As We Eat

The story of fruit spreads and how they become staples of the breakfast table is as much about the similarities between fruit and techniques to preserve it as the story is of its differences. In today’s episode, we briefly revisit the origins of food preservation to show how the fundamental desire to be able to revisit the taste of fresh, sweet strawberries has led to the proliferation of all manners of jam, jellies, preserves, and more to our breakfast tables. We also explore how dishes revered by royalty - and whose costly ingredients were only affordable to those of an elevated class - made their way generously to breakfast tables across Great Britain and beyond.

Sources We Found Helpful for this Episode Polaner All Fruit Commercial (1989)

US Supreme Court - “62 CASES, MORE OR LESS, EACH CONTAINING SIX JARS OF JAM et al. v. UNITED STATES”

De Re Coquinaria by Apicius

Books We Think You’ll Enjoy ReadingFood Swap: Specialty Recipes for Bartering, Sharing, and Giving by Emily Paster 

Artisanal Preserves: Small-Batch Jams, Jellies, Marmalades, and More by Madelaine Bullwinkel 

Foolproof Preserving: A Guide to Small Batch Jams, Jellies, Pickles, Condiments & More by America’s Test Kitchen 

The Oxford Companion to Food by Alan Davidson

De Re Coquinaria by Apicius

Recipes You Really Need to Try

Hot & Saucy Cocktail Meatballs (with Grape Jelly) by Betty Crocker

Red Wine Jelly by Creative Culinary 

Bakewell Tarts by Scotch and Scones

Freezer Jam by Pookspantry

Orange Marmalade by Family Spice

Episodes We Think You’ll Enjoy

EP 2 Pie: Crazy Labels, Cockney Rhyming Slang, and Greek Melons

EP 32 Revisiting Pies: Desperation, Thrift, and Brand Campaigns

Ep 29 Kitchen Technology: Canning, Can Openers, and Cookie Cutters

EP 45 Cookbooks: Guardians of Culture and Cuisine

By Jams, Jellies and Conserves Transcript

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As an Amazon Associate and member of other affiliate programs, we earn from qualifying purchases at no additional cost to you. This helps us to continue to bring you stories, history, and personal musings about food, cuisines, traditions, and recipes

Cookbooks provide context into a specific cuisine; allow its reader to emulate royal diets; provide meaningful instruction in how to nourish and nurture others with food; or even just whet the imagination and the appetite. This latest installment of As We Eat’s Kitchen Technology series turns our attention to the cookbook - a powerhouse culinary tool that instructs, educates, and inspires. 

What does your favorite cookbook say about you? For centuries, cookbooks have not only instructed us on how to prepare a dish, but also educated, entertained, and inspired our food preferences and choices. Join us as we reflect on some of our favorites and muse about how the cookbook of the future may look.

Cookbooks form a critical backbone in how we conceptualize and communicate how a dish tastes through its headnotes, the ingredients of which it is composed (ingredient list), and the means by which to make it (technique).

For As We Eat’s latest addition to our celebrated Kitchen Technology series, Leigh and Kim delve into the history of cookbooks - the oldest dating to the First Century! - with an eye towards how cookbooks instructed and informed its readers about the diets of royalty and the foods that were both delicious and healthy. These recipes often reflect the abundance and variety of ingredients available to the wealthy.

As food scarcity decreased and variety became more accessible to all classes, cookbooks shifted focus towards the needs of the common man. Technological and cultural innovations that benefitted literacy and made home kitchens more capable of producing larger, regular meals was reflected in the variety of cookbooks published by acclaimed chefs, food pioneers, and food companies. Our grocery stores and pantries filled with both fresh and canned foods that changed the fundamental question from what to cook but how to make the most of our abundance. 

Kim shared how four keystone books in her personal cookbook collection serve as historical touch points to vintage recipes and special family memories, and we conclude with speculation about how today’s technology will influence how future generations might create, share, and use cookbooks and recipes.

Sources We Found Helpful for this Episode From Betty Crocker to Feminist Food Studies

The Ancient Mesopotamian Tablet as Cookbook

A Brief History of Cookbooks Worldwide

A History of Cookbooks

Books We Think You’ll  Enjoy Reading

Apicius: De Re Coquinaria Cookbook

Plain Cookery for the Working Classes

The Art of Cookery Made Plain and Easy

Mastering the Art of French Cooking, two-volume set

Complete Indian Cookbook

Betty Crocker’s Cookbook, 1974 Ring-Bound

Episode Transcript

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We would love to connect with you

AsWeEat.com, on Instagram @asweeat, join our new As We Eat community on Facebook, or subscribe to the As We Eat Journal.

