A Forest Feast in Norway

Nautilus cup

October 31, 2023

The Nautilus Cup is a decorative goblet or bowl combining a mollusk seashell ornately decorated with gold and silver; it is used for drinking or washing hands and often includes mythological sea creatures and Roman gods. 16th-century Dutch and German goldsmiths popularized the objects in Europe and mounted the natural shells to metal stems in their workshops. Wealthy European collectors stored the drinking vessels in their cabinets of curiosities during the Renaissance. Some engraved shells originated from Guangzhou, China, and predate European designs. The mollusk shells themselves originated in Indonesia and were brought back to Europe by Portuguese vessels, and the trade continued with the Dutch East India Company, and "the Dutch acquired a default monopoly over the import of nautilus shells." (Kehoe) Delft, Utrecht, Antwerp, and "Nuremberg and Augsburg were the main centers of production for mounted shells during the 16th and 17th centuries."(Campbell) In 1995, Hanna-Ulrich Mette wrote the most extensive book about the history of the Nautilus Cup called Der Nautiluspokal: Wie Kunst und Natur miteinander spielen, available on the Internet Archive. 

• Kehoe, Marsely (2011) The Nautilus Cup Between Foreign and Domestic in the Dutch Golden Age, Dutch Crossing, 35:3, 275-285, DOI: 10.1179/155909011X13124528227543 
• Mette, Hanna-Ulrich. (1995). Der Nautiluspokal: wie Kunst und Natur miteinander spielen. Germany: Klinkhardt & Biermann. https://archive.org/details/dernautiluspokal0000mett/page/158/mode/thumb 
• Gem. (2023). United States: DK Publishing.
• Campbell, Gordon (2006). Mother of Pearl in The Grove Encyclopedia of Decorative Arts: Two-volume Set. United Kingdom: Oxford University Press, USA.
• Campbell, Gordon (2009). Delft in The Grove Encyclopedia of Northern Renaissance Art. : Oxford University Press
• Campbell, Gordon (2009). Antwerp in The Grove Encyclopedia of Northern Renaissance Art. : Oxford University Press.
• Campbell, Gordon (2009). Northern Netherlands in The Grove Encyclopedia of Northern Renaissance Art. : Oxford University Press.

Cookbook: Win the War (1918)

October 30, 2023

The World War I cookbook Win the War from 1918 by Reah Jeannette Lynch and the Council of National Defense contains a compilation of recipes that includes solutions for conserving meat, wheat, and fats, which were much needed for soldiers during combat. Ingredients such as nuts, soybeans, cheese, and other beans provided American families with protein alternatives. Breads could be baked with corn and peanut flour. Using the tongue and heart provided alternatives for beef roasts. The cookbook features once-popular ingredients like aspic, sorghum, prunes, and cottage cheese. The wars of men are always brutal and perhaps both inevitable and unnecessary. Historically, men protect their societies with bloodshed, and women try to preserve home life and protect children and the weak away from the frontlines. According to the census, there were 40 million casualties during World War I, half of which resulted in death. 

Foods and Nations

Halloween: Trick or Treat

Absolut Vodka

October 27, 2023

A new book came out in October called Absolut Cocktails, Absolut Vodka Drinks For Every Occasion. I rarely drink alcohol however, this new release has reminded me of the hugely successful Absolut Vodka advertising campaign that dominated glossy magazine pages in the early '90s; for some reason, collecting these adverts was a pop culture trend that seduced my adolescent mind. I had a collection of Absolut ads in my school binder. Unfortunately, my first consumption of alcohol involved the Swedish Firewater, and their successful marketing campaign hooked me early, like the cigarette ads with that cool cartoon camel wearing sunglasses. Regardless of ethical or moral concerns, the ad campaign was absolutely amazing and incorporated art, fashion, and international travel. In the 90s, Absolut even produced a digital museum with a virtual gallery one could explore using the keyboard. The galleries showcased art related to the vodka bottle. As a child, I interacted with this computer program; I believe the software was on a floppy disk, which I inserted into my family's PC during the early days of the internet.  The software may have been purchased from CompUSA or a freebie included as a magazine insert. One can see the advert collection and learn about the history of the TBWA campaign in the Absolut Book by Richard W. Lewis from 1996. 

