Thanks to everyone who joined us for Episode 21 of the Food History Happy Hour! We discussed pumpkins and their indigenous origins, as well as the history of pumpkin pie spice, including a discussion of the European spice trade, where various spices come from, and how they went from the purview of the fabulously wealthy to hopelessly old-fashioned, to ragingly popular again. Plus we talk about how pumpkin spice got its name and what's REALLY in those cans of pumpkin puree.

This particular recipe comes from the famous Jerry Thomas, in his 1862 book, The Bar-Tender's Guide but the drink is actually much older, dating back to the 18th century, and features in the novels of Jane Austen and Charles Dickens. By the Victorian period, it was commonly used for children's parties (shocking I know), and it seems that Jerry Thomas may have lifted his recipe directly from Isabella Beeton.

I followed this recipe pretty closely, and it makes a LOT - I filled my teapot full - so be aware that either you need to save any leftovers for a soda negus (also in Jerry Thomas), share with friends, or cut the recipe down.

Here's the original:

Here's the version I made:

4 cups water, brought to a boil
2 cups Ruby port
1/2 cup sugar
4 tablespoons bottled lemon juice
4 cloves
about 1/4 teaspoon fresh grated nutmeg

This makes one and a half quarts of hot Negus, which is delicious but was too sweet for my taste. I'm guessing the original recipe called for Tawny port, which is not as sweet as Ruby port. I also cheated and used bottled lemon juice instead and added cloves because another recipe for soda negus I saw called for them. It really is imperative to use fresh nutmeg for this recipe, as the ground kind doesn't hold a candle in flavor. One or two nutmegs will last you a long time, so you don't have to buy a ton.

It is fairly addictive, so just be forewarned. I may or may not have had four cups in the course of Food History Happy Hour and writing this blog...

I had fun researching this topic and even learned a few things! One of my primary sources for the European spice trade as the book Nathaniel's Nutmeg, by Giles Milton. It's a highly engaging read and designed for a more popular audience, so if anyone wants to read about bloodthirsty Europeans obsessed with spice and their various maritime misfortunes, check it out.

other fun links include:

• ‘Pumpkin Spice’ Has Been a Thing for 3,500 Years
• Can You Get High on Nutmeg? Why This Isn’t a Good Idea
• A Brief History of Pumpkin Pie in America
  
• Pumpkin Beer History: Colonial Necessity to Seasonal Treat
  

The next Food History Happy Hour won't be until Friday, October 30, 2020, but we'll be discussing Halloween! And making the Stone Fence cocktail. I hope you'll join us then. 

AND! I have a special treat for Patreon members old and new - join or renew at the $5 level and above, and you'll get a special Halloween packet mailed to you! Chock full of all kinds of fun history, images, party ideas, recipes, and more. 

If you enjoyed this episode of Food History Happy Hour and would like to support more livestreams, please consider joining us on Patreon. Patrons get special perks like access to members-only content. ​

Thanks to everyone who participated in this week's Food History Happy Hour! In this episode we made the Jersey Cooler from the Roving Bartenter (1946), but the cocktail itself appears to have been invented by the famous Jerry Thomas as it appears in his 1862 How to Mix Drinks. 

With the primary ingredient hard cider, I thought it a particularly apt cocktail for our discussion of apples in America! I chose apples as the topic for tonight's Food History Happy Hour because mid-September is when apple harvest in the Northeast usually really starts to get underway. Coincidentally (on my part, anyway), tonight is also the start Rosh Hashanah, or the Jewish New Year, which runs until Sunday. One of the components of Rosh Hashanah is the use of apples and honey, particularly in Ashkenazi Jewish households, who originate in Eastern Europe. Apples and honey are eaten to symbolize sweetness and prosperity for the coming year. 

On a more somber note, I learned that Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg passed away just minutes before the start of the show. In fact, I almost didn't do tonight's episode because I was so upset. But I figured that the notorious RBG would power through if it was her, and it was fitting to be talking about apples and hoping for peace and prosperity in the coming New Year. So we poured one out for Ruth and gave her a toast.

