Posted on 12/06/2016 10:33:08 PM PST by nickcarraway
Sarah Lohman has made everything from colonial-era cocktails to cakes with black pepper to stewed moose face. She is a historical gastronomist, which means she re-creates historical recipes to connect with the past.
That moose-face recipe dates back to the 19th century, and it wasn't easy. She recalls spending hours trying to butcher the moose from Alaska in her kitchen in Queens, New York. She tried scalding the face in hot water to remove the fur, but it didn't quite work and her apartment stunk of wet moose.
But "at the end of the day, people showed up and ate it, someone actually liked it, and then we ordered a pizza," she says.
Spurred by her friends' enthusiasm, she started a blog. "Every time I made something, a conversation would start. It was just this gateway ... as soon as they were eating, they were asking questions," she says. "They loved the good recipes and the schadenfreude of the bad ones."
Lohman's work got her wondering about the flavors that represent American cuisine and where they came from. That's the subject of her new book, Eight Flavors: The Untold Story of American Cuisine.
"Chili powder spread across the country because of entrepreneurial Texan-Mexican women who fed soldiers and tourists, and a clever German immigrant who was looking for a culinary shortcut," Lohman writes. Peter Van Hyning She made a list of common flavors from many historical cookbooks, and used Google's Ngram viewer to count how often the various flavors were mentioned in American books from 1796 to 2000. Eight popular and enduring flavors emerged: black pepper, vanilla, curry powder, chili powder, soy sauce, garlic, MSG and Sriracha.
"I didn't so much choose the flavors that appear in this book, as discover them," Lohman writes.
Researching the book "really upended my idea of these flavors that always stood on the shelf in my kitchen," she says. "I would always pick up a pepper grinder or a bottle of vanilla extract and would never think about what it was and where it came from."
Many historical recipes don't exactly work now — like one for black pepper cake from Martha Washington. Lohman says the original recipe is "really gross" because it used as much ground spice as flour.
She reworked it for our modern tastes, and says more people should be open to adapting recipes to taste rather than following instructions to the letter.
"I find when I'm teaching cooking classes ... my students are often afraid of doing something so massively wrong in the process of cooking that will be irrecoverable that they don't even try in the first place," she says. "I would love to get back to a world where we can be a little bit more relaxed and confident in the kitchen."
But Lohman quickly discovered there was much more than translating historic recipes for modern use: "I didn't realize I was going to be telling the story of disenfranchised people in America throughout history."
She says food study "wasn't really seen as a real way of looking at society and culture" until recently, because it's mostly a history of women, slaves and immigrants — "the people that have been cooking for the people that have been enfranchised for the past 200 years."
She hopes the book is "a successful ode to these people that have affected our history in this country just as much as the establishment, but up till this point, have not gotten the attention they deserved."
For instance, "vanilla is here thanks to a 12-year-old slave who figured out a botanical secret no one else knew. Chili powder spread across the country because of entrepreneurial Texan-Mexican women who fed soldiers and tourists — and a clever German immigrant who was looking for a culinary shortcut," she writes.
Slave Edmond Albius and a vanilla plant: "Vanilla is here thanks to a 12-year-old slave who figured out a botanical secret no one else knew," Lohman writes.
One story that stands out to her is the creation of Sriracha, which, according to the book, has "seen a meteoric rise in popularity" since its debut in 1980. Lohman notes sales of bottled Sriracha exceeded $60 million in 2014.
She calls it a "quintessentially American story" — founder David Tran is ethnically Chinese, but he is also a Vietnamese refugee. He combined elements of French and Thai cuisine, using peppers grown on a farm north of Los Angeles to make a hot sauce produced entirely in Southern California.
After the Vietnam War ended, the new government systematically targeted and forcibly expelled ethnic Chinese from the country, while charging each person $11,500 for the "privilege" of leaving. Tran, along with his immediate family and more than 3,000 refugees, boarded a Panamanian freighter called the Huey Fong.
After arriving in the U.S., Tran needed to support his family. He was a hot-sauce maker in Vietnam, so he decided to try that in his new home. Now Tran's company is called Huy Fong Foods.
"This ... says immigrants are our culture; they are who we are," Lohman says. "We have to broaden our idea of what an American is."
She points out the Italians, who brought us garlic, were initially "considered a separate race of people that were damaging to the climate of our country."
