Episodios

  • 148 Making Beef for Dinner - Increases in Early 19th Century Cattle

    148 Making Beef for Dinner - Increases in Early 19th Century Cattle
    Jun 25 2025
    What happens when you grow more cows to make more milk to make more cheese and butter?
    You end up with more oxen that can't make milk - but are useful as a source of beef.

    And this works out well when you are living in a society that craves more meat,
    and are in a place with apparently wide open spaces that are just fine for feeding said cattle.

    A bonus when you have lots of growing industries that are willing to buy beef from you to feed their growing ambitions - whaling, the railroad, new factories, a military pushing out the borders...

    And then... you also have new technologies to cook the beef, and have come up with new flavors for seasoning the beef.

    The result - American is ready to become a beefy country.


    Music Credit: Fingerlympics by Doctor Turtle
    Show Notes: https://thehistoryofamericanfood.blogspot.com/
    Email: TheHistoryofAmericanFood at gmail dot com
    Threads: @THoAFood
    Instagram: @THoAFood
    & some other socials... @THoAFood
    Más Menos
    33 m
  • 147 How to Survive Drinking Milk in the Early 19th Century

    147 How to Survive Drinking Milk in the Early 19th Century
    Jun 11 2025
    So you are a typical early 19th Century American type...

    Is there a dairy scene? Yes.
    But are you drinking milk? Maybe... and probobly only for breakfast.
    Ok... but is it Raw Milk? Most likely not.

    In the early 19th century, most milk products were at least heated (cheese) or outright cooked - almost everything else - or downright boiled - your breakfast milk.

    Funny thing is, Americans have retained their passion for boiled milk at breakfast. We just flavor it with coffee and tea now.

    For more on this and how the evolution of the American Barn got us ready to have Milk Runs on trains, listen in.

    Music Credit: Fingerlympics by Doctor Turtle
    Show Notes: https://thehistoryofamericanfood.blogspot.com/
    Email: TheHistoryofAmericanFood at gmail dot com
    Threads: @THoAFood
    Instagram: @THoAFood
    & some other socials... @THoAFood
    Más Menos
    34 m
  • 146 What Was Early 19th Century America's Problem with Mushrooms?

    146 What Was Early 19th Century America's Problem with Mushrooms?
    May 28 2025
    Check out the NCPTT... while it's still there, and maybe find an unexpectedly cool place to live. Or maybe a cool woodworking job.
    https://www.nps.gov/subjects/ncptt/index.htm

    Hey - so were early Americans eating mushrooms?

    Yeah. But not all that much. Just enough for a mushroom industry to spring up in the end of the century - but only in one place, and only for one kind.

    But in the meantime - mushroom powder is DELICIOUS... and not that hard to make.

    Recipe for 1 quart/4 cups/1 litre of Mushrooms

    Clean your favortie way. Cut or break up.
    Combine with:
    1/2 tsp mace (or slightly less nutmeg)
    5 cloves
    2 bay leaves
    1/4 tsp pepper (or more depending on your tastes)
    1 Tbs salt
    1 small onion quartered (or half a large one)
    1 Tbs fat (butter or your favorite oil)
    1 Tbs vinegar (white/rice/apple cider all good choices)

    Heat over medium-low heat to sweat the mushrooms. When mushrooms have withered - take off heat. Squeeze out all the liquid using lint free tea-towel.

    Save liquid, reduce by 1/2 - Mushroom Ketchup!
    Remove large spices and larger onion pieces. Spread out on drying tray.
    Dehydrate to crispy. (Dehydrator - or 200F/100C for a few hours)
    Crush to powder in favorite appliance.


    Music Credit: Fingerlympics by Doctor Turtle
    Show Notes: https://thehistoryofamericanfood.blogspot.com/
    Email: TheHistoryofAmericanFood at gmail dot com
    Threads: @THoAFood
    Instagram: @THoAFood
    & some other socials... @THoAFood
    Más Menos
    28 m
  • 145 Mushroom History - Food Edition & What Eactly is a Mushroom Anyway

    145 Mushroom History - Food Edition & What Eactly is a Mushroom Anyway
    May 14 2025
    While last episode was drowning in information - this week when hunting down mushroom info... it's a bit of a desert. But no worries, there's still fun stuff to be learned - mainly just what is a mushroom? And how have humans crossed paths with it - in ways besides tripping out?

    Also - how is the lack of information and the limited presence of mushrooms in AMerican food related?

    Some answers are here.

