A blog about food, history, data visualization, and more
After posts on 19th century complaints about plagiarism and the evolution of recipe writing style, we finally get to the recipe that originally attracted me to William Kitchiner’s 1818 book, The Cook’s Oracle: Mock Tomata Sauce [sic]. When I first saw Mock Tomata Sauce on my screen, I had a few thoughts. First: ????. Next: I need […]
As I’ve discussed before, in the olden days, catsup/ketchup was about much more than tomatoes. Cookbooks from the 18th and 19th century are ripe with recipes for catsup/ketchup that contain ingredients that are decidedly non-ketchup ingredients, like walnuts, anchovies, and oysters. In the early 19th century cookbook The Cook’s Oracle, author William Kitchiner shares seven […]
Last time, I wrote about an important 19th century cookbook, The Cook’s Oracle, by William Kitchiner and noted that his book was published during an era of significant cookbook evolution. One of the most important was how recipes were written: the structure and style of recipes.
I’m reading Gustavo Arellano’s Taco USA, a deluxe combo platter of history, personal stories, and culture. Something from the taco chapter that jumped out at me was a mention of the first taco recipe in English. Arellano claims that it was in the California Mexican-Spanish Cook Book, a 1914 book by Bertha Haffner-Ginger. Haffner-Ginger grew up in […]
One of the items on the special whale meat luncheon from 1918 was “Delmonico War Bread.” It was not defined in the newspaper article because most readers in 1918 were quite familiar with the concept of “war bread.” The massive destruction in lands of the United States’ allies — the Triple Entente of France, Russia […]
Long-time readers of Mental Masala will know that I’m a big fan of Elizabeth Andoh’s Washoku: Recipes from the Japanese Home Kitchen, with almost a dozen posts related to my Washoku cooking experiences. In October 2010, Ten Speed Press released another book by Andoh, Kansha: Celebrating Japan’s Vegan and Vegetarian Traditions. I got my copy […]