Description: This fascinating study in cultural history presents a variety of Civil War-era recipes from the South, accompanied by intriguing essays describing this tumultuous period. This second volume in the American Food in History series sheds new light on cooking and eating in the Civil War South, pointing out how seemingly neutral recipes can reveal aspects of life beyond the dinner plate, from responses to the anti-slavery movement to shifting economic imperatives to changing ideas about women's roles.
Brief description:
Helen Zoe Veit is Associate Professor of History at Michigan State University. She specializes in American history in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, focusing on the history of food and nutrition. She is the author of Modern Food, Moral Food: Self-Control, Science, and the Rise of Modern American Eating in the Early Twentieth Century, and general editor of the American Food in History Series.
Review Quotes: "This book demonstrates the serious history that lies in cookbooks and recipes. Through this welcome collection of primary sources, we confront firsthand the politics, privations, and horrors of that time in recipes for 'Secession Pudding (excellent), ' 'Preserving Meat without Salt, ' or an 'Antidote' (to counteract an alleged Northern tactic of poisoning soldiers' liquor). Introductory essays frame the culinary culture of the South, and the glossary and extensive notes provide sure guidance for further research."
--Cathy Kaufman, President, Culinary Historians of New York