Ever wonder how certain foods came to be such huge staples of American culinary history? In this fascinating mashup between history book and cook book, one of America's Founding Fathers could be at the source! Food writer Dave DeWitt entertainingly describes how some of America's most famous colonial leaders—like George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and Benjamin Franklin—not only established America's political destiny, but also revolutionized the very foods we eat. Beyond their legacy as revolutionaries and politicians, the Founding Fathers of America were first and foremost a group of farmers. Like many of today's foodies, they ardently supported sustainable farming and ranching, exotic imported foods, brewing, distilling, and wine appreciation. Explore their passion for the land and the bounty it produced through an intriguing narrative, sprinkled with recipes that showcase their love of food and the art of eating that would ultimately become America's diverse food culture. Features over thirty authentic colonial recipes, including: Thomas Jefferson's ice cream A recipe for beer by George Washington Martha Washington's fruitcake Medford rum punch Terrapin soup

Who Were the Original Foodies? Beyond their legacy as revolutionaries and politicians, the Founding Fathers of America were first and foremost a group of farmers. Passionate about the land and the bounty it produced, their love of food and the art of eating created what would ultimately become America's diverse food culture. Like many of today's foodies, the Founding Fathers were ardent supporters of sustainable farming and ranching, exotic imported foods, brewing, distilling, and wine appreciation. Washington, Jefferson, and Franklin penned original recipes, encouraged local production of beer and wine, and shared their delight in food with friends and fellow politicians. In The Founding Foodies, food writer Dave DeWitt entertainingly describes how some of America's most famous colonial leaders not only established America's political destiny, but also revolutionized the very foods we eat. Features over thirty authentic colonial recipes, including: Thomas Jefferson's ice cream A recipe for beer by George Washington Martha Washington's fruitcake Medford rum punch Terrapin soup

In the history of cooking, there has been no more challenging environment than those craft in which humans took to the skies. The tale begins with meals aboard balloons and zeppelins, where cooking was accomplished below explosive bags of hydrogen, ending with space station dinners that were cooked thousands of miles below. This book is the first to chart that history worldwide, exploring the intricacies of inflight dining from 1783 to the present day, aboard balloons, zeppelins, land-based aircraft and flying boats, jets, and spacecraft. It charts the ways in which commercial travelers were lured to try flying with the promise of familiar foods, explains the problems of each aerial environment and how chefs, engineers, and flight crew adapted to them, and tells the stories of pioneers in the field. Hygiene and sanitation were often difficult, and cultural norms and religious practices had to be taken into account. The history is surprising and sometimes humorous at times some ridiculous ideas were tried, and airlines offered some strange meals to try to attract passengers. It’s an engrossing story with quite a few twists and turns, and this first book on the subject tells it with a light touch.

In this authoritative and immensely readable insider’s account, celebrated cookbook author and former chef Joyce Goldstein traces the development of California cuisine from its formative years in the 1970s to 2000, when farm-to-table, foraging, and fusion cooking had become part of the national vocabulary. Interviews with almost two hundred chefs, purveyors, artisans, winemakers, and food writers bring to life an approach to cooking grounded in passion, bold innovation, and a dedication to "flavor first." Goldstein explains how the counterculture movement in the West gave rise to a restaurant culture characterized by open kitchens, women in leadership positions, and a surprising number of chefs and artisanal food producers who lacked formal training. The new cuisine challenged the conventional kitchen hierarchy and French dominance in fine dining, leading to a more egalitarian and informal food scene. In weaving Goldstein’s views on California food culture with profiles of those who played a part in its development—from Alice Waters to Bill Niman to Wolfgang Puck—Inside the California Food Revolution demonstrates that, while fresh produce and locally sourced ingredients are iconic in California, what transforms these elements into a unique cuisine is a distinctly Western culture of openness, creativity, and collaboration. Engagingly written and full of captivating anecdotes, this book shows how the inspirations that emerged in California went on to transform the experience of eating throughout the United States and the world.