We talked about the origins of hard cider, with an aside ​about the 1840 presidential campaign of William Henry Harrison, why hard cider fell out of favor, the origins of apples in the mountains of Kazakhstan, Johnny Appleseed, the story of Red Delicious, heirloom apple varieties, and the not-so-American origins of apple pie. 

From the 1946 Roving Bartender by Bill Kelly:

• 3 dashes angostura bitters, 2 cubes ice in 10 oz glass, fill with hard cider.

I forewent the ice because A) I was feeling lazy and B) my cider was already cold. It was delicious and basically tasted like fall. 

You can see other, slightly more complicated versions below:

As far as I can tell, this is the oldest version of the Jersey Cooler (called cocktail here), invented by the famous Jerry Thomas from his How to Mix Drinks from 1862. Because the earliest reference is from Mr. Thomas, who was a born and raised New Yorker, I think that the "Jersey" in this instance refers to New Jersey, not Jersey, England.

Here's his recipe:
​
(Use small bar glass.)
1 teaspoonful of sugar.
2 dashes of bitters.
Fill tumbler with cider, and mix well, with lemon peel on top.

• The Last Wild Apple Forests (Gastro Obscura)
• I Went to the Fatherland of All Modern Apples (Vice Munchies)
• Apple Pie Is Not All That American (Smithsonian Magazine)
• Why Apple Pie Isn’t So American After All (Food52)
• Orangepippin.com - THE best resource for finding and learning about heirloom apples (and other orchard fruits) from around the world. 
• And of course, my own History Bites: Apples in America podcast.

Our next episode will be on Friday, October 2, 2020 and since it will officially be October, we'll be talking about pumpkins and the origins of the much-maligned pumpkin spice! 

If you enjoyed this episode of Food History Happy Hour and would like to support more livestreams, please consider joining us on Patreon. Patrons get special perks like access to members-only content. ​

Thanks to everyone who participated in this week's Food History Happy Hour! In this episode we made the Angler's Cocktail from Recipes of American and Other Iced Drinks, London (1909). 

Because it's Labor Day Weekend and traditionally one of the biggest travel dates of the year, I thought we could talk about road food! We discussed the development of early federal highways, including Route 66, the Eisenhower Interstate Highway System, the Green Book and Driving While Black, rest areas versus service areas, Howard Johnson's and the development of other fast food chains, Gourmet and Ford Motor Company travel books on regional restaurants, the work of Jane and Michael Stern to catalog regional foodways, and the foods people took with them while traveling, roadside stands, and more. 

Here's the original recipe, from Recipes for American and Other Iced Drinks by Charlie Paul (1909):

Fill a tumbler with chipped ice; put in two or three drops of Angostura bitters, half a teaspoon of orange bitters, and three or four drops of raspberry syrup; add half a wine-glassful of gin, then stir well and strain off.

Here's my version:

3 drops Angostura bitters
6 drops orange bitters
a dash of raspberry syrup
2 ounces American gin

Add to a cocktail shaker of crushed ice - swirl until cold, then strain into a cocktail glass. 

It's quite lovely - very floral and a pretty shade of peachy gold. I would add more raspberry syrup next time as I couldn't taste it at all and the drink was not sweet at all. 

• "Driving While Black: African American Travel and the Road to Civil Rights" by my graduate professor Gretchen Sorin! 
  
• Driving While Black the film - set to air on PBS this fall!
• The History of Howard Johnson's Restaurant
• The Food That Built America - fast food history!
• Rest Area History - incomplete, but interesting!
• "Eating NAFTA: Food Justice, Policy, and the Cuisine of Mexico" September 17 with MoFAD
• "Marcia Chatelain: How did fast food become Black food?" September 24 with Culinary Historians of NY

We're switching to a twice-a-month schedule, so join us on Friday, September 18, 2020 at 8:00 PM EST for the next episode of Food History Happy Hour!

If you enjoyed this episode of Food History Happy Hour and would like to support more livestreams, please consider joining us on Patreon. Patrons get special perks like access to members-only content. 

Thanks to everyone who participated in this week's Food History Happy Hour! In this episode we made the Ice-Cream Soda-Water from Cooling Cups and Dainty Drinks (1869). As I went through the laborious process of hand-shaving ice from a block, we briefly discussed the history of ice harvesting and the first uses of soda fountains.

