By Anna Marie Smith and Tom Cook, Fatto a Mano Project Into the depths of Italian culinary history, there remains a search for the most exotic pasta shape; a culinary journey into transitory perfection and ephemeral uniqueness. Then, lies the humble gnocchi. A lump. A dumpling shaped and formed by old hands crooked and weathered or tiny fingers touching raw dough for the first time. The singular gnocco stands alone as Italy’s poor mass of unhinged flour. Like the sculptor before us, gnoc...| The Recipes Project
By Sarah Peters Kernan Listen here, or subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts! In this episode, Sarah Kernan talks to Victoria Flexner, food historian and founder of the historical dining collective, Edible History. She is the author of A History of the World in 10 Dinners: 2,000 Years, 100 Recipes, published by Rizzoli in 2023. Through these projects and her Substack newsletter, Victoria expertly communicates history through food. Follow Victoria Flexner on Substack and Instagram for upda...| The Recipes Project
By Ángel Tuninetti and the Centro de Estudios Heñói Team Paraguay is a poster case for the damage that industrial agriculture can cause on food security and food sovereignty. The landlocked South American country was almost self-sufficient in food production until the 1990s, mainly thanks to the diversified crops and animal production of the fincas … Continue reading “Recetario Soberano”: Defending Sovereignty One Recipe at a Time →| The Recipes Project
By Yanet Acosta A cookbook is much more than a simple collection of recipes.[i] In the case of Cocina de recursos (Deseo mi comida) by Ignacio Doménech, the cookbook is not only a tool of critique but also a form of resistance. It pushes back against the devastation of war, a devastation that leaves its … Continue reading Anguish as a Form of Resistance: Ignacio Doménech’s Cocina de Recursos (Deseo mi comida) in Civil War Spain →| The Recipes Project
By Pradeep Barua The Indian Army participated in both world wars in the twentieth century. During the First World War (1914-1918,) 1.3 million Indian soldiers fought for the British Empire. Another two million men joined the Indian Army and fought for the allies in World War Two (1939-1945).[i] In the latter case, feeding this massive … Continue reading Curry Goes to War: Indian Army Field Rations in World War Two →| The Recipes Project
By Bridget María Chesterton The defeat of Paraguay by its powerful neighbors, Brazil, Argentina, and Uruguay, during the War of the Triple Alliance (1864-1870) left the country in ruins. The complex causes of the war can be boiled down to the fact that Paraguayans sought to limit the growing power and influence of Brazil … Continue reading Remembering Francisco Solano López’s Foodways in Paraguay →| The Recipes Project
By Kimba Stahler Flipping through recipe cards or a cookbook is not the apolitical exercise some might think. Whether picked by workers earning a fair wage in a safe environment or transported by truck drivers fighting for a better union contract, ingredients politicize meals. Historically and recently, American consumer boycotts have moved the picket line … Continue reading Stovetop Solidarity: “Recipes for Semi-Starvation” and Antipoverty Organizing in American Cities →| The Recipes Project
By KC Hysmith, PhDPackaged in a brown paper and cellophane fold-over bag, not unlike those you’d find at your corner bakery or at the farmers’ market, the Beaux “Bread Bag” contains a hefty stack of paper printed with information about reproductive rights and health care access. Activists gather in-person around a table to share this … Continue reading “Pain au Levain”: Reproductive Rights, Recipes, and Community Cookbooks →| The Recipes Project
By Jennifer “JJ” HarbsterThe Library of Congress has been collecting U.S. community cookbooks since the copyright deposit of one of the country’s first community cookbooks, Maria Moss’s 1864 “Poetical Cook Book” which raised funds for wounded Civil War soldiers. What has amassed since are thousands of titles that represent more than a century of U.S. … Continue reading In Search of Meat Substitute Recipes in Historical U.S. Community Cookbooks →| The Recipes Project
By Suzanne Zoe Joskow When I began building The Community Cookbook Archive — made up of over four hundred Los Angeles-based collective recipe books, spanning three centuries — I was struck by the books’ role in Southern California place-making. The majority of community cookbooks are self-published, which means the included recipes are not from professional chefs. … Continue reading Community Cookbooks as Mapping Resources →| The Recipes Project
By Agnibha MaityIn Bengal, culinary practices have been influenced at different times in history by different communities, and modern-day Bengali cookbooks celebrate the amalgamation of the various cooking techniques Bengali cooks picked up during these cross-continental interactions. However, the rise of the Bengali middle class and modernisation project – including kitchens – in the nineteenth … Continue reading Handbook for Everyday Cooking: Leela Majumdar’s Infusion Approach →| The Recipes Project
By James Edward Malin and Gary Thompson This two-part post elaborates on three problems inhibiting the building and connecting of culinary research databases: obstacles to combining historical mediums, differences in data entry structures, and challenges of historical culinary ontologies. It could be said that culinary history’s multidisciplinarity nature makes it difficult to marshal a level … Continue reading Pasta, Pasta, or Maccheroni? Obstacles in the Digital Culinary History Environ...| The Recipes Project
By Maggie Vanderford, Juli McLoone, and Kira Dietz Whoever coined the phrase “easy as pie!” has never made an eighteenth-century historic pie recipe before. Historical recipes represent opportunities to build community and establish connections to the past. The challenges of such a project are multifold: Fining a recipe in the archives, “translating” it for modern-day … Continue reading Sifting Through the Archives: Pi(e)Day and Creating Community Through Experiential Historic Bakin...| The Recipes Project
