The Good Old Days of food
I find the ever-changing relationship people have with food to be fascinating. Never mind the clear shifts in tastes within various cultures.
I'm currently watching through the BBC program 'Turn Back Time: the High Street'. Having just watched the first episode, I was surprised when the baker and the grocer both thought of the 'purity' of Victorian food. Perhaps it is my own bias as a history buff coming through, but I thought everyone knew that the Victorians were notorious for adding any number of (really awful) ingredients to stretch their food. Lead, chalk, sulfuric acid, mercury were common additives.
This is what crosses my mind whenever people express nostalgia for the 'Good Old Days'. Well, that and these people are suffering from some delusion, as the good old days never existed! It is the sort of propaganda that gets pushed around a lot, in my opinion. A mixture, of course, of nostalgia, a touch sometimes of the 'Noble Savage' idea, or they go the other route and express how the people 'back then' were all idiots.
I admit, my desire is first to try and pin down the time periods these people are thinking about. I always want to have a long conversation with them, figuring out what they know of history, where they learned it, what they think reality was like. However, most people don't really want to stand around discussing history. It is sad to me, someone with a great interest in history, to see it so neglected by many people. Truly, we learn so much from history that can effect how we decide things in our current time period.
But, enough with that tangent! Food, history, and people! I probably have not mentioned this, which is an error on my part, but I am also greatly interested in food. I hesitate to use the term 'foodie', but it is probably the most apt term for my interest. I love learning about the history of food, how people prepared it and what the fads were. I'm hoping, actually, to expand and start making 'historical' food. I've already done two older recipes for a 'Medieval' Feast with some friends1, and already making those recipes helped me realize more thoroughly what I already knew intellectually. Still, I did already know something about food history (not a lot, I am far from an expert, simply a hobbyist), what else does the non-history buff not know about our long history with food? Quite a lot, I'm betting.
Would it be interesting for people if I would occasionally post articles about food history? I'm still trying to find my feet on this blog, still trying to feel my way for the direction I want this blog to go in. I would naturally love to discuss everything I'm passionate about, but I'm really interested in quite a large number of things, and I worry that my blog would then become too scattered for most people to be interested in it.
Your music education for today, a song for the lovers!
Alma Cogan: Little Things Mean A Lot (1954)
Alma Cogan was born in 1932 in Whitechapel, East London, England. She started on her big career rise in 1949, when she was discovered while singing in a hotel. Her career can not be said to be as huge as some others of the time, but she was reasonably consistantly high on the lists with her light-hearted singles. It was her penchant to laugh while recording that gained her the nickname 'the girl with a giggle in her voice'. While she was a relatively well-known singer, I think most people have probably, unfortunately, forgotten this sweet voice.
Alma Cogan died in 1966 from cancer at the age of 34.
For more information about Alma Cogan, see the Wikipedia article.
1 I made Rissoles on a Meat Day and Roasted Rice
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| Only too true! |
This is what crosses my mind whenever people express nostalgia for the 'Good Old Days'. Well, that and these people are suffering from some delusion, as the good old days never existed! It is the sort of propaganda that gets pushed around a lot, in my opinion. A mixture, of course, of nostalgia, a touch sometimes of the 'Noble Savage' idea, or they go the other route and express how the people 'back then' were all idiots.
I admit, my desire is first to try and pin down the time periods these people are thinking about. I always want to have a long conversation with them, figuring out what they know of history, where they learned it, what they think reality was like. However, most people don't really want to stand around discussing history. It is sad to me, someone with a great interest in history, to see it so neglected by many people. Truly, we learn so much from history that can effect how we decide things in our current time period.
But, enough with that tangent! Food, history, and people! I probably have not mentioned this, which is an error on my part, but I am also greatly interested in food. I hesitate to use the term 'foodie', but it is probably the most apt term for my interest. I love learning about the history of food, how people prepared it and what the fads were. I'm hoping, actually, to expand and start making 'historical' food. I've already done two older recipes for a 'Medieval' Feast with some friends1, and already making those recipes helped me realize more thoroughly what I already knew intellectually. Still, I did already know something about food history (not a lot, I am far from an expert, simply a hobbyist), what else does the non-history buff not know about our long history with food? Quite a lot, I'm betting.
Would it be interesting for people if I would occasionally post articles about food history? I'm still trying to find my feet on this blog, still trying to feel my way for the direction I want this blog to go in. I would naturally love to discuss everything I'm passionate about, but I'm really interested in quite a large number of things, and I worry that my blog would then become too scattered for most people to be interested in it.
Your music education for today, a song for the lovers!
Alma Cogan: Little Things Mean A Lot (1954)
Alma Cogan was born in 1932 in Whitechapel, East London, England. She started on her big career rise in 1949, when she was discovered while singing in a hotel. Her career can not be said to be as huge as some others of the time, but she was reasonably consistantly high on the lists with her light-hearted singles. It was her penchant to laugh while recording that gained her the nickname 'the girl with a giggle in her voice'. While she was a relatively well-known singer, I think most people have probably, unfortunately, forgotten this sweet voice.
Alma Cogan died in 1966 from cancer at the age of 34.
For more information about Alma Cogan, see the Wikipedia article.
1 I made Rissoles on a Meat Day and Roasted Rice
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