Food for Peace

October 26, 2023

Wars, destruction, and natural disasters cripple societies, displace people, and cause chaos. After the disaster is over, communities begin to rebuild. Access to clean water and food is essential to human life. Food aid programs help combat hunger and dampen the impact of food shortages by providing American agricultural products to impoverished communities. During the 20th century, corn, beef, and wheat, including technical and scientific advancements, led to the United States becoming "the largest food supplier in history.... these developments contributed to one of the largest humanitarian programs in history, Food for Peace."(Kaller-Dietrich) The precursor to the Food for Peace program was Public Law 480, created by President Dwight D. Eisenhower in 1954, which allowed for agricultural products from the United States to aid people in need worldwide. Distributed foods included "wheat and flour, feed grains, rice, cotton, tobacco, dairy products, fats and oils, poultry, beans and peas, and fruits and vegetables."(Public Health Reports) Public Law 480 led to the United States by the sixties supplying "over 95 percent of all international food aid..."(McIntyre). In 1960, at the Corn Palace in Mitchell, South Dakota, John F. Kennedy spoke about freedom, agriculture, and food aid during his speech, in which he said, "Food is strength, and food is peace, and food is freedom, and food is a helping hand to people around the world whose good will and friendship we want."(Kennedy) President Kennedy created the Food for Peace program in 1961, with George McGovern as program director and Senator Hubert Humphrey helping promote the program, which was central to United States foreign policy during the Cold War.  As we grapple with wars and conflict, human beings are often the casualty of ideology and political warfare.  Food aid and relief help get people through difficult times of conflict. 

• Wikipedia contributors. (2023, June 2). Food for Peace. In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 19:24, October 23, 2023, from https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Food_for_Peace&oldid=1158261197 
• McIntyre, K., & Brenton, B. (2012). International Aid. In The Oxford Encyclopedia of Food and Drink in America. : Oxford University Press. Retrieved 23 Oct. 2023, from https://www-oxfordreference-com.i.ezproxy.nypl.org/view/10.1093/acref/9780199734962.001.0001/acref-9780199734962-e-0422. 
• Food for Peace. (1963). Public Health Reports (1896-1970), 78(12), 1030–1030. http://www.jstor.org/stable/4592013 
• Kennedy, John F. (1960) Corn Palace, Mitchell, South Dakota, 22 September 1960 | JFK Library. https://www.jfklibrary.org/asset-viewer/archives/JFKSEN/0911/JFKSEN-0911-071 
• Paul, J. (2014). Food Politics. In The Oxford Companion to International Relations. : Oxford University Press. Retrieved 23 Oct. 2023, from https://www-oxfordreference-com.i.ezproxy.nypl.org/view/10.1093/acref/9780199738878.001.0001/acref-9780199738878-e-112. 
• Leonard, T. M. (Ed.) (2012). Encyclopedia of U.S.-Latin American Relations. CQ Press, https://doi.org/10.4135/9781608717613 
• Kaller-Dietrich, M. (2010). Food and the Role of Food Aid. In The Oxford International Encyclopedia of Peace. : Oxford University Press. Retrieved 23 Oct. 2023, from https://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/acref/9780195334685.001.0001/acref-9780195334685-e-249. 

National Dairy Council

Halsjes: Flemish Golden Rolls

Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC)

