Food History Class -- LTHers wanted!

I wanted to let folks know about a food history seminar I'll be conducting at the Newberry Library this fall entitled "From Maize to McDonalds: An Exploration of Food in History." The class would be much enhanced by the presence of some LTHers, with all the knowledge and passion about food that you possess. The class will meet on Wednesdays, 10 a.m. through noon, from September 14 through November 9 (not a great time for many people who work for a living, I know, but I have kids in school so it's a convenient slot for me.) The course is structured topically, so our discussions will range broadly, taking in subjects like the significance of corn in the Americas, the rise of Chicago's meat-packing industry, the history of anorexia, the development of ethnic dining and "American" cuisine, and more. We'll also take some field trips, including one, I'm hoping, to the upcoming WorldWide Food Expo at McCormick Place -- the world's largest food technology exposition. You can find more about this class and the Newberry seminars at http://www.newberry.org/programs/L3sems.html Contact me through this board if you'd like more specific information about the class. I really hope some of you will be able to join in!

my email is brian.schwartz@quill.com

I love food history and anthropology, but unfortunately can't make it. I was wondering which texts you would be using?

Thanks for the inquiry; too bad you can't join the class -- I know it's not a great time, unless you're retired or on the night shift. As to the readings, if you'd like all the specifics, send me a personal message with your email and I'd be happy to forward you a syllabus. But for general purposes, I use Sidney Mintz's Sweetness and Power, Eric Schlosser's Fast Food Nation, and (perhaps most interesting to you, if you haven't seen it) Carole Counihan and Penny Van Esterik's Food and Culture: A Reader, which contains a good number of classic works in food studies, both historical and anthropological in nature. I also encourage folks in the class to get Betty Fussell's The Story of Corn, which I really like. The class also gets a packet with a number of other readings, touching on Chicago's food history, cooking and gender issues, and ethnic dining. Are there books or articles you especially like in food history? Let me know!

I very much wish I could attend, as I love both the subject and the venue. But I have the same work/schedule probs. as others.

As good tinder for sparking discussion, I would recommend either of Laura Shapiro's survey's of food in American history and culture: Perfection Salad, or the recent Something From the Oven.

She is very accessible, not academic, yet very conscienscious about sources and footnotes. She does some real digging to come up with wonderful anecdotes to illustrate her stats. She seems to be interested more in exploring than dogmatically shoving a thesis down the reader's throat. She works hard to bring together culinary history, social history, economic history, etc. Sometimes it's a bit scattershot; sometimes she seems to torture a mere correlation into a cause, but that's what makes lively discussions. I'd at least breeze through either of those books. You might find sections that complement other texts you're using.

Also the Hess's "Taste of America" - long out of print, but perhaps available from the library. They are former NY Times food writers and it's a wonderful and dyspeptic survey of eating and cooking habits from colonial times onward.

Thanks for the Shapiro references; I like her work very much, and if this were a regular college course, with more meetings and more readings, I would probably use Perfection Salad. Her work will make her way into our discussion on gender and cooking, I'm sure (at least on my part.) I believe there was a pretty good thread, not long ago, in which folks listed their favorite food history works (forgive me for not knowing where it is, off the top of my head.) So rather than repeat that, I'll rephrase my question, for all those out there who are interested: if you could enter into a food history class that met at your convenience, what topics would you like to take up? What would you most want to learn about and discuss?

I've never forgotten a conversation I had about 20 years ago with someone who worked for Beatrice Foods who told me that their food chemists had made ice cream that could stand outside of a freezer all night and still hold together. I was simultaneously fascinated and appalled. If I could take such a class as you describe, I'd love to learn about the history and development of stabilizers in home cooking and prepared foods. And if you could throw in how they relate to [changing?] ideals of mouthfeel, that would also be interesting.

This is probably of no help to you, but along the lines of the last post, I once saw a documentary on the R&D process from conception to release of a new heat 'n' eat frozen food concept. They started out wanting to do something like a filled croissant, but they couldn't make the dough work. So they just kept making adjustments, doing test versions and holding focus groups. It was absolutely fascinating, and often revolting. I'm pretty sure it was shown on WTTW here. I believe it took place in England. If you could find it (perhaps through Facets or the Harold Wash. library, it would certainly be worth a look.

Interesting that applied chemistry would appeal, as a topic, to foodies, but I also found "Why the Fries Taste So Good" to be among the more fascinating chapters in Fast Food Nation. These posts make me wonder: does anyone remember when the Museum of Science and Industry used to feature Swift's "Food for Life" exhibit? (No doubt I'm showing my age here; this was back when the museum was free, too.) They used to have a test kitchen there, and would ask lucky museum patrons to come into the kitchen to sample and assess some product Swift was considering putting on the market. My mother got asked once to give her opinion of some canned barbeque pork product ; on the card she handed in to the white-jacketed Swift kitchen technicians she proclaimed it "God awful." I'm not sure if that made it onto the supermarket shelves or not. They used to have the hatching chicks there, too, and the "kitchen of the future," which, if I recall correctly, had a dishwasher! And then there was the really big Maytag washer somewhere in that vicinity. I'm totally digressing here, but there's quite a social history to be written of the S&I Museum, one that would note, for one thing, how Chicago's shrinking industrial base has transformed the Museum -- no more exhibits sponsored by Swift, International Harvester, US Steel, or Standard Oil. (No more Maytag, either.)