A Revolution in Eating: The Revolution of American Cooking
- Book Review,
by James E. McWilliams
From Publishers Weekly
"[T]he way [colonial] Americans thought about food was integral to the way they thought about politics," McWilliams persuasively argues in this survey of the creation of American cuisine. The Texas State University–San Marcos history professor explores what the colonists ate and why, how that affected their emerging political and cultural values, how their farms and their rights intersected and how "food remained at the core of America's Revolution." At the root of American cuisine, McWilliams finds, is the immeasurable impact of Native American agricultural practices. He explores the effect of the staple crop peculiar to each area of colonial America upon the development of regional foodways, as well as upon their economic and social practices. With remarkable clarity, he delineates the technical aspects of various agricultural tasks, from crop cultivation (sugar cane, rice, tobacco, corn, wheat) to more domestic work (building a kitchen garden, churning butter). The broad range of scholarship, the smooth weaving of political and social history and the full notes and fat bibliography will inform historians, while the lucid style and jaunty tone (the Quakers were "a people who made a virtue of frugality while making frugality more elaborate than anyone could have imagined") make this accessible to all. (July) Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Review
"A delightfully incisive account of a fascinating subject. McWilliams tracesthe culinary folkways of Americans of the colonial period and demonstratesthat we are what they ate." -- H. W. Brands, Dickson Allen Anderson Professor of History, University of Texas at Austin
Book Description
James E. McWilliams offers a colorful tour of culinary tastes and techniques throughout colonial America. Integrating their British and European tastes with the demands and bounty of the rugged American environment, early Americans developed a range of regional cuisines. McWilliams also demonstrates the ways in which Americans imbued food and cuisine with certain political and social values prompting the antimonarchical habits of simplicity, frugality, and frontier ruggedness to define American cuisine.
About the Author
James E. McWilliams is assistant professor of history at Texas State University-San Marcos. His articles on food history have appeared in the Christian Science Monitorand the Texas Observer, and he is a past winner of the Whitehill Prize in Colonial History, awarded annually by the New England Quarterly, in which he has published extensively.
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
To Make Pumpkin PieTake the pumpkin and the peel the rind off, then stew it till it is quite soft, and put thereto one pint of pumpkin, one pint of milk, one glass of Malaga wine, one glass of rosewater, if you like it, seven eggs, half a pound of fresh butter, one small nutmeg, and sugar and salt to your taste.
Buy from Amazon
Compare Prices
|
|
Home