Do you have a great idea 💡 for a show topic, a recipe 🥘 that you want to share, or just say “hi”👋🏻?  Send us an email at [email protected]

Review As We Eat on Podchaser or Apple Podcast. We would like to know what you think.

As a member affiliate programs, we earn from qualifying purchases at no additional cost to you. This helps us to continue to bring you stories, history, and personal musings about food, cuisines, traditions, and recipes

Did Paul McCartney and Michael Jackson nibble on Black & White cookies while composing their famous “Ebony & Ivory” duet? We may never know the answer to that question, but As We Eat can tell you about the origins of the Black & White cookie (and its Half Moon cookie cousin) which became a well known metaphor for racial harmony thanks to an episode of Seinfeld. Kudos to Abby Lamb for the episode topic suggestion!

Can a Cookie Solve our Woes

“Look to the cookie,” Jerry Seinfeld exclaimed in 1994 and suddenly a cookie went viral.

Thanks to a suggestion from As We Eat friend Abby Lamb, we are taking a long look into the Black & White Cookie, a sweet treat made world famous as a metaphor for racial harmony by the popular Seinfeld sitcom of the early 1990s. 

In this episode, we discuss The Dinner Party episode of Seinfeld that launched the not well known black & white cookie into notoriety (without the help of social media). Leigh rounds up the history of the half chocolate / half vanilla cookie and its purported cousin, the halfmoon cookie and Kim surveys other foods that hit the mainstream with a little boost from media - brown cows, cheesecake, White Russians, and more.

Sources We Found Helpful for this Episode 

• Food Timeline Website
• Vice Website, The Real History of Black and White Cookies, Joanne Spataro
• 'Look to the Cookie': An Ode in Black and White - The New York Times

Books We Think You’ll  Enjoy Reading

• Arthur Schwartz's New York City Food by Arthur Schwartz

Recipes You Really Need to Try

• Spaghetti Tacos by Kitty Johnson on All Recipes
• White Russian on Liquor.com

Transcript

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We would love to connect with you

AsWeEat.com, on Instagram @asweeat, join our new As We Eat community on Facebook, or subscribe to the As We Eat Journal.

Do you have a great idea 💡 for a show topic, a recipe 🥘 that you want to share, or just say “hi”👋🏻?  Send us an email at [email protected]

Review As We Eat on Podchaser or Apple Podcast. We would like to know what you think.

The first episode of a new As We Eat series highlights the accomplished lives and careers of Leah Chase and Edna Lewis - two African-American chefs who not only had brilliant careers but whose work in the culinary world highlights how important food culture is to community-building.

We know good food when we eat it, but how often do we know the names, faces, and lives of the chefs who make those really special dishes that warm our souls? Today’s  episode is the first in a new As We Eat series highlighting the interesting lives and careers of the heroes and pioneers of food. As the United States celebrates Juneteenth, we felt it appropriate to start with two amazing chefs - Lead Chase and Edna Lewis - whose work demonstrates how food can build and sustain community, particularly in times of change.

Sources We Found Helpful for this Episode 

Oral History interview with Leah Chase (with video)

Dooky Chase's Restaurant Since 1941 | About the Chef

The 10 Dishes that Made My Career: Leah Chase

Books We Think You’ll  Enjoy ReadingThe Dooky Chase Cookbook by Leah Chase

And Still I Cook by Leah Chase

Leah Chase: Paintings by Gustave Blache III

Down Home Healthy, Family Recipes of Black American Chefs by Leah Chase

Beyond Gumbo: Creole Fusion Food from the Atlantic Rim by Jessica B. Harris

The Taste of Country Cooking by Edna Lewis

The Edna Lewis Cookbook by Edna Lewis and Evangeline Peterson

Recipes You Really Need to Try

Gumbo 101 (Nourish with Leah Chase)

Leah Chase’s Gumbo z’Herbes (Southern Living)

Edna Lewis’ White Pound Cake the Kitchn

Transcript

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Do you have a favorite food pioneer? 

We would love to connect with you

AsWeEat.com, on Instagram @asweeat, join our new As We Eat community on Facebook, or subscribe to the As We Eat Journal.

