front cover of Game
Game
A Global History
Paula Young Lee
Reaktion Books, 2013
Antelope and porcupines in Africa. Feral cats and wild goats in Australia. Deer, pheasants, and rabbits in the United States and Europe. These are just a few of the world’s game animals, or creatures hunted for food. Game has been central to the development of humanity and forms a core part of cultures—and meat industries—from the Amazon to the Arctic. But despite the ubiquity of its consumption, it has never been the subject of a culinary overview. Paula Young Lee rectifies this oversight in Game, describing the fascinating history of a food so diverse it ranges from luxury good to staple of the poor.
 
Describing how animals from quail and oryx to dormice were once so avidly pursued that they became semi-domesticated, Lee traces the rise and fall in the prevalence of hunting some animals, as well as illustrating how dishes like bear paws, reindeer pâté, and lark pie have seen their popularity come and go. She provides insight into the politically charged arena of hunting laws and discusses the customs and difficulties in hunting game for food, while offering up fun facts—such as how venison was once so coveted that cookbooks gave instructions for disguising beef as a counterfeit. Featuring unusual recipes for many little-eaten animals and cuts of meat, Game will be gobbled up by readers alongside a steaming bowl of rabbit stew.
[more]

front cover of Garden Wisdom
Garden Wisdom
Lessons Learned from 60 Years of Gardening
Jerry Apps
Wisconsin Historical Society Press, 2012

Step into the garden with writer and rural historian Jerry Apps. In this treasure trove of tips, recollections, and recipes, Jerry combines his hard-earned advice for garden success with a discussion of how tending a garden leads to a deeper understanding of nature and the land. From planning and planting to fending off critters and weeds, he walks us through the gardening year, imbuing his story with humor and passion and once again reminding us that working even a small piece of land provides many rewards.

Gardening has always been a group endeavor for the Apps family. In Garden Wisdom, readers will learn gardening basics along with Jerry’s grandchildren as they become a new generation of gardeners. They’ll devour Ruth’s recipes for preparing and preserving fresh garden veggies—from refrigerator pickles to rutabaga pudding. And they’ll savor son Steve’s beautiful color photographs, capturing the bounty of the family garden throughout the growing season.
[more]

logo for American Library Association
Gather 'Round the Table
Food Literacy Programs, Resources, and Ideas for Libraries
Hillary Dodge
American Library Association, 2020

front cover of The German-Jewish Cookbook
The German-Jewish Cookbook
Recipes and History of a Cuisine
Gabrielle Rossmer Gropman and Sonya Gropman
Brandeis University Press, 2017
This cookbook features recipes for German-Jewish cuisine as it existed in Germany prior to World War II, and as refugees later adapted it in the United States and elsewhere. Because these dishes differ from more familiar Jewish food, they will be a discovery for many people. With a focus on fresh, seasonal ingredients, this indispensable collection of recipes includes numerous soups, both chilled and hot; vegetable dishes; meats, poultry, and fish; fruit desserts; cakes; and the German version of challah, Berches. These elegant and mostly easy-to-make recipes range from light summery fare to hearty winter foods. The Gropmans—a mother-daughter author pair—have honored the original recipes Gabrielle learned after arriving as a baby in Washington Heights from Germany in 1939, while updating their format to reflect contemporary standards of recipe writing. Six recipe chapters offer easy-to-follow instructions for weekday meals, Shabbos and holiday meals, sausage and cold cuts, vegetables, coffee and cake, and core recipes basic to the preparation of German-Jewish cuisine. Some of these recipes come from friends and family of the authors; others have been culled from interviews conducted by the authors, prewar German-Jewish cookbooks, nineteenth-century American cookbooks, community cookbooks, memoirs, or historical and archival material. The introduction explains the basics of Jewish diet (kosher law). The historical chapter that follows sets the stage by describing Jewish social customs in Germany and then offering a look at life in the vibrant émigré community of Washington Heights in New York City in the 1940s and 1950s. Vividly illustrated with more than fifty drawings by Megan Piontkowski and photographs by Sonya Gropman that show the cooking process as well as the delicious finished dishes, this cookbook will appeal to readers curious about ethnic cooking and how it has evolved, and to anyone interested in exploring delicious new recipes.
[more]

front cover of Gifts of the Gods
Gifts of the Gods
A History of Food in Greece
Andrew and Rachel Dalby
Reaktion Books, 2017
What do we think about when we think about Greek food? For many, it is the meze and the traditional plates of a Greek island taverna at the height of summer. In Gifts of the Gods, Andrew and Rachel Dalby take us into and beyond the taverna in our minds to offer us a unique and comprehensive history of the foods of Greece.