We also discussed all things hot dog! Including the history of hot dogs, how they are made, their prevalence at beaches, ball parks, and fairs, regional variations in hot dog toppings, the origin of the corn dog, and the use of hot dogs in American diplomacy, including famously by Franklin D. and Eleanor Roosevelt in Hyde Park when they entertained King George VI and Queen Elizabeth of Great Britain in 1939. We also discussed sweet v. savory cocktails in history, uses for leftover hot dog buns, and more. Check it out!

In my research for last week's episode into the origins of the root beer float, I found reference in the 1860s to soda fountains and the invention of the ice cream soda that was simply ice and cream and soda water. So it was fun to discover this recipe in the cocktail guide Cooling Cups and Dainty Drinks (1869). 

The original recipe doesn't have much direction, but here it is:

Ice-Cream Soda-Water - Equal quantity of fruit syrup and cream; double the same of shaven ice; add bottle of soda water and drink off. 

Here's my recipe:

1 cup hand-shaven ice (the more the better)
1 ounce raspberry syrup (a 19th century favorite!)
1 ounce heavy cream
6-8 ounces seltzer or club soda

Place the ice in a large tumbler and pour syrup and cream over, top with seltzer, stir gently, and drink quickly. 

A Food Historian friend asked if I was going to "ruin" hot dogs for Food History Happy Hour by discussing how they are made. I didn't make any promises, but thought this Thomas Edison film was fun to watch. In it, dogs are turned into hot dogs, and hot dogs are turned back into dogs. In the background of the "factory" - which closely resembles a hot dog push cart - ropes of sausages hang on the wall labeled by type of dog. 

It's a bit gross, but meant to be all in good fun - making a joke (as always) about the origins of the meat used to make hot dogs, something that still occurs today. In the end, more sausages get magically turned into dogs than vice versa. 

This was a fun episode to research, and here are a few of the articles I referenced:​

• Hot Dogs and Diplomacy — Relish The Legacy! from the National Archives
• A really wonderful, in-depth article from Hudson Valley Magazine - Franklin Delano Roosevelt: The Picnic That Won the War, the Royal Visit, the Hot Dog Summit of 1939, and Hyde Park on the Hudson Movie
• And, of course, if you want to make your own hot dogs from scratch, you can! Homemade Hot Dogs from the Spruce

Thanks for watching!

If you liked this post and would like to support more Food History Happy Hour livestreams, please consider joining us on Patreon. Patrons get special perks like access to members-only content. ​

Thanks to everyone who participated in this week's Food History Happy Hour! In this episode we made the Flash of Lightning from the Recipes of American and Other Iced Drinks, London (1902). 

For this episode we discussed the recent controversy from Goya CEO and the context and history behind Spanish culture and colonialism in South and Central America, the history of root beer and other early sodas, including ginger ale, birch beer, and sarsaparilla, the origin of root beer floats and ice cream sodas.

Here's the original recipe, from Recipes for American and Other Iced Drinks by Charlie Paul (1902):

Fill tumbler with chipped ice, into which squeeze half a lemon; then add half a teaspoonful of sugar, a teaspoonful of raspberry syrup, half a wine-glassful of brandy, a little cayenne pepper; then strain off.

And here's my version:

In a cocktail shaker over ice, add:
Juice of half a lemon
1/2 teaspoon granulated sugar
1 teaspoon (or thereabouts) raspberry syrup
2 ounces cherry bounce
one or two taps of ground cayenne pepper

Shake then strain into wineglass. 

This recipe is definitely a quite sweet (thanks in part to the cherry bounce), so if you want something not so sweet, leave off the sugar. As the drink warms and sits the heat of the cayenne will intensify, so you might want to use a light hand to begin with. 

• How Goya brought ethnic food to white America on Washington Post (2013)
  
• ​The Standard Manual of Soda and Other Beverages: A Treatise Especially Adapted to the Requirements of Druggists and Confectioners by A. Emil Hiss (1897)
• How Dows Made History with His Soda Fountain​

​If you liked this post and would like to support more Food History Happy Hour livestreams, please consider joining us on Patreon. Patrons get special perks like access to members-only content. 

