Online Resources
- Food TimelineEver wonder how the ancient Romans fed their armies? What the pioneers cooked along the Oregon Trail? Who invented the potato chip...and why? So do we!!! Food history presents a fascinating buffet of popular lore and contradictory facts. Some experts say it's impossible to express this topic in exact timeline format. They are correct. Most foods are not invented; they evolve. We make food history fun.
- American Institute of Wine & Food Culinary CollectionThis collection offers a taste of the AIWF Collection. Albeit a small percentage of the collection, they represent the collection’s wealth of Mexican culinary manuscripts, some dating from the early 19th century, plus other unique manuscript items. Included are pamphlets advertising California foodstuffs and cooking products such as Crisco, some of which include recipes. Other works reflect the assimilation of ethnic cuisines into California’s food culture. All illustrate an aspect of how food and drink reflect the cultural environments in which they exist.
- UTSA’s Mexican Cookbook CollectionUTSA’s Mexican Cookbook Collection is comprised of more than 2,000 cookbooks, from 1789 to the present, with most books dating from 1940-2000. In addition to broad general coverage, the collection includes concentrations in the areas of regional cooking, healthy and vegetarian recipes, corporate advertising cookbooks, and manuscript recipe books.
- Food History Digital Primary SourcesLinks to various sources for viewing digitized food history items, including cookbooks, manuscripts, recipes, and more culinary history artifacts compiled by the library of the Culinary Institute of America.
Videos
Around the world, Indigenous food cultures vanish because of industrialized agriculture and a shifting, Western-influenced concept of the ideal diet. Food researcher Aparna Pallavi explores why once-essential culinary traditions disappear from people's lives and memories almost without notice -- and serves up a subtle solution to revitalize our connection to the foods we eat.
If you can't imagine life without chocolate, you're lucky you weren't born before the 16th century. Until then, chocolate only existed as a bitter, foamy drink in Mesoamerica. So how did we get from a bitter beverage to the chocolate bars of today? Deanna Pucciarelli traces the fascinating and often cruel history of chocolate.
Before empires and royalty, before pottery and writing, before metal tools and weapons – there was cheese. As early as 8000 BCE, Neolithic farmers began a legacy of cheesemaking almost as old as civilization. Today, the world produces roughly 22 billion kilograms of cheese a year, shipped and consumed around the globe. Paul S. Kindstedt shares the history of one of our oldest and most beloved foods.
Corn currently accounts for more than one tenth of our global crop production. And over 99% of cultivated corn is the exact same type: Yellow Dent #2. This means that humans grow more Yellow Dent #2 than any other plant on the planet. So how did this single variety of this single plant become the biggest success story in agricultural history? Chris Kniesly investigates the rise of this wonder-crop.
Tea is the second most consumed beverage in the world after water –– and from sugary Turkish Rize tea to salty Tibetan butter tea, there are almost as many ways of preparing the beverage as there are cultures on the globe. Where did this beverage originate, and how did it become so popular? Shunan Teng details tea's long history.
Podcasts
The Feast
The Feast presents delectable stories from the dining tables of history. Our stories immerse you in the sights, sounds, & tastes of a meal from the past. Make bread with medieval monks; share a martini with Churchill. Find out what wars were won & which kingdoms were lost, all for the sake of a good meal. Listen to a recent episode below or click the logo for more episodes!
Gastropod
Food with a side of science and history. Every other week, co-hosts Cynthia Graber and Nicola Twilley serve up a brand new episode exploring the hidden history and surprising science behind a different food- or farming-related topic, from aquaculture to ancient feasts, from cutlery to chile peppers, and from microbes to Malbec. We interview experts, visit labs, fields, and archaeological digs, and generally have lots of fun while discovering new ways to think about and understand the world through food. Listen to a recent episode below or click the logo for more episodes!
Eat this Podcast
Using food to explore all manner of topics, from agriculture to zoology. Eat This Podcast tries to go beyond the obvious to see how the food we eat influences and is influenced by history, archaeology, trade, chemistry, economics, geography, evolution, religion — you get the picture. We don’t do recipes, except when we do, or restaurant reviews, ditto. We do offer an eclectic smorgasbord of tasty topics. Listen to a recent episode below or click the logo for more episodes!
Follow the Crumbs
In Follow the Crumbs, we talk about the history of food and the food of history. We got the idea for the podcast during a post-sushi car ride when we talked about how Biryani ended up in Qatar. Since then, we’ve been trying to find interesting stories about food over time. Join us as we unpack the complex relationships between food, history, and everything in between. Listen to a recent episode below or click the logo for more episodes!
Food Non-Fiction
Food Non-Fiction tells the incredible true stories behind food. We look forward to taking you on this wild food journey - through history, and around the world. Think of us as food historians, food scientists, and food journalists. Listen to an episode below or click the logo for more episodes!
