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Food History
How one girl helped build a Latinx civil rights movement
As a little girl, Jessica Govea had become accustomed to rising early and making her way to the fields with her family. During the cotton...
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...
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-...
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...
"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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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,...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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