Thanks to everyone who participated in this week's Food History Happy Hour! In this episode we made the Gin Daisy from the Recipes of American and Other Iced Drinks, London (1909). 

We talked about Holland gin, orgeat syrup, picnics, including picnicking in rural cemeteries, potato salad, Miracle Whip a.k.a. boiled dressing, camping, including Maria Parloa's Camp Cookery, How to Live in Camp (1878) and Camp Cookery by Horace Kephart (1910) with an overview of the types of recipes and cooking they offer, and brief discussion of dehydrated backpacking foods. 

We did have a few issues with the new service, so apologies for pixelated, skipping, or out-of-synch video. Hopefully it won't happen again!

Gin Daisy from the Recipes of American and Other Iced Drinks, London (1909) original recipe:

Take half-pint tumbler half full chipped ice, add three or four dashes of orgeat or gum syrup, three dashes of maraschino, juice of half lemon, a wine-glassful of Hollands gin; shake well; strain into a large cocktail glass, and fill up with seltzer or apollinaris water.

​So here's my translated recipe that I used on the show:

In a cocktail shaker with ice, add:
1 tablespoon simple syrup with almond flavoring
1 tablespoon maraschino syrup
juice of 1/2 a lemon
1/2 wineglass gin (about 3 ounces)
splash bourbon

Shake and pour into a 12 ounce glass; fill with seltzer (I used lemon-lime). Add ice if desired.

If I were to make this again, I would definitely cut down on the gin, but the bourbon was a very nice addition for a little bit of smooth malty flavor to approximate Holland gin, a.k.a. jenever. And I might try this recipe for a more authentic orgeat syrup. Or maybe I'll try the old-school barley kind! Related to syrups - I finally ordered raspberry syrup! So expect some cocktails that call for that in the future. More pink drinks!

​If you liked this post and would like to support more Food History Happy Hour livestreams, please consider becoming a member or joining us on Patreon. Members and patrons get special perks like access to members-only content.

Thanks to everyone who participated in this week's Food History Happy Hour! In this episode we made the Saratoga Cooler from the 1917 Recipes for Mixed Drinks. We also talked about Saratoga Springs, Ann Northup, Saratoga chips and George Crum, Hand melons, watermelon and melons in general, ginger ale, root beer, birch beer, spruce beer, and other lightly fermented soft drinks, by request, my food and cooking memories, celebrating my grandpa's 101st birthday, lemon shakeups and lemonade, tomato sandwiches, Miracle Whip, tomatoes and food storage, the Soviet version of Spam, whether or not to refrigerate eggs, a brief foray into next week's topics of camping, drink pairings, and ice cream. I also asked for input on putting together new talks! 

The "Saratoga Cooler" cocktail comes from the "Cooler" section of Recipes for Mixed Drinks by Hugo Ensslin (1917). 

Here's the original recipe:
Use Collins glass. 

Juice of 1/2 lemon
1/2 teasponful powdered sugar
2 dashes Angostura bitters
1 bottle ginger ale (cold)

Stir slowly and serve. 

I used 1 tablespoon of lemon and just filled the glass with ginger ale. I also added ice to keep things nice and cold and guestimated the powered sugar. It really was quite refreshing though!

And this handsome fella is my grandfather, who just turned 101 years old. He was born on July 3, 1919. Happy Birthday, Grandpa Les!

If you liked this post and would like to support more Food History Happy Hour livestreams, please consider becoming a member or joining us on Patreon. Members and patrons get special perks like access to members-only content.

It's Juneteenth! Thanks to everyone who joined us for Food History Happy Hour. This week we make the Rose in June cocktail from the 1917 "Recipes for Mixed Drinks." We discussed Juneteenth, red velvet cake, victory gardens including propaganda and the exclusion of Black farmers and imprisoned Japanese Americans, the role of visuals in influencing taste, Black Food Historians You Should Know, disparities in book contracts, hot weather foods, salads, summer kitchens, how historical peoples coped without air conditioning, how historical peoples kept foods cold before refrigeration, ice and ice cream in the ancient world, rural electrification and electric refrigerators, the Frigidaire Cookbook, icebox pie, racial stereotypes in food advertising, including the history of the "Aunt" and "Uncle" terms, including Uncle Ben and Aunt Jemima, the history of the mammy trope, the tragedy of child caring roles, What Mrs. Fisher Knows About Old Southern Cooking, Black children in advertising, Franchise: the Golden Arches in Black America, the forthcoming book scanner I ordered, monuments and statues, and we ended with a signal boost for the James Hemings Society. 

