Episodios

  • 143 Oats & Hay - Grass Runs the Early 19th Century World

    143 Oats & Hay - Grass Runs the Early 19th Century World
    Apr 16 2025
    As odd as it sounds, there was a time in American Food before oatmeal.

    And while that's wild on it's own, even more impossible to imagine is how much of agriculture used to be dedicated simply to growing food to feed the animals that allowed you to run the farm. Having solar panels and biodigesters to create power on the farm now is pretty wild... but it wasn't that long ago, all things considered when all the energy used on a farm was grown... on the farm!

    But it does help put into perspective how much energy it took to simply grow enough food for the farm - and then a little more to sell. The surplusses we have now - simply NOT possible.

    To learn about the origins of 40 acres and a Mule - no the earlier origins... and how 160 acres would become the standard for American farms, tune in, and marvel at the idea of the oatmeal raisin cookie - and how far away it is from it's high end hose food origin.

    Music Credit: Fingerlympics by Doctor Turtle
    Show Notes: https://thehistoryofamericanfood.blogspot.com/
    Email: TheHistoryofAmericanFood at gmail dot com
    Threads: @THoAFood
    Instagram: @THoAFood
    & some other socials... @THoAFood
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    32 m
  • 142 Are Chickens Alternate Reality Pigs?

    142 Are Chickens Alternate Reality Pigs?
    Apr 2 2025
    Finally - Recipes for early 19th Century Fried Chicken - sorta.

    IT's time to learn some chicken history and face the reality about what chickens were really for in the early 19th century - eggs!
    If you wanted bird meat there were lots of better birds out there to eat above and beyond the scrawny backyard chcicken.
    But that was about to change as the worlds chickens began to come to America.

    To learn about all that and more - listen in.

    And the old Temple in Turkiye / Anatolia
    Göbekli Tepe
    Scorpion Carving (photo 11)


    Music Credit: Fingerlympics by Doctor Turtle
    Show Notes: https://thehistoryofamericanfood.blogspot.com/
    Email: TheHistoryofAmericanFood at gmail dot com
    Threads: @THoAFood
    Instagram: @THoAFood
    & some other socials... @THoAFood
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    41 m
  • 141 The Forking of America - When We Start to Stop Eating with our Hands

    141 The Forking of America - When We Start to Stop Eating with our Hands
    Mar 19 2025
    Ever notice that fabulous dinner parties depicted on screen rarely take place earlier than the 1800's - and in America pretty much always after the Civil War?
    Well! That's because in just about every one of those situations the eating etiquette would look so different it would be unrecognizable - in fact it's likely people would be eating with their fingers!

    Americans have only been eating with forks - on a regualr basis for about 150 years!
    The earliest Americans ate with their hands - becasue so did almost everyone else.

    Oh - and I answer the question, why do Americans constantly switch which hands they hold knife and fork when eating fancy?

    All manner of Fork Trivia is covered.

    Music Credit: Fingerlympics by Doctor Turtle
    Show Notes: https://thehistoryofamericanfood.blogspot.com/
    Email: TheHistoryofAmericanFood at gmail dot com
    Threads: @THoAFood
    Instagram: @THoAFood
    & some other socials... @THoAFood
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    36 m
  • 140 Tasty Preseerved Pork - Early 19th Century Ham & Sausage plus Scrapple

    140 Tasty Preseerved Pork - Early 19th Century Ham & Sausage plus Scrapple
    Mar 5 2025
    Yes yes... tasty pigs.

    But as you might have gathered I'm not entirely OK right now. Will there be a National Park Service -NPS.gov by next episode?
    Will I have access to the library of congress or is it going to get "Alexandira'd"?

    I don't know, but at least I do know that I can hook you up with both old school and modern methods of preserving pork when the power grid goes down.
    I the mean time take care, love your local food producers and be kind. Even and possibly especially to the people who don't eat pork. They're fine as well - and it mean more for us ominivores.

    Music Credit: Fingerlympics by Doctor Turtle
    Show Notes: https://thehistoryofamericanfood.blogspot.com/
    Email: TheHistoryofAmericanFood at gmail dot com
    Threads: @THoAFood
    Instagram: @THoAFood
    & some other socials... @THoAFood
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    33 m
  • 139 How to Eat Pork in the Early 19th Century

    139 How to Eat Pork in the Early 19th Century
    Feb 19 2025
    Turns out all I was able to squeeze in to this episode was the fresh pork - more or less.

