Check out A History of Food in 100 Recipes by William Sitwell. It's an utter delight. Many of the recipes are more recent, in the past 500 years or so, but some are thousands of years old.
Keep in mind that recipes as we know them today weren't necessarily a "thing" back then. Standardized measurements hadn't been invented, and instructions tended to be far more vague. You'll also likely need to make substitutions for ingredients that are no longer readily available.
Happy cooking!
I think What Caesar Did For My Salad will be right up your alley! It covers the origin of a wide array of dishes and is a really simple yet informative read.
The British took a long time to warm up to Indian foods.
Many of the anglo-indian dishes came about as a result of the fact that English wives couldn't train Indian chefs.
This is a really interesting document from the time.
And the influence was definitely two way.
Indians now use cauliflowers, for example, which I believe the Brits introduced.
Bear in mind that the general Imperial British worldview was that the British were the pinnacle of civilisation and success, that "foreign" things were uncivilised and vulgar.
As the occupation continued though, there was increasing cross pollination including dishes like mulligatawny soup, kedgeree, chutney etc...
Mark Kurlansky's "The Food of A Younger Land" is hands down the best resource on Regional American Cuisine before interstate travel and industrial agriculture changed eating habits dramatically.
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That's flavored gelatin that you prepare by adding water and chilling and eat as a dessert (sometimes it's used in a recipe, but its main purpose isn't for use in a recipe). Modern Jello and similar brands still come in a 3-ounce box.
Unless the OP's recipe is something that one would expect might contain flavored gelatin, I think they're more likely to be looking for unflavored granulated gelatin meant to be used in recipes. In my experience, this form of gelatin comes packaged like this and comes in 0.25-ounce packets, and you would typically only use one or two packets in a recipe. So, I think they're asking if this kind of gelatin used to come in some form of box.
I have seen recipes for things like poke cakes that call for flavored gelatin, though (you bake a cake, make holes in it with a skewer, mix Jello powder with water, pour over cake, chill, and you have Jello-impregnated cake, which apparently some people enjoy).
OP, what sort of recipe is it?
This isn't exactly what you're requested, but I enjoyed Drinkable History. Unfortunately it's Kindle-only.
Regarding the stock, his was just an extremely involved technique. But that's kind of the point of Escoffier and why he was so important: he codified and detailed food and dish preparation in a way that was previously unavailable, at least in written form. And god was he pedantic.
Anyway, back to stocks. His techniques were an evolution and refinement of what were known in the 18th century as restaurants, which were not places, but dishes. The idea was that the ill and feeble were unable to injest the foods needed to cure their maladies, so restaurants were made, which distilled the essential substances of those healing ingredients into a liquid that could be sipped by the frail. The Invention of the Restaurant is a wonderful, accessible book that covers all of this.
Your best bet would be to learn about fermentation like what they do at Noma
The Noma Guide to Fermentation: Including koji, kombuchas, shoyus, misos, vinegars, garums, lacto-ferments, and black fruits and vegetables (Foundations of Flavor) https://www.amazon.com/dp/1579657184/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_glc_fabc_ClwaGb87BRH4Z
I’m sure this will take longer to discover than you need, but I’ve found used book sales have a ton of cooking books available. Usually libraries will have them and often they’re old books. Often, there are some that have recipes from older generations (for example, I’ve gotten revolutionary-war era cookbooks that were published for historical societies) and they can really give you a picture of what people used to eat. You can pick these up for very cheap. I would guess your school library or public library would likely have some sources like this available.
A quick Amazon search yields something that might be helpful
I would recommend Andrew Smith's book on the Turkey. He gave a presentation to the Chicago Culinary Historians last week and the book is very thorough on the bird's entire history.
So this book isn't rhyming recipes, but for every recipe it has a poem of some sort.
I found it on Project Gutenberg awhile back, when downloading a lot of antiquated cookbooks.
A Poetical Cook-Book, HTML view.
Book page for different formats.
This cook book on California Indian cuisine is a great place to start. I’ve made a few recipes from here.
Seaweed, Salmon, and Manzanita Cider: A California Indian Feast https://www.amazon.com/dp/1597140783/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_glt_fabc_2FW3ZZ9RQRYJX1ZQPM50
No, it’s more of a gimmick “microwave speed, oven quality” I just remember the video and was feeling nostalgic. Here’s a picture of itJet Stream
Two come to mind specifically. I’ll leave the amazon links here. One is called “What’s to Eat? Entrees in Canadian Food History”, and the other is called “Edible Histories”.
https://www.amazon.com/Whats-Eat-Entrées-Canadian-History/dp/0773535713
https://www.amazon.com/Edible-Histories-Cultural-Politics-Canadian/dp/1442612835
I need to dig out my copy, but the Better Homes and Gardens Meat Stretcher Cook Book is exactly what you’re looking for. It discusses cheap meat cuts, how to price each portion, good times of year for certain foods, ground beef mixes and tons of recipes on how to make food last longer. Some of the recipes are dated, but you can tweak them to what you like.