Do you have a great idea 💡 for a show topic, a recipe 🥘 that you want to share, or just say “hi”👋🏻?  Send us an email at [email protected]

Review As We Eat on Podchaser or Apple Podcast. We would like to know what you think.

Celebrated throughout the United States since 1865, June 19th is marked by lots of good food with a particular emphasis on the colors red, yellow, and green. Kim & Leigh go behind the scenes to explore and learn more about Juneteenth and its tasty traditions.

In 2021, the federal government of the United States added a new national holiday on June 19 - Juneteenth National Independence Day (aka Juneteenth). This day, celebrated around the United States since 1865, marks the completed emancipation of enslaved Black and African-African people within the state of Texas and the last of the Confederate States. With its marked colors of red, yellow, and green, Juneteenth food traditions honor African-American foodways while evoking the diverse diaspora of cultures of enslaved people brought to the United States. Leigh and Kim dive into the color significance of the foods to discuss how they bring hope, vision, and power of community to Juneteenth celebrants.

Sources We Found Helpful for this Episode 

What to Eat on Juneteenth Serious Eats

Dr Fredrick Douglass Opie

Toni Tipton

Yahoo News Interview with Carla Hall and Marcus Samuelsson

High on the Hog Netflix

Books We Think You’ll Enjoy Reading

Hog and Hominy Soul Food from Africa to America by Dr. Fredrick Douglass Opie

Black Smoke African-Americans and the United States of BBQ by Adrian Miller

High on the Hog: A Culinary Journey from Africa to America by Jessica B. Harris

Recipes You Really Need to Try

Corn bread by Chef Curl Ardee

Southern Corn Salad by Black People’s Recipes 

Grits by The Soul Food Pot

Sweet Potato Pie from Whisk It Real Gud 

Sweet Potato Cheesecake from Lenox Bakery

Candied Yams by Simply Lakita

Peas and Rice from Maple Points

Black Eyed Pea Salad from Savor and Sage

Black Eyed Peas and Sweet Potato Salad by Sweet Savant

Braised Collard Greens from Tia Mowry 

Collard Green Salad from Black Girls Who Brunch 

Coconut Collard Greens from Open Invitation Entertainment

Smothered Okra with Chicken and Smoked Sausage from Food is Love Made Edible

Transcript

🎧 Click here for the full, interactive transcript of this episode 🎧

We would love to connect with you

AsWeEat.com, on Instagram @asweeat, join our new As We Eat community on Facebook, or subscribe to the As We Eat Journal.

Do you have a great idea 💡 for a show topic, a recipe 🥘 that you want to share, or just say “hi”👋🏻? Send us an email at [email protected]

Review As We Eat on Podchaser or Apple Podcast. We would like to know what you think.

As a member of affiliate programs, we earn from qualifying purchases at no additional cost to you. This helps us to continue to bring you stories, history, and personal musings about food, cuisines, traditions, and recipes

In today’s As We Eat episode, Leigh and Kim explore how the realms of food and military intersect, both in times of war and in times of peace.

From ration cards on the home front to ceremonial cauldrons wielded by the Janissary Corps in the Ottoman Empire, the power of food affects how we grow, prepare, eat, and organize our military.

In times of peace and in times of war, food becomes of paramount interest and influence. We reflect on wartime tactics that control and reuse precious food commodities on the home front while also keeping soldiers well fed and their tools well-greased. We also discover the storied history of the Janissary Corps - elite soldiers of the Ottoman Empire whose regiments rallied around a bronze kazan (ceremonial cauldron) in a reflection of the value that food plays in a soldier’s life.

Sources We Found Helpful for this Episode 

Kitchen Table Conversation

Oxford Food Symposium

The Janissaries

Being an Ottoman Janissary Meant War, Mutiny, and Baklava - Gastro Obscura

The Fighting Messmates - The Curious Role of Food in Turkey's Legendary Janissary Corps - MilitaryHistoryNow.com

Did You Know: Food History - Cooking and Soldiering in the Ottoman Empire

Kitchen Organization, Ceremonial and Celebratory Meals in the Ottoman Empire

Books We Think You’ll Enjoy Reading

Taste of War by Lizzie Collingham

Finding Betty Crocker, The Secret Life of America's First Lady of Food by Susan Marks

Episodes We Think You’ll Enjoy

EP 10: Super Bowl: Civil War Battles, Tailgating, and Buffalo Chicken Wings

EP 23: Dutch Ovens: Wedding Gifts, Symbols of Independence, and Members of the Family

EP 36 Feminism at the Kitchen Counter: From Betty Crocker to Julia Child

EP 37 From the Kitchen to the Voting Booth: Suffrage for Women and Community Cookbooks

Transcript

🎧 Click here for the full, interactive transcript of this episode 🎧 

We would love to connect with you

AsWeEat.com, on Instagram @asweeat, join our new As We Eat community on Facebook, or subscribe to the As We Eat Journal.

