Food History

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....
1930s entrée salad molds, metallic containers with decorative designs on black background
Pass the gelatin: A taste of history through mid-century cooking
The Patrick F. Taylor Foundation Object Project is a new learning space that explores "everyday things that changed everything."...
Lobster on a plate
Inside the Demonstration Kitchen: A new way of exploring food history
Our American Food History Project recently introduced Food Fridays, a new cooking demonstration series on the Wallace H...
Photograph of William Ramsey's ledger
Baddledors, twig whips, and yards of thunder and lightning: Decoding a colonial ledger
Several years ago, Dr. Ann Smart Martin and I met at a conference and discovered our mutual interest in making eighteen and nineteenth-...
Peter Pan brand by the Northwest District Fruit Sales Company Inc. of Wenatchee, Washington
Washington state: As American as apple...
125 years ago this November (November 11, 1889, to be exact), President Benjamin Harrison signed a proclamation admitting Washington as the...
Julia Child's home kitchen, with its hundreds of tools, appliances, and furnishings
Chatting about food history with food leader Lynne Breaux
From the 2012 opening of the exhibition FOOD: Transforming the American Table, 1950–2000 to its upcoming FOOD in the Garden...
Sourcing food, sourcing food history: Researching FOOD in the Garden 2014
This September, we join Smithsonian Gardens in hosting our annual FOOD in the Garden series. We'll explore four maritime regions impacted...
A group of chefs in the kitchen
Cooking in D.C. with Julia Child
Fans and friends of Julia Child will pause today, as they do every year on August 15, to remember the beloved icon of American culinary...
An April Fool's "assalt" on history
If you're offended by that first pun, the rest of this post about our high sodium "Conference on Stuff" by Curator Katherine Ott may rub...
Empty bakery, black and white photo, with bread and bread slicing machines
The best loan since sliced bread
The "home of sliced bread" welcomes its bread-slicing machine back, thanks to a loan from our museum. Development intern Christina Ross...
The mysterious can of fortune
In her non-fiction exploration of the Chinese food industry in America, Fortune Cookie Chronicles, Jennifer 8. Lee finds a mystery in...
Young female intern with the remnants of a crab feast, including containers of butter, napkins, crabs, in an outdoor setting
Crab feast: From the Chesapeake Bay to Julia Child's kitchen
"If you can't eat that, then you ain't hungry!" These are the words I heard from my internship supervisor (in a Maryland accent, mind you)...
White button that says "I'd rather be farming" in black text with the image of a tractor
From dirt to dinner: How agriculture history influences American lives
Soil is more than just dirt; it affects all of the foods we eat. But why is this really a conversation about history and why are we talking...
Container of Abuelita hot chocolate on colorful fabric
Sniffs of cinnamon-scented hot chocolate draw visitors into immigration history
Spotting a familiar artifact at the Smithsonian can be an exciting moment for visitors—and, in this case, a moment of cultural connection....
A thin man holds a yellow-colored pie in a kitchen
Meet the foragers: Finding food at their feet
"Edible weeds," "forest gardens," and "garden pharmacy" may not be phrases you expect us to throw around in a history museum. But out in...
Four people standing among plants in a garden, trees in the background
Food in the Garden kicks off with focus on heirlooms
Missed last week's Food in the Garden 2013 Summer Series event? New Media intern Hannah Ostroff recaps the discussion on growing local,...
George Washington's well-appointed personal camp chest, or "mess kit," enabled him to dine in a manner reflecting his position as commander of the Continental Army.
You asked, we answered: What did soldiers eat during the Revolutionary War?
After answering a question about what may have been in the pockets of Revolutionary War soldiers, another Revolutionary War...
Feeding America: The people and politics that bring food to our table
Latino and food history expert Steve Velazquez looks beyond the plate to discover the people, technology, and systems that bring food to...
An aspiring Top Chef talks about "The French Chef"
The first episode of The French Chef aired on WGBH on February 11, 1963, starring Julia Child. To celebrate the show’s...
Copper bowl
Celebrating the 50th anniversary of Julia Child's "The French Chef"
The first episode of The French Chef aired on WGBH on February 11, 1963, starring Julia Child. To celebrate the show's 50th anniversary,...
What was in colonial cups besides tea? Cider, water, milk, and whiskey!
Editor's note: Yesterday, museum fellow Melissa Swindell gave us a peek into colonial cups in her blog post about hot chocolate. Today she...
George Washington drank hot chocolate…
...but, so did everyone else. Turns out, hot chocolate was a pretty common beverage in colonial America—before and after the Revolution....
A large orange squash known as the "Cinderella pumpkin."
From the Victory Garden: American history told through squash
As a natively grown vegetable cultivated by the Wampanoag Indians, squash holds a special place in American history. Today, squash are most...
Margarita machine
A frozen margarita tale for Cinco de Mayo
Why is this homely little brown box, with its sign that identifies it as the "World's First Margarita Machine," living at the Smithsonian?...

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