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Food History

Chef Lena Richard and others filming a television segment
Chef Lena Richard: Culinary Icon and Activist
Lena Richard was an African American chef who built a culinary empire in New Orleans during the Jim Crow era. She reshaped public...
Happy days are here again banner.
100 years later, do we think Prohibition was good for the nation?
January 17, 1920, was an important day in American history. Why? Because on that day the grand social experiment called Prohibition was...
Jimmy Carter: American homebrew hero?
The next time you raise a glass of craft beer, make sure you toast former President Jimmy Carter. No, really. You should be offering your...
Bringing the outdoors in . . . one squirrel at a time
Squirrels seem to be everywhere until you need a few for your Buttermilk Fried Squirrel recipe.On stage at Smithsonian Food History Weekend...
“Hyperlocal, ultraseasonal, uber-healthy, and utterly delicious”: Reviving indigenous food cultures
When Chef Sean Sherman began speaking about his experiences growing up on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota, he shattered all-too-...
Multiple layer cake
Place on the plate: Smith Island, Chesapeake Bay
"Regions Reimagined," the theme for this year's Smithsonian Food History Weekend, will explore the power of place and the...
Chef adding spice to a dish of food
"What's on your neighbor's table..."
In 2018, the Smithsonian Food History Team is taking a close look at regional foodways and why they matter. From our monthly live-cooking...
Uncle Sam, playing a pipe, leads a group of children armed with farming tools. Text reads: “Follow the Pied Piper. Join the United States School Garden Army”
Who are the Dewdrop Fairies?
While most of us have heard of the victory gardens of World War II, many of us may not realize that those gardens are seeded in a history...
The top of a green wine bottle.
Grape gluts and Mother Clones: Prohibition and American wine
Congress passed the National Prohibition Act in January 1919, and a year later, Americans were barred from making, transporting, selling,...
La Choy and Korean cofounder Ilhan New: Negotiating Asian culinary identities in America
A photograph of Korean food products—rice wine, soy sauce, and galbi (marinated meat) sauce—at a grocery store in Washington, D.C., that I...
Prohibition was fantastic for American beer, or, cheers to homebrewers
Did that title grab your attention? Great.Happy National Beer Day! When you open your fridge shortly after five o'clock this evening (or...
Composite of four images, all showing streets and buildings in New Orleans
300 years and counting: A new look at New Orleans and “Creole cuisine”
Celebrating the 300th anniversary of its founding this year, New Orleans is a city whose culture and cuisine have captivated the American...
Family members gather around a Thanksgiving table and smile.
The worker's turkey
Like many homes across America, in my home Thanksgiving meant turkey. Lots of turkeys. Five or six turkeys. The day before Thanksgiving, my...
(Zoom/Detail) Black and white photo of a woman on a stage. On stage are six fridges, two lamps, and a big banner that says "REA." On a table on the floor in front of the stage, a lamp. There are decorative tassels.
Now you're cooking with electricity!
Before Alton Brown, Rachael Ray, and Giada De Laurentiis, there was Louisan Mamer (1910–2005). An early employee of the Rural...
Color photo of two women in a kitchen surrounded by cookbooks, rosemary plants, dishes, plates, and more. One is holding a pan or pot and peering into it, while the other, by her side, does something that is hard to see due to a rosemary plant.
Adding weight to Julia Child's kitchen
On the 105th anniversary of Julia Child's birth (August 15, 1912), the museum's food history team is thinking anew about Julia's life and...
Against a blank white background, a white corduroy jacket with with an insignia on the left breast and stitching on the right
Coming of age: Young women and the FFA
High school can be a challenging time for teens. Much as they do today, young men and women throughout the 20th century wrestled with...
Photograph of wooden box. The box has a wooden handle in the middle and a space for tools. Inside, there are two tools.
Deep family roots: Mexican American stories from California vineyards
I am standing in the kitchen of Amelia Ceja, owner of Ceja Vineyards, and watching her stir a big bubbling pot of caldo, or chicken...
Illustrated advertisement for brewing companies. The design features illustrations of brown glass bottles, a cup, and lots of fancy scroll work as well as a red wax seal featuring a beer.
Six things from my first 100 days
Getting to know just under two million objects, almost 17,000 cubic feet of archives, and around 140 curatorial and collections staff is a...