Greek food is brimming with thousands of years of history, lore, and culture. The country has one of the most varied landscapes of Europe, where steep mountains, low-lying plains, rocky islands, and crystal-blue seas jostle one another and produce food and wine of immense quality and distinctive taste. The book discusses how the land was settled, what was grown in different regions, and how certain fruits, herbs, and vegetables became a part of local cuisines. Moving through history—from classical to modern—the book explores the country’s regional food identities as well as the export of Greek food to communities all over the world. The book culminates with a look at one of the most distinctive features of Greece’s food tradition—the country’s world renown hospitality. Illustrated throughout and featuring traditional recipes that blend historical and modern flavors, Gifts of the Gods is a mouth-watering account of a rich and ancient cuisine.
[more]

front cover of Gin
Gin
A Global History
Lesley Jacobs Solmonson
Reaktion Books, 2012

Mother’s Milk, Mother’s Ruin, and Ladies’ Delight. Dutch Courage and Cuckold’s Comfort. These evocative nicknames for gin hint that it has a far livelier history than the simple and classic martini would lead you to believe. In this book, Lesley Jacobs Solmonson journeys into gin’s past, revealing that this spirit has played the role of both hero and villain throughout history.

Taking us back to gin’s origins as a medicine derived from the aromatic juniper berry, Solmonson describes how the Dutch recognized the berry’s alcoholic possibilities and distilled it into the whiskey-like genever. She then follows the drink to Britain, where cheap imitations laced with turpentine and other caustic fillers made it the drink of choice for poor eighteenth-century Londoners. Eventually replaced by the sweetened Old Tom style and later by London Dry gin, its popularity spread along with the British Empire. As people today once again embrace classic cocktails like the gimlet and the negroni, gin has reclaimed its place in the world of mixology. Featuring many enticing recipes, Gin is the perfect gift for cocktail aficionados and anyone who wants to know whether it should be shaken or stirred.
[more]

front cover of The Good Beer Guide to New England
The Good Beer Guide to New England
Andy Crouch
University Press of New England, 2006
With wit, enthusiasm, and a deep respect for the craft of brewing, Andy Crouch profiles nearly one hundred establishments in New England, offering a description and history of each, as well as insights into each brewmaster's philosophy and brewing style. For each brewery and brewpub profiled, Crouch covers the range of beers available and identifies its flagship product; he also highlights his choice for its “best beer,” which is rarely its most popular or best known offering. Crouch offers judicious evaluations of food, ambience, and of course, the beer; he also provides information on the availability of tours, directions and parking, hours of operation, entertainment, local sights of interest, and whether beer is available for take-away. In addition, he includes essays on the brewing process, understanding and appreciating beer, and a list of “eleven great New England beer bars.” Whether well-brewed beer is the focus of a trip or a welcomed complement, beer enthusiasts and novices alike will find this guide a worthwhile companion wherever they travel in New England.
[more]