The "Rose in June" cocktail comes from the "Fizz" section of Recipes for Mixed Drinks by Hugo Ensslin (1917). 

The original recipe calls for:

Juice of 1 orange
Juice of 2 limes
1 jigger raspberry syrup
1 jigger gin

Shake well in a mixing glass (or cocktail shaker) with cracked ice, strain into Collins glass and fizz with sparkling water

OR - if you don't have fresh citrus fruits OR raspberry syrup - you can substitute 1/3 cup orange juice, 1/4 cup lime juice, a heaping tablespoon of raspberry (or in my case, strawberry) jam, and the gin. 

Very nice, very refreshing, but sadly NOT pink.  

Here's a roundup of links related to everything we talked about (in addition to all the links above!):

• History of Juneteenth 
• Victory Gardens Behind Barbed Wire: Japanese Americans Recall Eating In Camp
• ​​Reclaiming Victory Gardens from Our Racist History
• Black authors knew they were being paid less. This hashtag revealed how large the gap really is
• Aunt Jemima Brand to Change Name and Image Over ‘Racial Stereotype’​

​If you liked this post and would like to support more Food History Happy Hour livestreams, please consider becoming a member or joining us on Patreon. Members and patrons get special perks like access to members-only content.

Thanks to everyone who joined in this weeks' Food History Happy Hour! In this episode we made the Guadalcanal Cocktail and discussed rhubarb, abolitionist boycott of sugar and the slave trade, rhubarb recipes and all the animals who are eating my rhubarb, breakfast cereals, in particular GrapeNuts and the real story GrapeNuts ice cream (and its predecessor GrapeNuts pudding), graham flour and graham pudding, Kellogg v. Post cereals (as seen on The Food That Built America), including the history of Granula, the accident of corn flakes, C.W. Post and the California Fig Nut Company, sugary breakfast cereals in the 1950s and on, shredded wheat, the Victorian interest in grain-based products with milk on top, Wheatina, frog eye salad, Cool Whip, rural v. urban breakfast trends, food deserts, housing policy and suburbs, TV and dinners, the addictiveness of sugar, the food pyramid, the history of lunch, including nuncheon, and the introduction of fellow food historian Niel De Marino, who specializes in 18th century foodways and runs The Georgian Kitchen, Russian/Georgian food and cookbooks, Black Panthers, and the reaction to the film "Birth of a Nation."  

With a cameo by Sweetie Pie, of course! And I believe this was our longest and most lively Food History Happy Hour yet!

1 jigger bourbon (Old Crow is most accurate)
2-3 ice cubes
unsweetened grapefruit juice

In an old fashioned glass, pour jigger of bourbon over ice. Fill with grapefruit juice and stir. 

Well as you may know I get a lot of media requests, so one on the origin of Grape Nuts ice cream was fun to research, even if the request was VERY last-minute. Sadly, my commentary on the history did not make the cut of the rather frivolous radio spot (annoying, considering how much work I put into it, all free of charge), but it DID result in some fun research on Grape Nuts ice cream, which was, sadly, NOT invented by Hannah Young in Wolfville, Nova Scotia in 1919, as many people, including her grandson Paul, have claimed. Or at least, Hannah may have come up with the combination independently (although I doubt that could ever be verified), and likely had a hand in popularizing it in Nova Scotia, but I've found references that predate Young by at least 10 years. 

This reference, from the American Housekeeper Advertiser dates to 1909 and is the earliest published reference I could find. 

Of course, in 1916, the Post company published, "Good Things to Eat From Wellville." 

The first recipe listed in "Good Things to Eat" is very similar to the one from the American Housekeeper Advertiser, but the second is simply vanilla ice cream with Grape Nuts folded in. Also notice with "coffee" flavored Postum ice cream! The cookbook also includes Post Toasties ice cream and several other confection recipes using the cereals. And of course, all these recipes predate the 1919 Hannah Young story. 