Wistar's Balsam of Wild Cherry

October 21, 2023

These days, the rumbling in my community is reporting various health cures around natural holistic ingredients. Some swear by drinking Oregano oil, Black Seed Oil, and Grapefruit Seed extract. All cure-alls to the devious mysteries of life, sickness, and eventual death. Years ago, a colleague swore by organic foods, exercise, and healthy lifestyles.  She believed in fresh foods as a cure-all. She died around 40; there was nothing such foods could do to prevent or reverse her illness and her unfortunate and premature death. Her death traumas me because she represents health, fitness, and life. She often lectured me about my food choices, such as eating vegetables from tin cans and processed foods. She may be right, and those foods may end my life early. It's unfair that she died at such an early age; it's unfair to her family or our beliefs in healthy lifestyles. My grandfather started smoking at age eight; he drank and smoked his whole life, living a reckless and jolly lifestyle and causing great harm to those around him. He died in his 80s. We put our faith in cure-all remedies to keep us alive; in the 1800s, Wistars’s Balsam of Wild Cherry used the magic ingredients of a cherry tree (and narcotics) to medicate those with ailments. Some call it quackery. According to the San Mateo County Historical Association, a Virginian doctor named Henry Wistar invented Wistar’s Balsam of Wild Cherry. The main ingredient was from black cherry, and "the powdered inner bark was used in 19th-century patent medicines to treat coughs and bronchitis (Dr. Wistars’s Balsam of Wild Cherry and Ayer’s Cherry Pectoral were popular), and Smith Brothers’ Wild Cherry Cough Drops are still sold today." (Del Tredici) An advertisement from 1866 claimed the cough syrup cured "Coughs, colds, croup, whooping-cough, bronchitis, influenza... bleeding of the lungs, liver complaints." (Walton) One of the quacks I briefly fell for was Quinine in Tonic Water as a preventative cure for COVID-19. In a moment of fear of the unknown and news-induced panic, one - admittedly myself - is susceptible and desperate for snake oil and the salesmen who promise cures. 

• Walton, J. Soper (1866). Walton's Vermont register and farmer's almanac. Montpelier, Vt.: E.P. Walton. https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/011571319/Home

• Del Tredici, Peter. "Woody Dicots". Wild Urban Plants of the Northeast: A Field Guide, Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2021, pp. 38-133. https://doi-org.i.ezproxy.nypl.org/10.7591/9781501740459-008 

Simon Bening (1483-1561)

Flemish miniatures from the British Library (manuscript 18855, folios 108-109) consist of two parchment leaves within an Illuminated Book of Hours. The calendar scene (ca. 1540-1550) depicts seasonal landscapes of gardening and tree felling (March), hunting a wild boar (December/February), sheep-shearing (June), and haymaking with scythes (July). The Miniatures are attributed to the Flemish artist Simon Bening (1483-1561) from the Netherlands, known for his landscapes called Labours of the Months. "Two further leaves from the same calendar series are now housed at the Victoria and Albert Museum." (The British Library Board)

• British Museum. Department of Manuscripts. (190708). Reproductions from illuminated manuscripts: Series I[-III]. London: Printed by order of the Trustees.

• The British Library. (2005, August 25). Details of an item from the British Library Catalogue of Illuminated Manuscripts. https://www.bl.uk/catalogues/illuminatedmanuscripts/record.asp?MSID=8381&CollID=27&NStart=18855 

Queens, New York

October 18, 2023

Yesterday, I spent the day roaming Queens - my favorite borough - I went to a Chinese bakery for breakfast and a Hindu Cafeteria serving vegetarian foods for lunch. I walked miles while thankfully savoring delicious food. I felt strong and active. I love to walk; about 10 miles would be my ideal distance, which is easy to do in the mountains and while walking the concrete streets of New York City. Other locations like the dreaded suburbs make walking such a length more challenging; suburban parks are generally 2-mile loops, and neighborhood walking is discouraged, as the automobile rules the roads and neighborhood watch paranoia dominates the eyes behind the blinds searching for strangers to report. The people of the suburbs - myself included - gorge on meals like geese preparing for fatty liver harvesting, and plumpness remains motionless in hospital waiting rooms with endless health conditions. Yet, times are changing, and residents of car-dominated societies are becoming aware of the health concerns associated with overeating and inactivity. Cities, like New York, make physical exercise more accessible for people, the night lights stay on later, for after-work walks or runs. The day is long, and the nights are brighter. My day-tripping adventure in Queens reminded me of how extraordinary this borough is to America; it is the most diverse place I've ever been with many languages, beliefs, economic classes, and cultures. Queens is international, historic, and welcoming to immigrants, with neighborhoods like Long Island City, Sunnyside, Astoria, Flushing, Jamaica, Forest Hills,  Rockaway, and Jackson Heights. I love Queens and the foods of Queens. 

Hydrox: The Original Oreo

Apple Harvesting

Tasting the Past

August 22, 2023,

Tasting the Past by Jacqui Wood is a four-part cookbook series that explores the history of British food during the Celts, Romans, Norman, the Middle Ages, the Renaissance, the English Civil War (1642 – 1651), the Georgians, Victorians, up until the twentieth century. The books include British recipes like potted beef with cloves, nutmeg, anchovies, beetroot pancakes, mutton stew with juniper berries, and creamed sardine pies, to name a few. Jacqui Wood is a food historian and archaeologist specializing in British History.

