Episodios

  • 155 Whales - They Start to Bring the Kitchen Indoors and Change Dinner Time

    155 Whales - They Start to Bring the Kitchen Indoors and Change Dinner Time
    Oct 1 2025
    As a child reader, I always thought it was so quaint that "dinner" was this old-timey word for lunch. It was a "Dinner Pail" - which was a crude Indian Tiffin - only 1 chamber - vs. a Lunch Box.

    But I had never spent any tme thinking about why and how Dinner was the big meal of the day, and supper was toast dipped in cooling stew.

    Until I thought about it in terms of cooking in the dark. When the sun goes down at 4:25 pm, why was anyone making all manner of food they can't see!?

    But - the Whale as Light in the early 1800's started to make it's mark. Sure factories were changing the rhythm of life, but without artificial light to support the change, it never would have taken.

    The age of sail was also the Age of the Pursuit of the Whale.

    So come join the chase.

    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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    23 m
  • 154 Fashionable Vegetables from Europe & Stealth Ones from America

    154 Fashionable Vegetables from Europe & Stealth Ones from America
    Sep 17 2025
    Celebrate National Public Lands Day by finding a place to visit and get involved at
    NEEFAUSA.og
    or
    NPS.gov

    And get into what was getting to be popular as vegetables in the early 19th century.

    How did Avocado Toast become a thing?
    Well, it would never have gotten the traction it did with out practice runs by spinach or even more glamourously by celery.

    And those would have never had a chance if not for the propensity for food fads developed by the early 19th century Americans who had lost their food traditions and were now looking for something new.

    Join me on the journey to see what was cool in plant foods in the early 19th century. We can't all be spring peas after all.

    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
  • 153 Coffee Finds a New Home

    153 Coffee Finds a New Home
    Sep 3 2025
    Wake up America! Coffee is on its way to becoming the drink of the people. Sure Cider and Beer are out there... but coffee is coming up on the outside.

    But how did one brew coffee in the 19th century?
    And just how weak was it?

    To find out, tune in.



    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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    34 m
  • 152 Early 19th Century Tea - Still Extremely Fashionable

    152 Early 19th Century Tea - Still Extremely Fashionable
    Aug 20 2025
    Last show on the substandard mic - but the paper towel as popfilter helped some.

    Let's talk tea - what tea were people drinking in the early 19th century? The answer was almost uniformly, "bad tea".
    Ignorance lead to people needing sugar in their tea b/c they were drinking the bad stuff. In fact a whole grade of "export quality" tea was invented to fulfill the growing global/European/American demand. Just in this case - "expot quality" mostly meant the dregs. Or the dust anyway.

    Understanding that most tea Americans were drinking in this age was somewhere between stale and adulterated, and only became more so as time went on, the swing to coffee starts to make more sense. It had less to do with feelings towards England, and more to do with the tea just not tasting that good.

    To understand just what tea was then, join in...

    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

    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
    Más Menos
    31 m
  • 151 The First Chinese Food in America

    151 The First Chinese Food in America
    Aug 6 2025
    First of all - sorry about the diferent mic. But this way we get the episode. I'll see what I can do to make things better for next ep - and all will be back to normal by the one after that.

    Anyway - 19th Century Chinese Food?

    What can I tell you? It would have looked much the same as lots of the food you will find right now around the Pearl RIver Delta, the old district of Canton - now known as Guangzhou.

    But this episode is not just about the food - it also looks a bit into how the US and China started dealing with each other. How did that stream of labor from China - that would be essential in the gold fileds and then the construction of the US railroads get a foot hold in California.

    While there is much made of the Chinese presence in New York - and how they influenced east coast culture - there is the less well known story of China and the early west.
    So grab your dried fish, pickled vegetables, boiled millet and see what's there.



    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

    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
    Más Menos
    39 m
  • 150 Lobster - From Poor Man's Chicken to Fancy Canned Good

    150 Lobster - From Poor Man's Chicken to Fancy Canned Good
    Jul 23 2025
    Think you're fancy with your lobster roll... or did you get it from a Massachusetts McDonalds?

    All are possible... and much more - including death by lobster poisoning.

    To get more of the story - tune in to early 19th century lobster

    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

    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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    24 m
  • 149 Trains & Buying Stuff in the Early 19th Century - The Birth of American Consumer Culture

    149 Trains & Buying Stuff in the Early 19th Century - The Birth of American Consumer Culture
    Jul 9 2025
    Have you ever thought how we got here - that farm land is all AWAY and houses are all in close?

    That products come to you... and packaging is often more important than the thing inside?
    That didn't happen over night.

    The fact that farms are there, house are here, and manufacturing stuff is a third place altogether is not an accident. Instead it's something that has been developing in America for about 200 year.

    To see WHY you don't have neighborhood farms - as well as why things like setting up local recycling centers and other things that make stuff is hard - listen in to how the roots of segregated land use ties back to the early railroad.

    I mean... maybe a local goat and donkey pasture wouldn't be such a bad thing?
    Anyway - more Pea Patches...!
    But also understand why modern American Farms Markets will always have food from hundreds of miles away.

    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

    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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    27 m
  • 148 Making Beef for Dinner - Increases in Early 19th Century Cattle

    148 Making Beef for Dinner - Increases in Early 19th Century Cattle
    Jun 25 2025
    What happens when you grow more cows to make more milk to make more cheese and butter?
    You end up with more oxen that can't make milk - but are useful as a source of beef.

    And this works out well when you are living in a society that craves more meat,
    and are in a place with apparently wide open spaces that are just fine for feeding said cattle.

    A bonus when you have lots of growing industries that are willing to buy beef from you to feed their growing ambitions - whaling, the railroad, new factories, a military pushing out the borders...

    And then... you also have new technologies to cook the beef, and have come up with new flavors for seasoning the beef.

    The result - American is ready to become a beefy country.


    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

    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
    Más Menos
    33 m