Posts tagged with American Culinary History in Blog Beyond the Reading Room

Showing 1 - 10 of 30 items
smiling white woman with short gray hair
September 1, 2022
  • Juli McLoone
Culinary historian and Adjunct Curator Janice Bluestein Longone passed away on August 3, 2022 at the age of 89. Jan was the principal donor and driving force behind the formation of the Janice Bluestein Longone Culinary Archive, the culmination of a life-long interest in culinary history that she shared with her husband Dan Longone, University of Michigan Chemistry Professor Emeritus.
A complete setting of child sized dinnerware and flatware, complete with a small teapot and teacup is in the foreground, while in the background an opening of the Betty Crocker Cookbook for Boys and Girls is visible alongside two large apples.
July 7, 2022
  • Juli McLoone
A new exhibit pairs a dozen selections from the Janice Bluestein Longone Culinary Archive (Special Collections Research Center) with dishes from the International Museum of Dinnerware Design. Enjoy this display in the Audubon Room from Thursday, July 7 to Thursday, September 29.
February 19, 2021
  • Anne Cong-Huyen
On Friday, February 12th, the U-M Library hosted its third annual Douglass Day celebration in honor of Frederick Douglass, 19th century American abolitionist, author, and orator. This year the event highlighted the life, legacy and work of Mary Church Terrell with a lecture from Dr. Shelley Haley followed by transcription, digital art-making, and socializing over baked goods!
A brown rectangular loaf of bread cools on a wire rack on a white kitchen counter.
May 26, 2020
  • Angel Lena Caranna
Due to newfound free time exclusively spent at home, bread baking has become massively popular as of late. Americans collectively baked enough bread to cause a national yeast shortage. For me, remote work at home led to research on Special Collection’s culinary archive; and, desperate to preserve my last packet of instant dry yeast, I decided to find out how bakers before us made non-yeast bread.
Rectangular "Rose Cake" with orange icing from Malinda Russell's A Domestic Cook Book
April 29, 2019
  • Juli McLoone
Earlier this month, Special Collections was pleased to host WEMU news reporter Jorge Avellan as he researched a story for their "Hidden in Plain Sight" program, featuring Malinda Russell's A Domestic Cook Book. This unpreposessing little 39-page booklet in faded paper wrappers is one of the greatest treasures of the Janice Bluestein Longone Culinary Archive. Published in Paw Paw, Michigan in 1866, A Domestic Cook Book is the only known copy of the oldest known cookbook published by an African American.
Book Cover of Taste of the Nation
September 12, 2017
  • Juli McLoone
Join us at 4pm on Sept. 20 in the Hatcher Gallery. Dr. Camille Bégin, author of Taste of the Nation: The New Deal Search for America’s Food, will shape a cultural and sensory history of New Deal-era eating, illustrating how nostalgia, prescriptive gender ideals, and racial stereotypes shaped how the FWP was able to frame regional food cultures as “American.”
Paper wrapper with title of publication and illustration of marijuana plant in black ink
August 17, 2017
  • Juli McLoone
A quick peek at two cookbooks from the late 1960s, one for Summer of Love hippies and another for their more straight-laced counterparts at home.
Drawing of book with mounts and snake. Open pages read "HAPPY BIRTHDAY."
August 9, 2016
  • Karmen Hall Beecroft
In 1824, Mary Randolph poured a lifetime's worth of experience as manager of a grand estate into a single unassuming volume of recipes and household hints. Arguably America's first regional cookbook, The Virginia House-wife represents decades of changing fortunes and evolving palates for the Randolphs, and indeed the whole country, in the years immediately proceeding the Revolutionary War.
Photographs of Armenian foods
July 20, 2016
  • Juli McLoone
The Janice Bluestein Longone Culinary Archive (JBLCA) at the University of Michigan Special Collections Library documents American culinary history, defined broadly to include both influences upon American foodways and the influence of American culinary practices elsewhere. The recent acquisition of a small cookbook collection formerly belonging to Colonel Karnig “Carl” Mahakian (1926-2015) contributes to JBLCA's strength in immigrant culinary traditions and charity cookbooks.
An drawn illustration of a boy, eyes closed, eating a doughnut fresh from the machine.
June 3, 2016
  • Kate Foster Hutchens
The first Friday in June is National Doughnut Day! We have items across our collections that feature this delectable treat...