Do you have a great idea 💡 for a show topic, a recipe 🥘 that you want to share, or just say “hi”👋🏻? Send us an email at [email protected]

Review As We Eat on Podchaser or Apple Podcast. We would like to know what you think.

As an Amazon Associate and member of other affiliate programs, we earn from qualifying purchases at no additional cost to you. This helps us to continue to bring you stories, history, and personal musings about food, cuisines, traditions, and recipes.

Listen as Betty Ann shares her memories of a special childhood Sunday meal, how it become a touchstone for her family in America, and some surprising advice on how to make Spanish-style Filipino Cocido today.

Armed with her mother's dog-eared cookbooks packed in her suitcase, Betty Ann Quirino and her family started a new life in a new country far from family and the familiar.

Spanish-style Filipino Cocido is a dish from Betty Ann Quirino's childhood in rural Philippines. The ingredients that were used for her traditional Sunday supper were gleaned from a fruitful backyard farm. A farm tended with love and respect by Betty Ann’s father. To Betty Ann’s delight, the ingredients for this heritage dish were easily accessible in their new country and provided comfort and familiarity to her family in a new and foreign country.

Spanish-style Filipino Cocido Transcript

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Books We Think You’ll Enjoy Reading

• My Mother’s Philippine Recipes by Betty Ann Quirino
• Instant Filipino Recipes: My Mother’s Traditional Philippine Food In a Multicooker Pot by Betty Ann Quirino
• How to Cook Philippine Desserts: Cakes and Snacks by Betty Ann Quirino

Recipes You Really Need to Try

• Spanish-style Filipino Cocido with Eggplant Hash and Tomato Sauce - Asian in America Mag

Episodes We Think You’ll Like

• Fire & Ice: Two Modern Kitchen Technologies that Changed Our Kitchens and Diets
• Fisherman's Stew: A Savory Representation of Region, Culture, and Flavors
• Sailing the Umami Seas: What's In Your Pantry

We would love to connect with you

AsWeEat.com, on Instagram @asweeat, join our new As We Eat community on Facebook, or subscribe to the As We Eat Journal.

Do you have a great idea 💡 for a show topic, a recipe 🥘 that you want to share, or just say “hi”👋🏻? Send us an email at [email protected]

Review As We Eat on Podchaser or Apple Podcast. We would like to know what you think.

And please subscribe to As We Eat, Going Places. Eric and Leigh will be traveling in their converted van sharing stories of food culture from the road.

👉🏻As We Eat, Going Places 👈🏻

As an Amazon Associate and member of other affiliate programs, we earn from qualifying purchases at no additional cost to you. This helps us to continue to bring you stories, history, and personal musings about food, cuisines, traditions, and recipes

In the latest episode of our “What’s in Your Pantry” series, Leigh and Kim plunge into the stories of two flavorful pantry staples that brighten up our foods and add some spark to our Bloody Mary’s - Worcestershire Sauce and Fish Sauce. Come for the correct way to pronounce Worcestershire Sauce and stay for the fish sauce suggestions!

Sources We Found Helpful for this Episode 

Lea & Perrins website

The British Museum

BBC Food

Bon Appetit

The Rise, Fall, and Rise Again of Garum - Can the Can

Books We Think You’ll Enjoy Reading

Natural History by Pliny the Elder

On Food and Cooking by Harold McGee

The Red Boat Fish Sauce Cookbook: Beloved Recipes from the Family Behind the Purest Fish Sauce by Cuong Pham and Tien Nguyen

The Lea & Perrins Cookbook: Worcestershire Sauce Cookbook by Paul Hartley

The Fish Sauce Cookbook: 50 Umami-Packed Recipes from Around the Globe by Veronica Meewes 

Recipes You Really Need to Try

Baked Eggs with Bloody Mary - Lea & Perrins UK

Red Boat Bloody Mary - David Welsh via Food52

Sticky Chicken - Mary Berry

Weeknight Pad Thai - Claire Saffitz via Bon Appetit/Epicurious

Sailing the Umami Seas Transcript

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We would love to know if you have an aha moment from this episode? Join the conversation.