Beer bug with a chubby middle and large handle. It is brown/tan in color. In white, an Aztec head illustration/cartoon and block letters K C O R.
Our brewing historian hits the road—and you can follow along on Twitter
Embarking on a research trip is always an exciting time for a historian, but this trip is especially important to me because it's the...
During the "Innovative Lives" event, curator Peter Liebhold (left) interviewed scientists Mary-Dell Chilton (center) and Robert Fraley (right).
Pioneers of agriculture reflect on the genetically-engineered revolution
The fall of 2016 was an important milestone in the history of agriculture—the 20-year anniversary of the first large-scale harvest of a...
Photo of a kitchen with light blue cabinets, a large rectangular dining table with marigold tablecloth, and lots of pots and pans.
Remembering Chef Michel Richard, a longtime friend to the museum
Today we reflect on the legacy of Chef Michel Richard, who delighted generations of Washington, D.C., diners with his innovative and...
Julia Child and Pat Pratt in the kitchen in Cambridge, 1998. Photo by Christopher Hirsheimer.
A tale of two fish prints in Julia Child's kitchen
To mark what would have been Julia Child’s 104th birthday on August 15, curator Paula Johnson shares new information on two works of art in...
Beer tray, about 1905, National Museum of American History
Brewing Historians…Way More than Beer
This spring, the museum announced a new initiative to collect, document, and preserve the history of brewing, brewers, and the beer...
Copper chocolate pot, 1740s–1760s
Remembering Forrest Mars Jr.
Hearing that Forrest Mars Jr. had passed away on July 26, 2016, put me in a sad but reflective mood. One of the giants of the chocolate...
Black and white photo: Two men in wine field with mountains in background.
Potable quotables on the 40th anniversary of the Paris Tasting
American wine aficionados know the Judgment of Paris or Paris Tasting as the transformative tasting held in Paris on May 24, 1976, where 12...
Cover of "Recipes for Today" cookbook, with an illustration of a woman wearing a read and white dress and carrying a large bowl of soup
A taste of wartime rationing in 1940s product cookbooks
The Patrick F. Taylor Foundation Object Project team had a variety of reactions, taste-wise, to the 1930s recipes that...
Photograph of Wonderlier Tupperware set, 1954
Parties for plastic: How women used Tupperware to participate in business
For Women's History Month, we're taking a look at some of the ways that American women have made their place in the marketplace by...
Woman faces camera and smiles. She is wearing a small microphone. Standing in a kitchen/stage. Avocado on counter top. Cabinets behind her.
Pati Jinich is passionate about food history
From the 2012 opening of the exhibition FOOD: Transforming the American Table, 1950–2000 to the most recent inaugural Smithsonian...
Small television with handle and turquoise frame around screen, which is slightly curved
Watching the Super Bowl like it's 1967
For Super Bowl 50, we're sharing some 1960s objects from the museum's collections to add a little retro flare to any game watching party...
1700s copper chocolate pot
Cooking your way through this snow day with history
With an intense snow storm bearing down on the mid-Atlantic, we're looking to history and our collections to inspire us about how to eat,...
Color photo of 18 ounce Tabasco bottle
The 8 most delicious food history blog posts of 2015
We don't just blog about food here at the museum. We celebrate it in our demonstration kitchen programs and our multiday Smithsonian Food...
One man and two women standing in an office with wooden cabinets, desk, and white walls
A memory of Chuck Williams, kitchenware store founder
Curator and FOOD: Transforming the American Table, 1950-2000 exhibition project director Paula Johnson recalls a memorable visit...
Small brown puppet with big white eyes, photo
Jim Henson creations you may not know: Wilkins and Wontkins
Does this puppet look familiar? Remind you of anyone you know? Does he bear a striking resemblance to a famous frog? This is one of Jim...
Photo of pumpkin surrounded by green leaves
The story of four Thanksgiving ingredients
Thanksgiving meals have come a long way since the first shared feast back at Plymouth Colony in 1621. While our reasons for gathering today...
1930s potluck spread
Tasting the 1930s: An experiment with congealed salads and other one-dish wonders
The members of the Patrick F. Taylor Foundation Object Project team have been poring over authentic period cookbooks as research...
1930s General Electric Monitor Top refrigerator
Not just a cool convenience: How electric refrigeration shaped the "cold chain"
Electric refrigeration motivated Americans to rethink how they purchased, prepared, and stored food when it first took off in the 1930s....

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