Last Thursday we hosted professor Karen Miller’s American Studies course on “Food and American Culture,” featuring a few dozen cookbooks, recipe books, and other guides. From Miss Beecher’s Receipt Book (1856) to Thomas J. Murrey’s Valuable Cooking Receipts (1886) to The ABC of Wine Cookery (Peter Pauper Press, 1957),  there were lots of comments and questions, and much of interest.

Professor Miller’s course description will give our readers some idea of how these students are looking at these sources:

“What we eat and how we eat reflect more than basic physical needs, and food has long played influential roles in defining and representing American culture, identities, and nationalism. Our course will begin by examining the history of the Thanksgiving feast and conclude with contemporary movements in organic and farm-to-table eating. As we explore foods’ implications for Americanism, gender, class, and age, our topics of study will include defining edibles and non-edibles, immigrant influences, food and technology, American farming, diet fads, school lunches and gardens, hunger in America and food regulations. Our class will work with the nearby Billings Forge community to learn more about food’s roles in family life and social reforms, including urban renewal.”