All American Corn

Book of Hours

Grapes on the Vine

Japanese Internment Camps

August 18, 2023

After the Japanese Military bombed Pearl Harbor in 1941, the United States Government issued an executive order which rounded up all the Japanese American citizens and immigrants and relocated families to concentration camps, also called internment camps. Japanese families were forced to live on arid farmland, mainly on the west coast, for five years. The U.S. Treasury froze Japanese bank accounts and shuttered Japanese businesses. Japanese Americans survived on U.S. Government supplied foods, "breakfasts often were fried rice with leftovers from the previous evening's meal. Pork, cabbage, and carrots were standard" (White), and "a typical evening meal consisted of a boiled potato, and canned Vienna sausage and bread and margarine." (White) According to a 1943 concentration camp menu, detainees were served standard U.S. commodities like flour, evaporated milk, beef, string beans, fruit cocktails, potatoes, and rice. "Food was limited and of poor quality until inmates were able to grow their own." (Robinson) Once the land was able to harvest, "women worked on the farms attached to some camps... where they grew green onions, radishes, beans, potatoes, and later, more Japanese foodstuffs such as gobo and daikon." (White) Japanese men worked as cooks in the mess hall kitchens. After World War II, in 1946, the internment camps were eventually shut down; over the next 60 years, the United States Government apologized and granted reparations to those who lost their belonging, homes, and businesses. Do reparations ever really make up for government-forced imprisonment due to race? Perhaps we are still rounding up people due to villainizing others, putting people in institutions such as holding facilities or penitentiaries, and feeding them tasteless, overprocessed U.S. food commodities. 

• Robinson, G. (2012). Japanese American Internment. In The Oxford Encyclopedia of American Political and Legal History. : Oxford University Press. 
• White, M. (2012). Japanese American Food. In The Oxford Encyclopedia of Food and Drink in America. : Oxford University Press.
• Renteln, A. D. (1995). A Psychohistorical Analysis of the Japanese American Internment. Human Rights Quarterly, 17(4), 618–648. http://www.jstor.org/stable/762484
• Tong, B. (2004). Race, Culture, and Citizenship among Japanese American Children and Adolescents during the Internment Era. Journal of American Ethnic History, 23(3), 3–40. http://www.jstor.org/stable/27501456
• Tokunaga, Y. (2019). Japanese Internment as an Agricultural Labor Crisis: Wartime Debates over Food Security versus Military Necessity. Southern California Quarterly, 101(1), 79–113. https://www.jstor.org/stable/27085976

The Myth of the Housewife

Kitchen Order vs. Chaos 

August 16, 2023,

I'm gripped by the concept of chaos versus order, particularly as it applies to the kitchen. The pictures above on the right represent chaotic, dirty, and impoverished kitchens, and others on the left represent organized, clean, and wealthy kitchens. One of the defining characteristics of My 600-pound Life and Hoarders is poverty, sadness, and cluttered and unkept home environments. When flipping through magazines or television channels, kitchens almost always showcase the clean, spacious new kitchens of the prosperous and well-to-do or newly constructed. Why can't we maintain orderly work and home environments? Why is cleanliness and order a defining class trait? My family's kitchen was always in disorder, messy, hoarded, and the stove and kitchen table was covered with plastic objects, crumbs, full bins, and unused appliances. My parents grew up poor, and as adults, they worked all the time to run away from that poverty; housekeeping was never a priority; the priority was to work and then vegetate in front of the television at night, All sights on the television with all those glamourous clean kitchens in movies, and tv commercials with eyes closed to the reality of home life. Perhaps poverty, exhaustion, and depression are intertwined, leading disadvantaged families towards neglectful dirty kitchens covered in hoarded objects, unable to clean or find time to maintain order, or prepare homemade meals, due to the endless drudgery of American daily life, which takes over like wild invasive weeds growing on countertops, covering windows, and planting roots in the years of uncleaned dirt that coats the tiled kitchen floors, while Americans rot in front of bright screens. They say cleanliness is next to godliness, and I wish for more order, more time spent in kitchen spaces, and less time like flies in front of bright zapping lights.