    Also - The Fantasia clip of Tchaikovsky's "Chinese Dance" will let you see (among other things) open and closed mushrooms - the "li'l-est" one with it's veil more or less intact

    Also - that in the 1940's Americans were pretty mushroom clueless

    Music Credit: Fingerlympics by Doctor Turtle
    Show Notes: https://thehistoryofamericanfood.blogspot.com/
    Email: TheHistoryofAmericanFood at gmail dot com
    Threads: @THoAFood
    Instagram: @THoAFood
    & some other socials... @THoAFood
    Más Menos
    29 m
  • 144 Early 19th Century Apples - the Fruit of Progress & Propaganda

    144 Early 19th Century Apples - the Fruit of Progress & Propaganda
    Apr 30 2025
    This week - it’s time to look at the connection between westward American Expansion and the apple. How is the apple all tangled up with our creation of the 19th century tall tales we started to tell on and about ourselves?
    So get ready for a visit from some of the features/specters of that myth making that inhabited a huge part of the 20th century.

    Links:
    Johnny Appleseed Cartoon (1948)
    Paul Bunyan Cartoon (1958)
    John Henry Cartoon 1 (1973 – narrated by Roberta Flack)
    John Henry Cartoon 2 (2000 - Disney)
    Pecos Bill Cartoon (1948)
    Davy Crockett Disney TV show Theme Song (1954 – This is… OOoooF rough)

    Iriana Geogescu's plum dumplings you can use with apples. Or apricots of course.


    Music Credit: Fingerlympics by Doctor Turtle
    Show Notes: https://thehistoryofamericanfood.blogspot.com/
    Email: TheHistoryofAmericanFood at gmail dot com
    Threads: @THoAFood
    Instagram: @THoAFood
    & some other socials... @THoAFood
    Más Menos
    33 m
  • 143 Oats & Hay - Grass Runs the Early 19th Century World

    143 Oats & Hay - Grass Runs the Early 19th Century World
    Apr 16 2025
    As odd as it sounds, there was a time in American Food before oatmeal.

    And while that's wild on it's own, even more impossible to imagine is how much of agriculture used to be dedicated simply to growing food to feed the animals that allowed you to run the farm. Having solar panels and biodigesters to create power on the farm now is pretty wild... but it wasn't that long ago, all things considered when all the energy used on a farm was grown... on the farm!

    But it does help put into perspective how much energy it took to simply grow enough food for the farm - and then a little more to sell. The surplusses we have now - simply NOT possible.

    To learn about the origins of 40 acres and a Mule - no the earlier origins... and how 160 acres would become the standard for American farms, tune in, and marvel at the idea of the oatmeal raisin cookie - and how far away it is from it's high end hose food origin.

    Music Credit: Fingerlympics by Doctor Turtle
    Show Notes: https://thehistoryofamericanfood.blogspot.com/
    Email: TheHistoryofAmericanFood at gmail dot com
    Threads: @THoAFood
    Instagram: @THoAFood
    & some other socials... @THoAFood
    Más Menos
    32 m
  • 142 Are Chickens Alternate Reality Pigs?

    142 Are Chickens Alternate Reality Pigs?
    Apr 2 2025
    Finally - Recipes for early 19th Century Fried Chicken - sorta.

    IT's time to learn some chicken history and face the reality about what chickens were really for in the early 19th century - eggs!
    If you wanted bird meat there were lots of better birds out there to eat above and beyond the scrawny backyard chcicken.
    But that was about to change as the worlds chickens began to come to America.

    To learn about all that and more - listen in.

    And the old Temple in Turkiye / Anatolia
    Göbekli Tepe
    Scorpion Carving (photo 11)


    Music Credit: Fingerlympics by Doctor Turtle
    Show Notes: https://thehistoryofamericanfood.blogspot.com/
    Email: TheHistoryofAmericanFood at gmail dot com
    Threads: @THoAFood
    Instagram: @THoAFood
    & some other socials... @THoAFood
    Más Menos
    41 m
  • 141 The Forking of America - When We Start to Stop Eating with our Hands

    141 The Forking of America - When We Start to Stop Eating with our Hands
    Mar 19 2025
    Ever notice that fabulous dinner parties depicted on screen rarely take place earlier than the 1800's - and in America pretty much always after the Civil War?
    Well! That's because in just about every one of those situations the eating etiquette would look so different it would be unrecognizable - in fact it's likely people would be eating with their fingers!

    Americans have only been eating with forks - on a regualr basis for about 150 years!
    The earliest Americans ate with their hands - becasue so did almost everyone else.

    Oh - and I answer the question, why do Americans constantly switch which hands they hold knife and fork when eating fancy?

    All manner of Fork Trivia is covered.

    Music Credit: Fingerlympics by Doctor Turtle
    Show Notes: https://thehistoryofamericanfood.blogspot.com/
    Email: TheHistoryofAmericanFood at gmail dot com
    Threads: @THoAFood
    Instagram: @THoAFood
    & some other socials... @THoAFood
    Más Menos
    36 m