front cover of Good Bread Is Back
Good Bread Is Back
A Contemporary History of French Bread, the Way It Is Made, and the People Who Make It
Steven Laurence Kaplan
Duke University Press, 2006
In Good Bread Is Back, historian and leading French bread expert Steven Laurence Kaplan takes readers into aromatic Parisian bakeries as he explains how good bread began to reappear in France in the 1990s, following almost a century of decline in quality. Kaplan describes how, while bread comprised the bulk of the French diet during the eighteenth century, by the twentieth, per capita consumption had dropped off precipitously. This was largely due to social and economic modernization and the availability of a wider choice of foods. But part of the problem was that the bread did not taste good. In a culture in which bread is sacrosanct, bad bread was more than a gastronomical disappointment; it was a threat to France's sense of itself. By the mid-1990s bakers rallied, and bread officially designated as "bread of the French tradition" was in demand throughout Paris. Kaplan meticulously describes good bread's ideal crust and crumb (interior), mouth feel, aroma, and taste. He discusses the breadmaking process in extraordinary detail, from the ingredients to the kneading, shaping, and baking, and even the sound bread should make when it comes out of the oven. Kaplan does more than tell the story of the revival of good bread in France. He makes the reader see, smell, taste, feel, and even hear why it is so very wonderful that good bread is back.
[more]

front cover of A Good Drink
A Good Drink
In Pursuit of Sustainable Spirits
Shanna Farrell
Island Press, 2021

“Insightful tour de force… Farrell’s writing is as informative as it is intoxicating”  -- Publishers Weekly


Shanna Farrell loves a good drink. As a bartender, she not only poured spirits, but learned their stories—who made them and how. Living in San Francisco, surrounded by farm-to-table restaurants and high-end bars, she wondered why the eco-consciousness devoted to food didn’t extend to drinks.   

The short answer is that we don’t think of spirits as food. But whether it's rum, brandy, whiskey, or tequila, drinks are distilled from the same crops that end up on our tables. Most are grown with chemicals that cause pesticide resistance and pollute waterways, and distilling itself requires huge volumes of water. Even bars are notorious for generating mountains of trash. The good news is that while the good drink movement is far behind the good food movement, it is emerging.
 
In A Good Drink, Farrell goes in search of the bars, distillers, and farmers who are driving a transformation to sustainable spirits. She meets mezcaleros in Guadalajara who are working to preserve traditional ways of producing mezcal, for the health of the local land, the wallets of the local farmers, and the culture of the community. She visits distillers in South Carolina who are bringing a rare variety of corn back from near extinction to make one of the most sought-after bourbons in the world. She meets a London bar owner who has eliminated individual bottles and ice, acculturating drinkers to a new definition of luxury.
 
These individuals are part of a growing trend to recognize spirits for what they are—part of our food system. For readers who have ever wondered who grew the pears that went into their brandy or why their cocktail is an unnatural shade of red, A Good Drink will be an eye-opening tour of the spirits industry. For anyone who cares about the future of the planet, it offers a hopeful vision of change, one pour at a time.

[more]

front cover of Good Seeds
Good Seeds
A Menominee Indian Food Memoir
Thomas Pecore Weso
Wisconsin Historical Society Press, 2016

In this food memoir, named for the manoomin or wild rice that also gives the Menominee tribe its name, tribal member Thomas Pecore Weso takes readers on a cook’s journey through Wisconsin’s northern woods. He connects each food—beaver, trout, blackberry, wild rice, maple sugar, partridge—with colorful individuals who taught him Indigenous values. Cooks will learn from his authentic recipes. Amateur and professional historians will appreciate firsthand stories about reservation life during the mid-twentieth century, when many elders, fluent in the Algonquian language, practiced the old ways.

Weso’s grandfather Moon was considered a medicine man, and his morning prayers were the foundation for all the day’s meals. Weso’s grandmother Jennie "made fire" each morning in a wood-burning stove, and oversaw huge breakfasts of wild game, fish, and fruit pies. As Weso grew up, his uncles taught him to hunt bear, deer, squirrels, raccoons, and even skunks for the daily larder. He remembers foods served at the Menominee fair and the excitement of "sugar bush," maple sugar gatherings that included dances as well as hard work.

Weso uses humor to tell his own story as a boy learning to thrive in a land of icy winters and summer swamps. With his rare perspective as a Native anthropologist and artist, he tells a poignant personal story in this unique book.