At any rate - it was a fun research project and I'm glad I was able to add to the historiography of Grape Nuts Ice Cream. 

Here's a flurry of other links related to tonight's talk!

• The Food That Built America - History Channel, also available on Hulu and Amazon. 
• Post v. California Fig Nut Company lawsuit (1921)
• Rommegrot Ice Cream 
• "Celebrate the Heyday of Sweet American ‘Salads’ With These 7 Dishes" - Atlas Obscura
• "Three Squares: The Invention of the American Meal" by Abigail Carroll
• "The Georgian Feast" by Darra Goldstein
• My review of "Mastering the Art of Soviet Cooking" 
• "The Poison Squad" on PBS and "The Poison Squad: One Chemist's Single-Minded Crusade for Food Safety at the Turn of the Twentieth Century" by Deborah Blum
• "Black Panthers: Vanguard of the Revolution" on PBS
• "Birth of a Movement" on PBS

​If you liked this post and would like to support more Food History Happy Hour livestreams, please consider becoming a member or joining us on Patreon. Members and patrons get special perks like access to members-only content.

Thanks to everyone who joined me on Friday for Food History Happy Hour live on Facebook. This week we discussed the role of riots and boycotts in history and food history, touching primarily on the food boycotts and riots and high cost of living protests of 1916/1917 which occurred around the globe. We also talked about women's suffrage and farmerettes, midnight suppers, Frank Meier, inventor of the bees' knees cocktail and his role in WWII, poison candy and the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906, food and riots or protests, including the role of food and cooking in the Civil Rights movement, Laura Ingalls Wilder and the Little House Cookbook, L. M. Montgomery, requests for next week, and a brief introduction to the history of gelatin, beaten biscuits, and other formerly upper-crust foods which became inexpensive convenience foods.

If you want to watch back episodes you can check them out on right here on the blog or I am hoping to upload full episodes to YouTube now that my channel is officially verified!

In 1936 Frank Meier published "The Artistry of Mixing Drinks," a beautifully designed little bartender's guide based on his time as the head bartender at the Hotel Ritz Carlton's Cafe Parisian, which opened in 1921. Frank had purportedly trained at the Hoffman House in New York City before taking on his new role at the Ritz. He served as head bartender and host for over twenty years and even played a role in the French Resistance during WWII, when the Ritz became German headquarters. Meier was a well-known originator of cocktails, including the famous "Bees' Knees," which he invented sometime in the 1920s. It became popular in the United States during Prohibition, likely because the honey and lemon masked the taste of bathtub gin. 

Frank's original recipe reads:
"In shaker: the juice of one-quarter Lemon, a teaspoon of Honey, one-half glass of Gin, shake well and serve." 

A more modern recipe might be:
Juice of 1/4 lemon (or half a tablespoon)
1 or 2 teaspoons of honey
1 or 1 1/2 ounce gin

Shake over ice and serve in a cocktail glass. 

One teaspoon of honey definitely wasn't enough for me - I couldn't taste the honey at all! Perhaps "a dollop" might be a better descriptor. 

Here are some resources on some of the topics we discussed tonight:

• Lower East Side food riots of 1917
• Fruits of Victory: The Woman's Land Army of America in the Great War
• Meet The Fearless Cook Who Secretly Fed — And Funded — The Civil Rights Movement
• Koinonia Farm
• Allied Cookery, British, French, Italian, Belgian, Russian (1916)
• The Woman Suffrage Cookbook (1890)
• Frank Meier, The Paris Ritz’s Mysterious Bartender Spy
• This Legendary Bartender Served Hemingway and Aided the Resistance Against the Nazis
• The Little House Cookbook
• Jane of Lantern Hill by L.M. Montgomery
• Beaten Biscuits: Sound of the South

Next week we'll be discussing Easy Bake Ovens, Jello and aspic, foods of the 1950s and '60s, and all sorts of other fun stuff. See you then! 

​If you liked this post and would like to support more Food History Happy Hour livestreams, please consider becoming a member or joining us on Patreon. Members and patrons get special perks like access to members-only content.