    How to keep pork will be around next time.

    But the big lesson is - boy do we need our hands held when it comes to recipes.
    Is 50 words not enough for you to prepare boiled poik and pease porridge?
    It certainly isn't enough for me. I'd be absolutely sunk.

    Though it does explain why enslaved cooks could learn the recipes that were read to them out loud. The recipes weren't that long. Just small notes getting them to combine techniques they were already familliar with.
    The woman reading the recipe probobly didn't know what it was supposed to be like either. As long as it tasted good - that was good enough.

    So come along - and be glad at the variety in your pantry. Becasue in the 19th century - it was likely all pork a lot of the time.

    Music Credit: Fingerlympics by Doctor Turtle
    Show Notes: https://thehistoryofamericanfood.blogspot.com/
    Email: TheHistoryofAmericanFood at gmail dot com
    Threads: @THoAFood
    Instagram: @THoAFood
    & some other socials... @THoAFood
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    31 m
  • 138 19th Century Pigs - Greasng the Way to the Future

    138 19th Century Pigs - Greasng the Way to the Future
    Feb 5 2025
    To Market to market to buy a fat pig
    Home again home again jiggety jig...

    But how did those pigs get to market in the first place?

    On their own 4 feet! That's right, there's more than one way to concentrate corn down for better transport and not all of it is Bourbon / Corn Whiskey.

    Also learn about how early mechanical America only kept moving due to the presence of pigs.

    Big contributions to the script from Mark Essig's _Lesser Beasts_

    Be sure to look up the Canadian Super Pigs... and the problem they are.

    Music Credit: Fingerlympics by Doctor Turtle
    Show Notes: https://thehistoryofamericanfood.blogspot.com/
    Email: TheHistoryofAmericanFood at gmail dot com
    Threads: @THoAFood
    Instagram: @THoAFood
    & some other socials... @THoAFood
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    26 m
  • 137 American Crackers – Biscuit by Another Name or Another Thing?

    137 American Crackers – Biscuit by Another Name or Another Thing?
    Jan 22 2025
    This week I've gone crackers. I've wondered for awhile why it's biscuits everywhere else - but sometimes ... it's crackers.
    I mean, the most British of British claymation - Wallace and Grommit, when they go to the moon to get cheese, even they bring crackers.... not biscuits.

    That, and a few other things had me wondering if crackers and biscuts DIDN'T come from the same source? Rather did the two just meet in America. Turns out - that's what it was.

    It was Douglas Mack of The Snack Shack that got me stared with this post on biscuit and cracker mysteries of the past: The Snack That's a Secret Ingredient

    And here are the llinks to @oliviacooks excellent cracker recipes made with sourdough discard:

    Love & Olive Oil -
    Sourdough Crackers
    Siicilian Parchment Sourdough Crackers (pane carasau)
    both include a non-sourdough version.

    Find out how it was New Sweden all along. Or maybe not that... but they were involved. Anyway, be glad your crackers have fat and leavening in them.


    Music Credit: Fingerlympics by Doctor Turtle
    Show Notes: https://thehistoryofamericanfood.blogspot.com/
    Email: TheHistoryofAmericanFood at gmail dot com
    Threads: @THoAFood
    Instagram: @THoAFood
    & some other socials... @THoAFood
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    30 m
  • 136 America is Made of Bread & Steel

    136 America is Made of Bread & Steel
    Jan 8 2025
    Sure - people say America is built on A LOT of things, but the rise of Industrial America depends on two things - Bread and Steel. Steel to make the Great American Dessert into the Great American Bread Basket - and all that wheat would make the steel of the railroad make lots of sense very quickly.

    If you are curious just what steel is - and how all that early American iron is related, this is your episode. Sure - I'm a food podcast, but this time it's all about Geology, Steel and some bread.

    The King Arthur Focaccia Bread Recipe

    Music Credit: Fingerlympics by Doctor Turtle
    Show Notes: https://thehistoryofamericanfood.blogspot.com/
    Email: TheHistoryofAmericanFood at gmail dot com
    Threads: @THoAFood
    Instagram: @THoAFood
    & some other socials... @THoAFood
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    35 m
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