Food History

How one girl helped build a Latinx civil rights movement

By NMAH, December 16, 2020
Jessica Govea

Related Blog Posts

Isabella Aiukli Cornell’s prom dress
Isabella Aiukli Cornell makes prom political
For many high school students in the United States, prom is considered one of the most highly anticipated events of the school year....
Boycott Grapes button
Essential and expendable: The rise of agricultural labor and the United Farm Workers
Until the successes of the United Farm Workers (UFW) in the 1960s, agriculture was one of the last industries to hold out on unionization...
Joan Trumpauer Mulholland
"They called me 'race traitor'": Joan Trumpauer Mulholland's lifetime of resistance
Last year I began working as a stage manager for Join the Student Sit-Ins, an interactive theater program at the museum set in 1960. The...

Chef Lena Richard: Culinary Icon and Activist

By NMAH, June 8, 2020
Chef Lena Richard and others filming a television segment

Related Blog Posts

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...
Portrait of Marjorie Stewart Joyner
Making waves: Beauty salons and the black freedom struggle
Born in 1896 in the tiny Appalachian hamlet of Monterey, Virginia, Marjorie Stewart grew up in extreme poverty. Of her 12 brothers and...
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,...

100 years later, do we think Prohibition was good for the nation?

By NMAH, January 17, 2020
Happy days are here again banner.

Related Blog Posts

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...
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,...
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...

Jimmy Carter: American homebrew hero?

By NMAH, September 30, 2019

Related Blog Posts

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,...
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...
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...

Bringing the outdoors in . . . one squirrel at a time

By NMAH, December 17, 2018

Related Blog Posts

“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...

“Hyperlocal, ultraseasonal, uber-healthy, and utterly delicious”: Reviving indigenous food cultures

By NMAH, December 17, 2018

Related Blog Posts

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...
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...

Place on the plate: Smith Island, Chesapeake Bay

By NMAH, September 18, 2018
Multiple layer cake

Related Blog Posts

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...
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...
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)...

"What's on your neighbor's table..."

By NMAH, August 3, 2018
Chef adding spice to a dish of food

Related Blog Posts

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...
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...
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...

Who are the Dewdrop Fairies?

By NMAH, July 19, 2018
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”

Related Blog Posts

A pie in a dish that is crustless and looks like cream with pieces of fruit mixed in. In the middle are a number of pieces of fruit (the type that come in a fruit cocktail) piled up and the pie is lined by a ring of Nilla wafers.
More time for the party: A 1960s make-ahead potluck
Although Mad Men is over, we haven't stopped loving the 1960s. But how would our 2016 taste buds fare with 50-year-old recipes?...
(Detail) Image of a nature scene with mountains in the background, rocks and a stream in foreground, and trees. Misty, cloud, but slightly sunny.
Earth Day and you
What would you have done if you saw your river burning? The Cuyahoga River that runs through the northeastern corner of Ohio was so...
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...

Grape gluts and Mother Clones: Prohibition and American wine

By NMAH, May 24, 2018
The top of a green wine bottle.

Related Blog Posts

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...
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...
A color portrait of a woman in a coral shirt and dark blazer. She sits outside.
Three questions for a brewing historian
Last summer, the National Museum of American History announced that we were hiring a brewing historian to join the team working...

Pages