[more]

front cover of Goodbye Gluten
Goodbye Gluten
Kim Stanford
University of North Texas Press, 2014

logo for Rutgers University Press
Great Dishes from New Jersey's Favorite Restaurants
Caparulo, Vicki J.
Rutgers University Press, 2003
.
[more]

front cover of The Great Gelatin Revival
The Great Gelatin Revival
Savory Aspics, Jiggly Shots, and Outrageous Desserts
Ken Albala
University of Illinois Press, 2023
Once synonymous with food novelty, gelatin has re-emerged as an attention-grabbing element of creative cuisine and avant-garde drinkology. Ken Albala’s most fearless food exploration yet takes readers into the sublime world of aspics past and present. Blending history with his trademark zeal for experimentation, Albala traces gelatin’s ever-changing fortunes alongside one-of-a-kind recipes that inspire, delight, and terrify as only jello can do. Gelatin’s wondrous arrival in the medieval era was part of a technological watershed. Today, it reflects our high-tech zeitgeist. Albala encourages readers to celebrate gelatin's return with advice on creating a base and making silicone molds while his outrageous original creations dare you to add some jiggle to breakfast (Eggs Benedict in Champagne Jello), a nightcap (Froot Loop Negroni), or any culinary moment in between.

A lighthearted manifesto for the new age of aspics, The Great Gelatin Revival rattles our very understanding of what food can be.

[more]

front cover of The Great Minnesota Cookie Book
The Great Minnesota Cookie Book
Award-Winning Recipes from the Star Tribune's Holiday Cookie Contest
Lee Svitak Dean
University of Minnesota Press, 2018

Eighty delicious, imaginative recipes from the Star Tribune’s beloved annual cookie contest, with mouth-watering pictures and bakers’ stories

It’s cold in Minnesota, especially around the holidays, and there’s nothing like baking a batch of cookies to warm the kitchen and the heart. A celebration of the rich traditions, creativity, and taste of the region, The Great Minnesota Cookie Book collects the best-loved recipes and baking lore from fifteen years of the Star Tribune’s popular holiday cookie contest. 

Drop cookies and cutouts, refrigerator cookies and bars; Swedish shortbread, Viennese wafers, and French–Swiss butter cookies; almond palmiers; chai crescents and taffy treats; snowball clippers, cherry pinwheels, lime coolers, and chocolate-drizzled churros: a dizzying array and all delightful, the recipes in this book recall memories of holidays past and inspire the promise of happy gatherings to come. 

These are winning cookies in every sense, the best of the best chosen by the contest’s judges, accompanied by beautiful photographs as instructive as they are enticing. A treat for any occasion, whether party, bake sale, or after-school snack, each time- and taste-tested recipe is perfect for starting a tradition of one’s own.

[more]

front cover of Great Old-Fashioned American Desserts
Great Old-Fashioned American Desserts
Beatrice Ojakangas
University of Minnesota Press, 2004

Delicious authentic recipes revised for the modern kitchen

Desserts have always been a fixture at the American table, inspiring pleasant lingering over a cup of coffee and just one more scrumptious bite. From colonial specialties to old-time country favorites, this book presents a complete collection of more than two hundred mouthwatering delights.

Cooking expert Beatrice Ojakangas has researched original sources from across the country to recapture the delicious tastes of Lemon Icebox Cake, Applesauce Crisp, and Rhubarb-Strawberry Pie. Along with each recipe, Ojakangas shares fascinating stories and little-known facts about the history of the dessert. The recipes have been tested and updated for easy preparation with today’s ingredients and techniques, and this book also offers practical advice on buying fresh fruits and cooking pudding. From Yankee Apple Snow to Creole Sweet Potato Pie, Great Old-Fashioned American Desserts provides an enticing tour of the desserts of America’s rich food heritage.

[more]

front cover of Green Chili and Other Impostors
Green Chili and Other Impostors
Furstenau, Nina Mukerjee
University of Iowa Press, 2021
Follow a food trail and you’ll find yourself crisscrossing oceans. Join M. F. K. Fisher Grand Prize for Excellence in Culinary Writing award-winning author Nina Mukerjee Furstenau as she picks through lost tastes with recipes as codes to everything from political resistance to comfort food and much more. Pinpoint the entry of the Portuguese in India by following green chili trails; find the origins of limes; trace tomatoes and potatoes in India to the Malabar Coast; consider what makes a food, or even a person, foreign and marvel how and when they cease to be.

