Fashionable Food: Seven Decades of Food FadsThough the Roaring Twenties call to mind images of flappers dancing the Charleston and gangsters dispensing moonshine in back rooms, Sylvia Lovegren here playfully reminds us what these characters ate for dinner: Banana and Popcorn Salad. Like fashions and fads, food—even bad food—has a history, and Lovegren's Fashionable Food is quite literally a cookbook of the American past. Well researched and delightfully illustrated, this collection of faddish recipes from the 1920s to the 1990s is a decade-by-decade tour of a hungry American century. From the Three P's Salad—that's peas, pickles, and peanuts—of the post-World War I era to the Fruit Cocktail and Spam Buffet Party loaf—all the rage in the ultra-modern 1950s, when cooking from a can epitomized culinary sophistication—Fashionable Food details the origins of these curious delicacies. In two chapters devoted to "exotic foods of the East," for example, Lovegren explores the long American love affair with Chinese food and the social status conferred upon anyone chic enough to eat pu-pu platters from Polynesia. Throughout, Lovegren supplements recipes—some mouth-watering, some appalling—from classic cookbooks and family magazines, with humorous anecdotes that chronicle how society and kitchen technology influenced the way we lived and how we ate. Equal parts American and culinary history, Fashionable Food examines our collective past from the kitchen counter. Even if it's been a while since you last had Tang Pie and your fondue set is collecting dust in the back of the cupboard, Fashionable Food will inspire, entertain, and inform. |
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LibraryThing Review
User Review - pennsylady - LibraryThingWhen I wanted to be entertained and learn a bit about American culinary history, Fashionable Food: Seven Decades of Food Fads (1995) was suggested Beginning in the 1920s, the reader observes the food ... Read full review
LibraryThing Review
User Review - Meisje - LibraryThingA great review of cultural and technological development in the US from the 1920's to the '90's and how this has been reflected in popular foods. Also recipes! Read full review
Contents
Preface | |
The Thirties | |
Chinese Food in America | |
The Forties I | |
Fabulous Foods for the Richest Country on Earth | |
Nouveaux Gourmets | |
An Exotic Interlude II 268 | |
The Seventies 300 | |
Status Food and Comfort Food | |
l0 The Nineties | |
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Common terms and phrases
American cooking baking banana beans Beat beef beef Wellington black pepper boil bowl bread cake casserole chef chicken chili Chinese chocolate cloves cocktail coconut coffee cookbook cookery cool cornstarch cream cheese crepes cuisine cup sugar dessert dinner dish drained egg whites egg yolks exotic finely chopped flavor flour fondue French fresh frozen fruit garlic garnish gelatin ginger gourmet green grilled ingredients large egg lemon juice lettuce low heat M. F. K. Fisher marshmallows mayonnaise meat menu meringue milk minutes mixture mushrooms olive oil onion party pasta pastry pepper pineapple popular pork potatoes pound powder Preheat the oven pudding recipe refrigerator restaurants rice roast salad sandwiches sauce saucepan served skillet slices soup sour cream soy sauce steak stir sweet syrup tablespoons tablespoons butter taste teaspoon teaspoon salt tomatoes Trader Vic's V2 cup vanilla vegetables whipped cream wine Worcestershire sauce
Bibliographic information
| Title | Fashionable Food: Seven Decades of Food Fads |
| Author | Sylvia Lovegren |
| Edition | illustrated, reprint |
| Publisher | University of Chicago Press, 2005 |
| ISBN | 0226494071, 9780226494074 |
| Length | 455 pages |
| Subjects | › › › Cooking / Essays & Narratives Cooking / History Cooking / Regional & Ethnic / American / General History / General History / Modern / 20th Century |
| Export Citation | BiBTeX EndNote RefMan |