While some cities owe their existence to lumber or oil, turpentine or steel, Kansas City owes its existence to food. From its earliest days, Kansas City was in the business of provisioning pioneers and traders headed west, and later with provisioning the nation with meat and wheat. Throughout its history, thousands of Kansas Citians have also made their living providing meals and hospitality to travelers passing through on their way elsewhere, be it by way of a steamboat, Conestoga wagon, train, automobile, or airplane. As Kansas City’s adopted son, Fred Harvey sagely noted, “Travel follows good food routes,” and Kansas City’s identity as a food city is largely based on that fact. Kansas City: A Food Biography explores in fascinating detail how a frontier town on the edge of wilderness grew into a major metropolis, one famous for not only great cuisine but for a crossroads hospitality that continues to define it. Kansas City: A Food Biography also explores how politics, race, culture, gender, immigration, and art have forged the city’s most iconic dishes, from chili and steak to fried chicken and barbecue. In lively detail, Andrea Broomfield brings the Kansas City food scene to life.

Four decades of memories from a gastronome who witnessed the food revolution from the (well-provisioned) trenches—a delicious tour through contemporary food history. When Raymond Sokolov became food editor of The New York Times in 1971, he began a long, memorable career as restaurant critic, food historian, and author. Here he traces the food scene he reported on in America and abroad, from his pathbreaking dispatches on nouvelle cuisine chefs like Paul Bocuse and Michel Guérard in France to the rise of contemporary American food stars like Thomas Keller and Grant Achatz, and the fruitful collision of science and cooking in the kitchens of El Bulli in Spain, the Fat Duck outside London, and Copenhagen’s gnarly Noma. Sokolov invites readers to join him as a privileged observer of the most transformative period in the history of cuisine with this personal narrative of the sensual education of an accidental gourmet. We dine out with him at temples of haute cuisine like New York’s Lutèce but also at a pioneering outpost of Sichuan food in a gas station in New Jersey, at a raunchy Texas chili cookoff, and at a backwoods barbecue shack in Alabama, as well as at three-star restaurants from Paris to Las Vegas. Steal the Menu is, above all, an entertaining and engaging account of a tumultuous period of globalizing food ideas and frontier-crossing ingredients that produced the unprecedentedly rich and diverse way of eating we enjoy today.

Recipes, background essays, anecdotes, and lush illustrations provide an inviting view of the renowned hospitality offered at Thomas Jefferson's table at Monticello.

This culinary biography tells the incredible true story of how a Founding Father and his slave introduced French Cuisine to America—perfect for history buffs, foodies, and Francophiles alike In 1784, Thomas Jefferson struck a deal with his slave, James Hemings. The Founding Father was traveling to Paris and wanted to bring James along “for a particular purpose”— to master the art of French cooking. In exchange for James’s cooperation, Jefferson would grant his freedom. So began one of the strangest partnerships in United States history. As Hemings apprenticed under master French chefs, Jefferson studied the cultivation of French crops (especially grapes for wine-making) so they might be replicated in American agriculture. The two men returned home with such marvels as pasta, French fries, Champagne, macaroni and cheese, crème brûlée, and a host of other treats. This narrative history tells the story of their remarkable adventure—and even includes a few of their favorite recipes!

How America Eats: A Social History of U.S. Food and Culture tells the story of America by examining American eating habits, and illustrates the many ways in which competing cultures, conquests and cuisines have helped form America's identity, and have helped define what it means to be American.

2018 James Beard Foundation Book of the Year | 2018 James Beard Foundation Book Award Winner inWriting | Nominee for the 2018 Hurston/Wright Legacy Award in Nonfiction | #75 on The Root100 2018 A renowned culinary historian offers a fresh perspective on our most divisive cultural issue, race, in this illuminating memoir of Southern cuisine and food culture that traces his ancestry—both black and white—through food, from Africa to America and slavery to freedom. Southern food is integral to the American culinary tradition, yet the question of who "owns" it is one of the most provocative touch points in our ongoing struggles over race. In this unique memoir, culinary historian Michael W. Twitty takes readers to the white-hot center of this fight, tracing the roots of his own family and the charged politics surrounding the origins of soul food, barbecue, and all Southern cuisine. From the tobacco and rice farms of colonial times to plantation kitchens and backbreaking cotton fields, Twitty tells his family story through the foods that enabled his ancestors’ survival across three centuries. He sifts through stories, recipes, genetic tests, and historical documents, and travels from Civil War battlefields in Virginia to synagogues in Alabama to Black-owned organic farms in Georgia. As he takes us through his ancestral culinary history, Twitty suggests that healing may come from embracing the discomfort of the Southern past. Along the way, he reveals a truth that is more than skin deep—the power that food has to bring the kin of the enslaved and their former slaveholders to the table, where they can discover the real America together. Illustrations by Stephen Crotts