Posts tagged with American Culinary History

Due to unforeseen circumstances, this event has been canceled, but we plan to reschedule for Fall 2026.

Join us on Friday, April 17th from 2:00-300pm in the Hatcher Gallery Event Space for the first Longone Lecture, a biennial lecture series exploring the history of food and drink in the United States. We are delighted to welcome our first speaker, Rebecca Sharpless, Professor of History at Texas Christian University. Dr. Sharpless writes on the intersections of food, women, and work in the American South. This event is hybrid and a zoom link is also available.

Malinda Russell’s A Domestic Cook Book, published in Paw Paw, MI in 1866 is the oldest known cookbook by an African American woman. A free woman of color from Tennessee who had moved to Michigan to escape violence during the Civil War, Malinda Russell wrote her cookbook in hopes of raising money to return to Tennessee and reclaim her property. This blog post highlights her recipe for cornbread

Please join the Special Collections Research Center and the Sustainable Food Systems Initiative at 5:00pm on Thursday, March 12th for a screening of episode 4 of the documentary series The Price of Milk: The Kids Are Not Alright, followed by a panel discussion with Oatly Global VP of Sustainability Erin Augustine and Food Studies scholar Margot Finn.

The Janice Bluestein Longone Culinary Archive holds more than 2,400 community cookbooks from across the United States, ranging in date from 1871 to 2021. This month’s blog post features two gingerbread cake recipes from The Cook Book of the Woman’s Club in Franklin, New Hampshire, published in 1922.

The William L. Clements Library; the University of Michigan Library, Special Collections Research Center; and the U.S. at 250 program invite you to join a three-part series titled "Drinking the Revolution," exploring the role of beverages in Revolutionary America and the Early Republic. The first lecture will take place on Thursday, Jan. 22nd, 4-5:30pm in the Hatcher Gallery. Join us in person or via zoom.

In Special Collections, our books don’t leave the building, but sometimes the recipes sneak out for a trip to the kitchen. Last week, the U-M Library Art Alliance, the William L. Clements Library, and the Special Collections Research Center teamed up with Student Life Sustainability for a small, hands-on staff event, where we brought two nineteenth century cookie recipes to 21st century tastebuds. 

Miss Parloa was a household name in late 19th century America. As the author of numerous well-known cookbooks, teacher of cooking schools in Boston and New York, and the domestic editor for The Ladies’ Home Journal, Maria Parloa rose far above the obscurity of her origins as an orphan and domestic servant. Her recipe for fried apples is a winner, especially if you can obtain Northern Spy apples!

Join the Book Arts Studio and the Janice Bluestein Longone Culinary Archive for a pop-up printing event in the Shapiro Gallery on Tuesday, Oct. 28th, from 4-5pm.

The Drinking Man’s Diet Cookbook by photographer Robert Cameron, offered a high-protein & hight-fat fad diet, essentially premised on the idea that eating dense calories offered satiation, while allowing space for carbohydrates in wine or cocktails. In the chapter on bread, Cameron suggests this recipe for Avocado Toast.

Popular culture depictions of the “roaring twenties” often focus on speakeasies and illicit cocktail consumption. However, as prohibition (1920-1933) pushed alcoholic beverages into shadowy corners, soft drinks took center stage in cookbooks for home cooks and party hostesses. This month’s recipe comes from Add-a-Leaf Hostess Book (1926) by Betty Beldon, in collaboration with Ida Bailey Allen.