I’ve changed things up on the Substack page. It’s a bit nerve wracking putting myself out there after sitting on this idea for 12 years. It feels pretentious to think I’d have anything to add to the food conversation.
There are plenty of people who look at food from a historical perspective. Many people neglect the past 70 years because it’s still in living memory. Typically the work that is accessible to the average non-academic is created by influencers who turn the idea of retro recipes into a farce.
But there’s a good reason people made, for example, savory jello salads. They’re strange today, but I think it’s worth talking about the absurdity in a way that doesn’t put it as the punchline of a joke. The why is just as important as the weird.
The food of the past century tells a story: sometimes funny, oftentimes painful, but it’s always a tale of people feeding their loved ones the best they could. It’s worth looking at food from that perspective.
So my goals for this corner of the internet?
To make as many primary sources (community cookbooks, handwritten recipe cards, first person accounts, etc.) publicly accessible as I can in a searchable format anyone can access, for free.
To connect people to the food of the past century in a meaningful way, not just in an “oh, that’s a fun fact” sort of way.
To empower you to figure out how to make pancakes the way your grandma made them, the way you remember them tasting, and understand why she made them that way.
To help you feel equipped to search through community cookbooks to find the lost recipe you’re looking for, and in the process when you happen to see 17 recipes for applesauce cake understand why.
To help you find the recipes that got lost between generations via research requests and rabbit trails we take together.
I’m so excited you’re here and I hope you stick around to see where this little project takes us.
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