Food

Photo of McCall's Cheese

Part of a nation's history lies in what people eat. Artifacts at the Museum document the history of food in the United States from farm machinery to diet fads.

More than 1,300 pieces of stoneware and earthenware show how Americans have stored, prepared, and served food for centuries. Ovens, cookie cutters, kettles, aprons, and ice-cream-making machines are part of the collections, along with home canning jars and winemaking equipment. More than 1,000 objects recently came to the Museum when author and cooking show host Julia Child donated her entire kitchen, from appliances to cookbooks.

Advertising and business records of several food companies—such as Hills Brothers Coffee, Pepsi Cola, and Campbell's Soup—represent the commercial side of the subject

Date: 1900s

Teaspoon

Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
date made
1905 or later
patent date
1900-10-09
ID Number
DL.380491A
catalog number
380491A
accession number
153231

Cheese Scoop

Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
date made
ca 1900
ID Number
DL.66.0568
catalog number
66.0568
accession number
265238

Teaspoon

Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
date made
1888 - 1900
owner; user
Washington, Mary Anne Hammond
maker
Gorham Manufacturing Company
ID Number
DL.60.1006A
catalog number
60.1006A
accession number
71656

Teaspoon

Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
date made
1905 or later
patent date
1900-10-09
ID Number
DL.380491E
catalog number
380491E
accession number
153231

fragment, plate

Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
date made
19th century
ID Number
1990.0605.75
catalog number
1990.0605.75
accession number
1990.0605

The Wedding Breakfast

Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
date made
1902
maker
H. C. White Co.
ID Number
2016.0066.256
accession number
2016.0066
catalog number
2016.0066.0256

Ice-Cream Disher

Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
date made
ca 1910
patent date
1905-11-07
ID Number
DL.311420.0001
catalog number
311420.0001
accession number
311420

fragment, bowl

Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
date made
19th century
ID Number
1990.0605.73
catalog number
1990.0605.73
accession number
1990.0605

Toaster

Toaster or broiler made from a single iron strip, rectangular in section, hand forged into an irregular spiral that tapers in depth at center. Long, angled handle terminates in a clockwise rattail hanging loop. No feet. No marks.Currently not on view
Description
Toaster or broiler made from a single iron strip, rectangular in section, hand forged into an irregular spiral that tapers in depth at center. Long, angled handle terminates in a clockwise rattail hanging loop. No feet. No marks.
Location
Currently not on view
date made
1850 - 1900
ID Number
DL.64.0507
catalog number
64.0507
accession number
251849

Children at dinner table

Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
date made
ca 1907
ID Number
2017.0219.0019
accession number
2017.0219
catalog number
2017.0219.0019

fragment, bowl

Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
date made
19th century
ID Number
1990.0605.67
catalog number
1990.0605.67
accession number
1990.0605

Carving Knife

Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
date made
ca 1900
ID Number
DL.65.1379
catalog number
65.1379
accession number
280280

fragment, bowl

Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
date made
19th century
ID Number
1990.0605.63
catalog number
1990.0605.63
accession number
1990.0605

Four women having tea

Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
date made
ca 1907
ID Number
1986.3048.0708
nonaccession number
1986.3048
catalog number
1986.3048.708

Bed Caster and Ceramic Fragments

Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
date bed caster made
1860 - 1910
date refined earthenwares made
1800 - 1900
date stonewares made
1800 - 1850
date porcelain made
1785 - 1815
ID Number
DL.252318.0030
catalog number
252318.0030
accession number
252318

Maple Sugar House Mold

Maple sugar is produced by boiling sap to evaporate the water until past the point of syrup production. It then can be placed into wooden or metal molds to harden into cakes to be used later.
Description
Maple sugar is produced by boiling sap to evaporate the water until past the point of syrup production. It then can be placed into wooden or metal molds to harden into cakes to be used later. Early settlers in New England had greater access to maple sugar, while early abolitionists often promoted the use of maple sugar versus cane sugar due to the slave labor used in cane sugar production. While maple sugar production could never compete with cane sugar in terms of scale, it was often easier and cheaper for those on the northeaster frontier to produce.
Maple syrup production is one of the few agricultural processes in North America that was not a European import but learned from Native Americans. Sap is typically collected from the Sugar, Red or Black maple, though it can be collected from other tree types. Northeastern North America is the most common area for maple syrup production, with Vermont, New York and Maine leading production in the U.S. Once the sap is collected, it must be boiled down to reduce the water content. It can require anywhere from 20-50 liters of sap to make one liter of syrup, depending on the sugar content of the sap. Each tree is capable of producing 35-50 liters of sap.
Location
Currently not on view
date made
19th Century (?)
ID Number
CL.64.264
catalog number
64.204A
64.0204A
accession number
249244
catalog number
64.264