She says that attitude is still playing out today.
"Food is something that is often accepted in this country before we accept the immigrants themselves. ... We happily buy hummus in our grocery store, but in the meantime, they were going to ban Muslims from entering this country."
Also have SALT ( the history of salt; it IS fascinating! ), FOOD IN HISTORY, IN THE DEVIL'S GARDEN (it's about once forbidden to eat foods ), and ones about what was eaten and recipes for dishes eaten in Ancient Rome and one on Ancient Greek dishes.
BRAVA!
I always mean to read those books that tell the story of salt, etc. I never seem to get around to them. I usually end up with my usual obsession with British food - something Americans do not understand anymore than Brits understand the beauties of American cookery. Sadly, we just seem to hate each other...
Egg rolls??????????????????? HELL NO!
I hate ketchup.
When I was a child, I told my mother that I couldn't taste the paprika. She told me that if it were left out, I'd know and miss it. Of course, she was correct. :-)
Hungarian words always have the accent on the first syllable, hence it is pronounced POPrika. Sadly, most people say pap-a-rika or papRIKA; both of which makes my teeth hurt, when I hear it.
My family has been buying stuff from them, via catalogue, since they began. I grew up with stuff from there, from my grandma, who saw an ad in the N.Y.Times Sunday magazine! :-)
We're now on the 4th generation of ordering, as my kiddo orders from them too, because I always have, as my mother and grandmother did. LOL
I'm sure that the grazing is way better than at Whole Foods, but maybe as good as at Stu Leonard's. ;^)
Is it as good as it sounds?
Is it available on DVD ?
I'm still laughing re the Waldorf Salad!
It is SO different from what we get here in the States, but very good! We like both kinds.
OTOH....ACCENT? Oh YUCK!
They are tough in culinary school. You mess up one ingredient, you are FAILED. Unfortunately, as my little 18 year old co-students have found, you can’t even pick up your grade because the chef/professor has no interest in helping you improve. Such sweet kids; so smart, so hard-up starting in life.
You probably don’t remember she did Accent commercials and she was the spokesman for it. For about 30 years, I have no doubt! But you say it wasn’t MSG that gave people headaches but Seseme Oil?!
Well, most of "American" foods are from the UK.
Americans who grumble about Brit food and Brits who do the reverse, are morons who don't know anything about what they're grumbling about!
That is NO WAY to run a class!
I never know how to order Chinese food in London - it is very different. I still remember a lovely Jewish gal in the audience at a Jackie Mason show in London scorning my idea of going to Pizza Express afterwards. She wanted me to go to Chinatown. I didn’t think to ask her what to order and although I followed her instructions, ended up with a hodge-podge of food that didn’t make much sense as an American. I love the differences in culture - even among immigrant cooks.
That’s how kitchens are run. I’ve finally figured out that culinary classes (unlike cooking classes) are run like kitchens. You either catch on or you flunk out. I’ll be damned if they’re going to push me around!
My mother and I and to some extent my brother, all suffered from what was once called CHINESE RESTAURANT SYNDROME. We did our own research ( eating only dishes that contained A one time, containing B the next, and so on ) and found out that dishes that contained sesame seed oil, no matter how much we loved eating them, had to no longer be eaten. And this was all PRIOR to when the whole CRS was written and talked about in the late '60s-early '70s! We went through these tests in the 1950s!
I love going to The Guardian cooking pages. They love American food but it brings out the xenophobic crazy Brits like you wouldn’t believe! It’s amazing how British cookery magazines push not only American food but American holidays like Thanksgiving and Halloween. They still seem a little shy about pushing the 4th of July, lol, but I expect that’ll be next!
Totally false analogy.
Carrots, tomatoes and corn are plants/vegetables.
Hummus, Falafel, Pita, Baba Ghanoush etc. are recipes/prepared foods... that means there is a cultural background.
That background is the region of Eastern Mediterranean/Levante and Arabic-speaking countries.
These recipes were adopted into Israeli cuisine through Jews from Arab countries and picking it up from Arab locals.
There is nothing particularly Jewish about these dishes. Israeli, modern Jewish cuisine is a fusion from all corners of the world where Jews lived for centuries and adapted local recipes to Kashrut law.
There are a few Ashkenazi recipes that have a much stronger Jewish ‘identity’... such as Gefilte Fish.
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