading RedHeadedGirl’s Historical Kitchen: Baby It’s Hot Outside →
I’ve been feeling a bit under the weather this week – nothing huge, just my usual summer cold, right on time. A year ago or so, I got a copy of A Handbook of Invalid Cooking: For the Use of Nurses in Training Schools, Nurses in Private Practice, and Others Who Care For the Sick , published in 1898. Sadly, it’s not an original (that would be awesome, wouldn’t it?) but a reprint; that said, it’s … Continue reading RedHeadedGirl’s Historical Kitchen: Beef Tea →
A few weeks ago, my friend Abigail and I went to Plimoth Plantation, the living history village that recreates life in the Plymouth Settlement. It’s very cool, and lots of fun. In addition to the settlement from the Mayflower pilgrims (with both first person interpreters who portray actual people who lived in the village and modern interpreters as well) there is a Wampanoag settlement where members of the Wampanoag tribe (as well as other Native tribes … Continue reading RedHeadedGirl’s Historical Kitchen: Farced Eggs →
At the meeting of my medieval cooking nerd group this month, I made a Roman dish that Apicius (my buddy!) gives about five thousand variations on. It’s called a patina, and it’s… basically an frittata. With different stuff in it. In the original recipe, Apicius calls for nettles, but, surprisingly, my local grocery store did not HAVE nettles. Sally Grainger, a classicist (not a classist, that’s a different thing) and a cook who has done … Continue reading RedHeadedGirl’s Historical Kitchen: Spinach Patina →
This past week was Shrove Tuesday and the beginning of Lent. Lent, especially in the Middle Ages if you were Catholic, involved a lot of rules and fasting when it comes to food. Basically, you were supposed to not eat any animal meat or animal products from Ash Wednesday to Easter Sunday, except on Sundays. (Fish did not count as “animal” and sometimes there were some interesting logical contortions to classify something as a fish: … Continue reading RedHeadedGirl’s Historical Kitchen: Semlor →
Back in the mists of time, lo these many months ago, for the Movie Matinee, we watched The Desk Set with Katherine Hepburn and some guy who recognized he was only barely worthy of her awesomeness. But we’ve already talked about that. Featured in The Desk Set is a dessert called “Floating Island,” and the other Bitches challenged me to make it. As it so happens, I have a friend (Abigail, who has featured here before) … Continue reading RedHeadedGirl’s Historical Kitchen: Floating Island →
I know, I know. I KNOW. The only thing I can say is that it’s almost over. Also, you can have cake! So Election Cake is a tradition that NPR is working real hard to revive. Back in The Day, when the US was a primarily agrarian society, Election Day was functionally a civic holiday, and everyone would troop into town, the men would vote and everyone would eat a lot of food (food as … Continue reading RedHeadedGirl’s Historical Kitchen: Election Cake →
For the past several years, my friend Ailish has invited over our Found Family for Michaelmas dinner. Tradition goes that if you eat goose on Michaelmas, you’ll not want for money for the next year. And I will say, that while I have wanted for money, I have always had enough to get by. The Feast of St. Michael is on Sept 29th, and it’s one of the Quarter Days where rents are paid and … Continue reading RedHeadedGirl’s Historical Kitchen: Michaelmas →
This is a different post than usual. As you may have heard, I was in Stockholm last week! In the Old Town (Gamla Stan) of Stockholm, there is a medieval themed restaurant that uses recipes from several different medieval cookbooks, and you know I was raring to try it out. It’s in a old vault, I think the server said it was a 15th century building? It’s VERY atmospheric. The lighting is mostly candles with … Continue reading RedHeadedGirl’s Historical Kitchen: Sjätte Tunnan →
