Wild chestnut trees have flourished in southern Europe since the ancient Greeks brought them from Asia Minor and the Romans spread them throughout their empire. For thousands of years poor subsistence farmers in that part of the world extended their crops with wild foods like chestnuts. In addition to roasting or boiling them, chestnuts were [...]
Archive for the ‘Festival Cooking’ Category
Chestnuts: Famine Food on the Holiday Table
Posted in Festival Cooking, Food as Anthropology, Food History, Ingredients, recipes, Traditional Foodways, tagged cake, castagnaccio, chestnut flour, chestnuts, dessert, famine food, gluten-free, Italian food, recipe, Thanksgiving, vegan on November 23, 2010 | 4 Comments »
A Brief History of the Birthday Cake
Posted in Festival Cooking, Food History, recipes, Traditional Foodways, tagged birthday cake, blogoversary, Food History, history of the birthday cake, victorian birthday cake on August 26, 2010 | 4 Comments »
Today is Comestibles’ first anniversary, so what better corner of food history to explore than that of the birthday cake. People have been celebrating holidays with special baked goods for thousands of years, but the white fluffy birthday cake with sweet icing we associate with every child’s party is a fairly modern invention. It could [...]
Highlights from Oxford 2010: Cured, Fermented, and Smoked Part II
Posted in Festival Cooking, Food History, Oxford Symposium on Food and Cookery 2010, Traditional Foodways, Travel, tagged cured foods, fermented foods, Food History, Oxford Symposium on Food and Cookery 2010, smoked foods on August 2, 2010 | 6 Comments »
This is the second post in a two-part round-up of this year’s Oxford Symposium on Food and Cookery which took place from July 9-11, 2010 at St. Catherine’s College, Oxford. This year’s theme was Cured, Fermented, and Smoked Foods. You can find Part I here. Saturday night’s dinner celebrated the rich cornucopia that is the [...]
Highlights from Oxford 2010: Cured, Fermented and Smoked
Posted in Festival Cooking, Food as Anthropology, Food History, Oxford Symposium on Food and Cookery 2010, Traditional Foodways, Travel, tagged Cured Food, Fermented Food, Food History, Oxford Symposium on Food and Cookery 2010, Smoked Food on July 27, 2010 | Leave a Comment »
This is the first of a two-part round-up of this year’s Oxford Symposium on Food and Cookery which took place from July 9-11, 2010 at St. Catherine’s College, Oxford. The weather was unseasonably warm and I was glad the College Bar — why don’t American colleges have official bars? It’s so civilized — opened at [...]
Jeweled Rice for a Persian Wedding
Posted in Festival Cooking, Food History, recipes, Traditional Foodways, tagged cooking with rose petals, Food History, Jeweled Rice, Persian food, Persian wedding food on May 24, 2010 | 3 Comments »
I find there is no better way to get to know a culture than by cooking some of its festival food. When I saw a recipe in Margaret Shaida’s absorbing historical cookbook, The Legendary Cuisine of Persia, for a special rice dish, traditionally served at weddings in Persia, I couldn’t resist. Not only does it [...]
Real Irish Food for St. Paddy’s Day
Posted in Festival Cooking, Food History, recipes, Traditional Foodways on March 17, 2010 | 2 Comments »
One of my favorite pieces of food writing is the 12th Century Irish wonder tale, Aisling Meic Con Glinne (The Vision of Mac Con Glinne), in which Mac Con Glinne exorcises a demon of gluttony that has possessed his king. He tempts the demon to come out by telling the story of a fantastical vision [...]
Pancakes and Fritters say the Bells of St. Peter’s
Posted in Festival Cooking, Food History, recipes, Traditional Foodways, tagged Lent, Pancake Day, pancakes, pre-lenten food, recipe, Shrove Tuesday on February 15, 2010 | 1 Comment »
No matter where you live or what you call it, the object of the last day before Lent is the same: eat as much of the soon-to-be-forbidden foods as you can before it’s too late. Lent, which begins this year on Wednesday, February 17th, is a 40 day season during which Christians traditionally fast, pray, [...]
Lamingtons for Australia Day
Posted in Festival Cooking, Food History, recipes, Traditional Foodways, tagged Australia Day, Australian Food, Lamingtons, recipes on January 25, 2010 | 2 Comments »
Aside from the cute accent, being married to an Australian has other advantages. We get to celebrate extra holidays, which of course involve food. January 26th is Australia Day, commemorating the arrival of the so called First Fleet at Sydney Cove in 1788. It marks the founding of the penal colony of New South Wales [...]
A Yankee Southern Christmas
Posted in Festival Cooking, Traditional Foodways, tagged aged country ham, Christmas dinner, southern foodways on December 24, 2009 | 4 Comments »
My mother is from Connecticut, my dad was born and raised in the Bronx, and my husband is Australian, leaving me no defense against being called a Yankee; or at least a Yank in my husband’s case. Hewing to stereotype, our Yankee family usually has a standing rib roast and yorkshire pudding for Christmas dinner, [...]
