Early American Eating

Back before eating locally was trendy, it was a necessity.  In Depression-era America, one of the WPA projects for out-of-work writers – including Eudora Welty, Saul Bellow and Zora Neale Hurston – was the documentation of regional food traditions.  The bombing of Pearl Harbor cut the project short, and the unedited manuscripts were sent to the Library of Congress where they gathered dust for many years.

Fast forward several decades, and enter Mark Kurlansky (author of several outstanding books that examine history through the lens of food, including Cod: A Biography of the Fish that Changed the World and Salt: A World History).  To create his (lengthily titled) book, The Food of a Younger Land:  A Portrait of American Food – Before the National Highway System, Before Chain Restaurants, and Before Frozen Food, When the Nation’s Food Was Seasonal, Regional, and Traditional – from the Lost WPA Files, Kurlansky combed through the archive of WPA files and unearthed some fascinating writing about America’s early eating habits.  He extracts essays, anecdotes and recipes from the original documents, and prefaces each regional section with his own historical analysis. 

Far more than a cookbook, this book immerses the reader in bygone cultures by giving accounts of regional traditions such as Georgia Coca-Cola parties, Puget Sound salmon feasts and geoduck cookery, New York automats, Minnesota lutefisk suppers, and a Vermont maple sugaring party.

While Kurlansky, a best-selling author, has received a lot of attention with his new title, a book covering remarkably similar ground, America Eats!: On the Road with the WPA: the Fish Fries, Box Supper Socials, and Chitlin Feasts that Define Real American Food by Pat Willard, has been lower on the radar (which means you can obtain a library copy more quickly!).  Willard draws on the same WPA files, but her book has a more contemporary focus since it follows the author’s quest to see whether the food traditions documented by the WPA writers in the 1930s are still alive and well in today’s U.S.A.

America Eats! (which was actually published 1 year before The Food of a Younger Land) also includes essays, recipes and stories from the 1930’s WPA files, providing an intriguing window into American eating and social mores of the past.

If you are interested in contemporary local eating, take a look at some of this blog’s previous postings on the subject, including Localvore Love, Farmers Markets, and Gardening in the City, or “No yard, no problem!”.  There is plenty of food for thought!