Fish have played an integral part in sustaining cultures around the world. In this episode, we take a closer look at several classic fish stews and how they have come to define a specific region and represent the communities and cultures who make them. Although similar in their foundations, each stew is characterized by the unique, local ingredients used.

Kim starts out our exploration into fish stews with a brief history into fishing. The ability of our nomadic ancestors to trap, catch, and subdue protein sources, aided in the development of our brains which in turn allowed us to create better systems to trap, catch and subdue protein sources. Nomads that had access to waterways discovered ingenious ways to prepare the catch of the day.

Leigh discusses two regional classic dishes whose origins are directly related to the catch of the day, cioppino and washtub stew. These two fish stews, from opposite sides of the country, are classic examples of the influence of regional ingredients as well as the communities from which they sprung.

To continue the discussion, Kim recounts her ancestral heritage and flavor preferences of the Mediterranean. With Provence being her family's origin, bouillabaisse is the fisherman’s stew for which Kim waxes poetic, with a little help from Julia Child.

To round out our fisherman’s stew conversation, we end with a conversation about authenticity and accuracy and how these two concepts relate directly to chowders.

Please join in the conversation and let us know your thoughts on the best fisherman’s stew or your thoughts on authenticity or accuracy.

Sources We Found Helpful for this Episode

• Field & Stream: How to Make a Gorge Hook
• Our State Website
• French Chef: Bouillabaisse A La Marseillaise
• History of Chowder
• In Search of the Real Bouillabaisse, Marseille’s Gift to the Fish Lover

Books We Think You’ll Enjoy Reading

• History of Food by Reay Tannahill
• A History of Chowder: Four Centuries of a New England Meal by Robert Cox and Jacob Walker
• 50 Chowders by Jasper White

Recipes You Really Need to Try

• Cioppino - Once Upon a Chef
• French Bouillabaisse - Family Style Food
• New England Clam Chowder - Damn Delicious
• Manhattan Clam Chowder- Dinner at the Zoo

Fisherman’s Stew Transcript

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We would love to connect with you

AsWeEat.com, on Instagram @asweeat, join our new As We Eat community on Facebook, or subscribe to the As We Eat Journal.

Do you have a great idea 💡 for a show topic, a recipe 🥘 that you want to share, or just say “hi”👋🏻? Send us an email at [email protected]

Review As We Eat on Podchaser or Apple Podcast. We would like to know what you think.

And please subscribe to As We Eat, Going Places. Eric and Leigh will be traveling in their converted van sharing stories of food culture from the road.

👇🏻

As We Eat, Going Places

Ever since humans first learned that most foods taste better when cooked, we sought ways to harness fire and ice. Too much heat or chill can burn and destroy our food just as much as too little can spoil all our efforts at a tasty, nutritious meal. Yet development of two of the most fundamental technologies in modern cooking - the stove and the refrigerator - took a long time to be realized in the home kitchen.

As we draw to a close on Women’s History Month, Leigh and Kim look into two modern marvels that forever shaped how we approach food, cooking, and eating - the stove and the refrigerator. Where once our foremothers struggled to cook and bake on ranges with no thermostat control or used huge blocks of river ice to keep milk fresh, todays’ cooks have the option to store and heat foods from virtually every corner of the globe.

Books We Think You’ll Enjoy Reading

Heat and Cold: Mastering the Great Indoors - Bern Nagengast

Consider the Fork - Bee Wilson

We would love to connect with you

AsWeEat.com, on Instagram @asweeat, join our new As We Eat community on Facebook, or subscribe to the As We Eat Journal.

Do you have a great idea 💡 for a show topic, a recipe 🥘 that you want to share, or just say “hi”👋🏻? Send us an email at [email protected]

Review As We Eat on Podchaser or Apple Podcast. We would like to know what you think.

And please subscribe to As We Eat, Going Places. Eric and Leigh will be traveling in their converted van sharing stories of food culture from the road.

👇🏻

As We Eat, Going Places