Jane Ziegelman

This was a very interesting, informative and yummy read. The author is the director of a culinary program at New York's Tenement Museum (located--you guessed it---at 97 Orchard St. on the Lower East Side). She explores the food cultures of 5 immigrant families--German, German Jewish, Irish, Italian and Lithuanian--who came to New York for various reasons between the 1860s and the 1930s. In doing so, she covers a lot of ground both inside and outside the kitchens, including general living conditions in the tenements, pushcart street vendors, the raising of poultry and pigs in courtyards and city streets, religious practices, food prejudices, Americanization of traditional European dishes and the adoption of ethnic foods by native born Americans. Every chapter made me crave something, from oysters to corned beef to strudel to pizza. It was a treat to read.… (mais)

A history of the culinary life of New York City’s Lower East Side, featuring the stories of five families who lived in the tenement located at 97 Orchard Street between the years of 1860-1930. The book takes a broader look at how immigrants of various nationalities affected the city’s foodways, from pushcart merchants to delicatessens to urban poultry farmers raising geese in tenement basements. It’s fascinating stuff, especially if you’re interested in culinary history or in New York City in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. I was hoping to recognize some of my own family food traditions, but nothing struck a particular chord. Still, very interesting reading!… (mais)

As I stirred a pot of increasingly gluey tapioca pudding a couple days ago, I pondered how old-fashioned a dessert it seems -- a comforting, if mysterious, childhood dessert that is missing from my children's childhoods so far. But my parents knew of it, as did their parents, and possibly theirs. But the taste for it began somewhere, right? I mean, it's a bizarre confection that seems like just a vehicle for milk ingestion (although in my house it's almond milk), because that's precisely what it is -- a dish introduced to thousands of New York public schoolchildren during the lean hungry years of the Depression, when federal and state governments grappled with the problems of how to feed hungry, jobless Americans.

The book is a fascinating exploration of how America's food tastes changed in response to scarcity, and the roles played by government agencies, popular advertising, and lawmakers in shaping our food expectations for generations. I have added this title to my mental list of required reading to understand the Great Depression years, a list that includes Tobacco Road, The Worst Hard Time, The Cotton Tenants, and Let Us Now Praise Famous Men.… (mais)