An American Folklife Cookbook

A Washington Post reporter looks at our culinary heritage, describes ethnic cookery and holiday menus around the country, and includes historical recipes.

Katherine S. Kirlin and Thomas M. Kirlin. With more than 275 recipes beginning with Native American cooking and moving from region to region across the country, this cookbook celebrates the diverse flavors that together make American cooking.

Discover how these contemporary food icons changed the way Americans eat through the fascinating biographical profiles in this book. Before 1946 and the advent of the first television cooking show, James Beard's I Love to Eat, not many Americans were familiar with the finer aspects of French cuisine. Today, food in the United States has experienced multiple revolutions, having received—and embraced—influences from not only Europe, but cultures ranging from the Far East to Latin America. This expansion of America's appreciation for food is largely the result of a number of well-known food enthusiasts who forever changed how we eat. Icons of American Cooking examines the giants of American food, cooking, and cuisine through 24 biographical profiles of contemporary figures, covering all regions, cooking styles, and ethnic origins. This book fills a gap by providing behind-the-scenes insights into the biggest names in American food, past and present.

A new cookbook from the best-selling and award-winning author that uses recipes to look back at her life and family history—and at her personal journey discovering Jewish cuisine from around the world "There is no greater authority on Jewish cooking than Joan Nathan." —Michael Solomonov, James Beard award-winning chef and author of Zahav Before hummus was available in every grocery store—before shakshuka was a dish on every brunch menu—Joan Nathan taught home cooks how and why they should make these now-beloved staples themselves. Here, in her most personal book yet, the beloved authority on global Jewish cuisine uses recipes looks back at her own family’s history— their arrival in America from Germany; her childhood in postwar New York and Rhode Island; her years in Paris, New York, Israel, and Washington, DC. Nathan shares her story—of marriage, motherhood, and a career as a food writer; of a life well-lived and centered around meals—and she punctuates it with all the foods she has come to love. With over 100 recipes from roast chicken to rugelach, from matzoh ball soup to challah and brisket, here are updated versions of her favorites. But here too are new favorites: Salmon with Preserved Lemon and Za’atar; Fragrant Spiced Chicken with Rice, Eggplant, Peppers, and Zucchini; Mahammar (a Syrian pepper, pomegranate and walnut dip); Moroccan Chicken with Almonds, Cinnamon and Couscous; Joan’s version of the perfect Black and White Cookies. This is a treasury of recipes and stories—and an invitation to a seat at Nathan's table.

Native Americans have always been well revered for being resourceful people, and when it comes to food, there is no difference. They were well versed at using the ingredients that were readily available to them and for making many different foods with them. Included in this book is a large collection of recipes that have been chosen from many tribes located throughout the United States and Canada. Also included are a collection of stories both related to food, which offer life lessons and tell us of a past that has been somewhat forgotten. Some recipes are tradition while others have been redeveloped over the years to include new ways of cooking and include new spices and ingredients. The recipes in this collection have been chosen in a way to stay true to the Native experience. Enjoy these recipes and take a look back at a healthier nation. One which did not rely on processed foods. These stories and the recipes go hand in hand to paint a picture of Native American Indian life and history.

The first cookbook to present the dishes of more than 120 ethnic groups now in America, The American Ethinic Cookbook for Students illustrates how those dishes have changed throughout the years. This cookbook contains more than 300 recies plus references to ethnography, food history, culture, and the history of American immigration. A bibliography at the end of each ethnic group section is included. Covering the cooking of Native American tribes, old-stock settlers, old immigrants from 1840-1920, and the new immigrants, no other cookbook describes so many different ethnic groups or focuses on the American ethnic experience. Arranged alphabetically by ethnic group, each chapter consists of a brief introduction to the ethnic group, its food history and ethnogaphy, followed by recipes, with step-by-step instructions, techniques hints, and equipment information. Among the 120 ethnic groups included are: Amish-Mennonites, Arcadians, Cugans, Dutch, Cajuns, Eskimos, Hopi, Hungarians, Jamaicans, Jews, Palestinians, Serbs, Sioux, Turks, and Vietnamese.

From the colonial era to the present, Marcie Cohen Ferris examines the expressive power of food throughout southern Jewish history. She demonstrates with delight and detail how southern Jews reinvented culinary traditions as they adapted to the customs, landscape, and racial codes of the American South. Richly illustrated, this culinary tour of the historic Jewish South is an evocative mixture of history and foodways, including more than thirty recipes to try at home.

Ghulam Bombaywala sells bagels in Houston. Demetrios dishes up pizza in Connecticut. The Wangs serve tacos in Los Angeles. How ethnicity has influenced American eating habits—and thus, the make-up and direction of the American cultural mainstream—is the story told in We Are What We Eat. It is a complex tale of ethnic mingling and borrowing, of entrepreneurship and connoisseurship, of food as a social and political symbol and weapon—and a thoroughly entertaining history of our culinary tradition of multiculturalism. The story of successive generations of Americans experimenting with their new neighbors’ foods highlights the marketplace as an important arena for defining and expressing ethnic identities and relationships. We Are What We Eat follows the fortunes of dozens of enterprising immigrant cooks and grocers, street hawkers and restaurateurs who have cultivated and changed the tastes of native-born Americans from the seventeenth century to the present. It also tells of the mass corporate production of foods like spaghetti, bagels, corn chips, and salsa, obliterating their ethnic identities. The book draws a surprisingly peaceful picture of American ethnic relations, in which “Americanized” foods like Spaghetti-Os happily coexist with painstakingly pure ethnic dishes and creative hybrids. Donna Gabaccia invites us to consider: If we are what we eat, who are we? Americans’ multi-ethnic eating is a constant reminder of how widespread, and mutually enjoyable, ethnic interaction has sometimes been in the United States. Amid our wrangling over immigration and tribal differences, it reveals that on a basic level, in the way we sustain life and seek pleasure, we are all multicultural.