Food history is a world heritage story that has all the drama of a tense thriller or maybe a mystery. Whose food is it? Who gets to tell its tale? Respect for food history might tame the accusations of appropriation, but what is at stake as food traditions and biodiversity ebb away is the great, and not always good, story of us.
 
[more]

front cover of Grow Food, Cook Food, Share Food
Grow Food, Cook Food, Share Food
Perspectives on Eating from the Past and a Preliminary Agenda for the Future
Ken Albala
Oregon State University Press, 2013
Grow Food, Cook Food, Share Food is a practical food history lesson, an editorial on our use of packaged convenience foods, and a call to arms—of the kitchen variety. Mixing food writing and history, adding a dash of cookbook, author and scholar Ken Albala shares the story of what happened when he started taking food history seriously and embarked on a mission to grow, cook, and share food in the ways that people did in the past.

Albala considers what the traditions we have needlessly lost have to offer us today: a serious appreciation for the generative power of the earth, the great pleasures of cooking food, and the joy of sharing food with family, friends, and even strangers. In Albala’s compelling book, obscure seventeenth-century Italian farmer-nobles, Roman statesmen, and quirky cheesemakers from the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries all offer lessons about our relationship with the food we eat.

A rare form of historical activism, Grow Food, Cook Food, Share Food is written for anyone who likes to eat, loves to cook, and knows how to throw a great dinner party.

An OSU Press Horning Visiting Scholars Publication.
[more]

front cover of Gudrun’s Kitchen
Gudrun’s Kitchen
Recipes from a Norwegian Family
Irene O. Sandvold
Wisconsin Historical Society Press, 2011

The youngest of a large Norwegian immigrant family, Gudrun Thue Sandvold was known for her beaming blue eyes and a reserve that gave way to laughter whenever she got together with her sisters. She took immeasurable pride in her children and grandchildren, kept an exquisite home, and turned the most mundane occasion into a party. And to all who knew her, Gudrun’s cooking was the stuff of legend.

Part cookbook, part immigrant story, and part family memoir, Gudrun's Kitchen features hundreds of Gudrun Sandvold’s recipes for comfort food from a time when families and friends gathered at the table and connected with one another every single day. But this book is much more than a guide to Norwegian culinary traditions; it is an important contribution to immigrant history and a vital documentation of our nation’s multicultural heritage.

[more]

front cover of The Gunflint Lodge Cookbook
The Gunflint Lodge Cookbook
Elegant Northwoods Dining
Ron Berg
University of Minnesota Press, 1997

Tantalizing cuisine from the renowned restaurant.

The Gunflint Lodge is Minnesota’s premier resort because of its pristine wilderness location, warm hospitality, and access to some of the finest fishing in the world. Visitors come from across the country not just for the outdoor activities, but for the food served in its rustic lodge.

Whether it’s Opening Day Walleye Fillets with Morel Mushroom Cream Sauce, or Roast Breast of Chicken Pistache with Blackberry Sauce, the Gunflint’s elegant menu, featured recently in Bon Appétit, Men's Journal , and Midwest Living, has won acclaim for inventiveness and sense of northwoods style.

The Gunflint Lodge Cookbook is a “reader’s cookbook,” organized by season with introductory essays by chef Ron Berg. Berg delights in adding fresh Minnesota ingredients to his Gunflint Blueberry Pie and his Wild Rice and Smoked Chicken Soup. There is an extensive section on fish cookery, including tips on frying, sautéing, and grilling, and recipes for a selection of breads, batters, and sauces for fish.

The Gunflint Lodge Cookbook is more than just recipes, however. Resort owner Sue Kerfoot writes about life at the lodge, feeding hungry visitors, and running a gourmet kitchen far from civilization. Justine Kerfoot’s (Woman of the Boundary Waters) introduction looks at lodge history stretching back to 1927, including filling the icehouse, securing ingredients, and pinch-hitting when the chef quits mid-season.

The Gunflint Lodge Cookbook will delight readers with tasty offerings and favorite anecdotes of life on the Gunflint Trail.

[more]


Send via email Share on Facebook Share on Twitter