I highly recommend Cynthia Bertelson's <em>The Hastiness of Cooks</em>: : A Practical Handbook for Use in Deciphering the Mysteries of Historic Recipes and Cookbooks, For Living-History Reenactors, Historians, Writers, Chefs, Archaeologists, and, of course Cooks for figuring out these things.
https://smile.amazon.co.uk/Cake-Pops-Tricks-Recipes-Irresistible/dp/0811876373
This book was published in 2010 - but I don't think you're far off, and this was one of the big ways they got so popular.
A hamburger is the first thing that comes to mind when thinking about a quintessential American dish. It also has lots of regional varieties.
I recommend watching Burger Scholar Sessions with George Motz on the First we Feast YouTube channel. He's actually written a book as well about all the different regional burgers in America.
See if your library has a copy of Twain's Feast https://www.amazon.com/Twains-Feast-Searching-Americas-Footsteps/dp/1594202591
It's absolutely worth trying.
This is who I went with to try and was especially stoked by the different "roasts". I tend to prefer the darker variety, but the lighter makes for a good sun tea type of drink. Very pleasant!
The WPA during the Great Depression did a survey of American food in the 1930s. It was never published until a Mark Kurlansky, an historian, found the manuscripts in the national archives. Full disclosure the original manuscripts do contain some language not considered acceptable today.
Def seems like there was an independent invention in West Asia/Mediterranian region. I think this book argues it originated in Italy.
Pasta: The Story of a Universal Food (Arts and Traditions of the Table: Perspectives on Culinary History) https://smile.amazon.co.uk/dp/0231124422/ref=cm\_sw\_r\_apan\_glt\_i\_4PJZ5GF5HSF5EFK1VAT2
Tagging on to recommend Potato by John Reader . This book explores the socio-economic impact of the potato as it gained popularity as a dirt-cheap foodsource for poor workers all across the globe.
I recommend you take a look at this: http://www.openculture.com/2014/01/the-curious-story-of-londons-first-coffeehouses-1650-1675.html
Tending the Wild is a great book that explains how Natives in what is today California ate and cared for the land. Acorns were a big part of some diets, but also other seeds, roots, bulbs, and corms were also harvested in great quantities.
you might be able to find something in this collection...
https://getpocket.com/explore/item/generations-of-handwritten-mexican-cookbooks-are-now-online
Potato by John Reader is a very interesting look at the socioeconomic repercussions of the potato's global spread. I recommend this book whenever I get the chance. I have never read another book like it, it has such a fascinating perspective.
This book is a fiction story about a group of chefs who are competing to recreate the best Chinese imperial meal:
https://www.amazon.com/Last-Chinese-Chef-Novel/dp/B0029LHWMC/ref=nodl_
The food writing is so delicious. Even though it’s fiction, it’s rooted in history and goes into great detail about the different schools of Chinese cuisine and the immense artistry behind it. Definitely a fun read for people who are interested in food history.
Hopefully two months later isn't too late, but if you're interested in historical Welsh cooking First Catch Your Peacock is THE book. It's a really good read as well as being informative. (I used to offer Swper Mam at my Welsh cafe and it was really really popular.)
Hey, so I found an English source that has extremely detailed descriptions of jiu production on an industrial scale if you're interested. Prohibitively expensive to acquire legally, though.
Handbook of Food Science, Technology, and Engineering, Volume 4, section 173, "Chinese Wines: Jiu"
It can also be found on libgen.
Thats a great tip. Apparently Yul Brynner was a regular at Osho.
I haven't read it yet but have been told that The Story of Sushi: An Unlikely Saga of Raw Fish and Rice by Trevor Corson is a good read.
Also, NYC had kind of a parallel explosion of Japanese cuisine at the same time but it was more diversified like ramen, soba and takoyaki joints. After Nagano in 98 where I spent a couple months living on soba and omurice, my crew spent a lot of time scouring places to find anything as good as what we ate in the wilds of west of nowhere Japan. Which is how we discovered some amazing six seater holes in the wall in Midtown Manhattan that you usually only hear about if you have a Japanese friend.
And I suspect that when Fujisankei's OG Iron Chef started airing in '01 it added even more fuel to the fire.
But now I shall confess my deep dark secret, don't tell anyone, I can't stand sushi.....
This is one that's popular back home in the New Orleans area. It was put out by the Junior League.They are available on amazon. River Road Recipes 1959 River Road Recipes II 1976
Thanks for doing all the fancy formatting there.
This book is next on my reading list, so I can't tell you how it is yet, but I am excited to begin it when I finish my current book!
All of the proceedings of the 2007 and earlier Oxford Symposium on Food and Cookery are available online for free. My favourite food history book is A History of Food by Maguelonne Toussaint-Samat.