the food of a younger land by mark kurlansky

Some of the pieces included are no more than scraps of recipes collected by FWP folklorists. Kellock sent out assignments to every state’s project and a few writers turned in content for America Eats, but the book was never completed and most of the unedited manuscripts were stored at the Library of Congress waiting for someone like Kurlansky to make sense of them.īecause the manuscripts were unedited, the quality of The Food of a Younger Land is uneven. The Project-which employed thousands of writers across the nation during the Great Depression-dissolved completely during World War II. By the late 1930s, the Federal Writers’ Project was on its last legs. America Eats was the brainchild of Katherine Kellock, who envisioned a massive volume that would reveal the everyday diets and regional specialties of the United States.

Kurlansky rediscovered the notes and draft essays, recipes, and anecdotes for what was supposed to be a book called America Eats at the Library of Congress. Why do we eat what we eat? How old is this recipe that my mother and her mother make? Mark Kurlansky’s The Food of a Younger Landanswered some of my long-standing questions, as well as introducing me to American cuisine prior to World War II and the interstate highway system. As I’ve gotten older, I’ve become fascinated by food history.

(Sorry, mom.) I ate casseroles, Tex-Mex (Mexican food as interpreted by Texans), what my dad called “southern gourmet” dishes like biscuits and gravy, and lots of Italian dishes that my mom had taught herself. Growing up in the 1980s and 1990s, I grew up on a blend of midwestern and Texan food (my parents come from opposite parts of the country) and as much junk food as I could sneak past my mom.

The food of a younger land by mark kurlansky