Porringer

Bellied-bowl porringer with angled rim and bossed bottom; cast crown handle with triangular bracket is pierced with 11 voids and struck on top with the incuse serif letters "LB" at center of a circular shield on indistinct support flanked by bossed foliate volutes below a five-pe
Description
Bellied-bowl porringer with angled rim and bossed bottom; cast crown handle with triangular bracket is pierced with 11 voids and struck on top with the incuse serif letters "LB" at center of a circular shield on indistinct support flanked by bossed foliate volutes below a five-pearl (ducal) coronet with textured ground. "Mason" and "10" scratched on underside of boss. No touchmarks. Diamond or lozenge linen mark with sink hole from tinker's dam used to burn handle on to bowl. Turning marks across entire bottom underside.
Location
Currently not on view
date made
late 18th or early 19th century
1770 - 1780
ID Number
DL.388320
catalog number
388320
accession number
182022

Miniature Spoon

Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
date made
1850 - 1900
ID Number
DL.263901.0114
catalog number
263901.0114
accession number
263901

Teaspoon

Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
date made
1905 or later
patent date
1900-10-09
ID Number
DL.380491B
catalog number
380491B
accession number
153231

Pot

Banded-lip pot on three, triangular feet with pierced flat-top tabs, tapered rim and sides and rounded bottom; no handle.
Description
Banded-lip pot on three, triangular feet with pierced flat-top tabs, tapered rim and sides and rounded bottom; no handle. Hollow cast with a quarter-round bead or fillet below rim and "W.I." in raised serif letters inside a dotted or serrated-edge surround on body; two, crossed gate marks on bottom exterior.
Location
Currently not on view
date made
19th century
1800-1850
ID Number
1982.0090.81
accession number
1982.0090
catalog number
1982.0090.81

Cheese Scoop

Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
date made
ca 1890
1905 or later
ID Number
DL.67.0784
catalog number
67.0784
accession number
269842

Jam Pot

Cylindrical, green jasperware handled and covered container encircled with applied neoclassical scenes of women and putti beneath a border of laurel leaves and berries. Container is rounded at base and fitted with a silverplated collar with bail handle around its rim.
Description
Cylindrical, green jasperware handled and covered container encircled with applied neoclassical scenes of women and putti beneath a border of laurel leaves and berries. Container is rounded at base and fitted with a silverplated collar with bail handle around its rim. Flat circular cover with utensil cutout is decorated with scrolls, bellflowers, and a geometric border and topped by an acorn-and-button finial. Interior of pot is glazed; exterior is stamped "WEDGWOOD" (slightly curved) and inscribed "X" and "C". Cover not marked.
Maker is Wedgwood, Stoke-on-Trent, England, founded by Josiah Wedgwood in 1759.
Location
Currently not on view
date made
ca 1900
ID Number
DL.66.0548
catalog number
66.0548
accession number
265238

Oyster Shucking Knife

This tool was made and used in Crisfield, Maryland, a watermen’s community on the lower Eastern Shore of the Chesapeake Bay.
Description
This tool was made and used in Crisfield, Maryland, a watermen’s community on the lower Eastern Shore of the Chesapeake Bay. It was used to shuck (open) oysters, probably in one of Crisfield’s many oyster-packing houses in the early part of the 20th century.
Oysters in the shell can be sold to consumers, but most are processed—shucked, rinsed, and packed into containers—in packing houses located near the water. Oyster processing in Maryland began in Baltimore in the first half of the 19th century and expanded to locations around the bay and closer to the oyster beds after the Civil War. African American men and women comprised the majority of workers in these packing houses.
Oysters are bivalves, whose two shells are held together by a strong muscle. They grow on diverse hard surfaces, including each other, and their shells develop unique shapes and contours. Because of this, no two oysters are alike, a fact that has vexed would-be inventors of an oyster-opening machine. No machine has ever replaced the speed and accuracy of a skilled pair of human hands.
Shucking oysters takes strength and stamina. In the Chesapeake, the oyster season occurs in winter, and shuckers had to stand in damp, usually unheated rooms with concrete floors to work. They wore boots, gloves, and waterproof aprons over their clothing as protection against the cold mud that stuck to the oyster shells. Paid by the weight of the oyster meats they produced and not by the hour, shuckers learned to work quickly and accurately. Torn oyster meat not only lost its shape, it also lost its water content, its weight, and its value.
This knife is of the “cracking” type, named because the wider end was used for separating a cluster oysters or cracking off the tip of an oyster before the pointed end was inserted between the shells. Once a shucker separated the shells, he or she would deftly cut the muscle and drop the meat into a container. When the container was full, the shucker would take it to a scale to be weighed.
This knife was forged and honed into shape by a blacksmith, possibly John Stephens or Jack Swift, both Crisfield blacksmiths who made a variety of tools for use in the water business. The initials “JS” are stamped in the thick end of the knife.
date made
1900
maker
Swift, Jack
ID Number
2008.0052.01
accession number
2008.0052
catalog number
2008.0052.01

Teaspoon

Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
date made
1895 - 1900
owner; user
Washington, Mary Anne Hammond
ID Number
DL.60.1007D
catalog number
60.1007D
accession number
71656

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