Description
Book SynopsisForages through New England's most famous foods for the truth behind the region's culinary mythsMeg Muckenhoupt begins with a simple question: When did Bostonians start making Boston Baked Beans? Storekeepers in Faneuil Hall and Duck Tour guides may tell you that the Pilgrims learned a recipe for beans with maple syrup and bear fat from Native Americans, but in fact, the recipe for Boston Baked Beans is the result of a conscious effort in the late nineteenth century to create New England foods. New England foods were selected and resourcefully reinvented from fanciful stories about what English colonists cooked prior to the American revolutionwhile pointedly ignoring the foods cooked by contemporary New Englanders, especially the large immigrant populations who were powering industry and taking over farms around the region. The Truth about Baked Beans explores New England's culinary myths and reality through some of the region's most famous foods: baked beans, brown bread, clams, cod a
Trade Review"A very entertaining, informative and ... useful food history/cookbook ... Snappy and entertaining." * Lakeville Journal *
"With pugnacious wit, Meg Muckenhoupt offers a forceful case for replacing traditional Yankee fare as New England’s definitive cuisine with the ethnic and everyday dishes that New Englanders have actually eaten for the past century-and-a-half. It’s high time to update the region's food story and Muckenhoupt’s account kicks off the discussion in lively fashion. It invites, and will doubtless elicit, equally lively rejoinders." -- Keith Stavely and Kathleen Fitzgerald, authors of America’s Founding Food: The Story of New England Cooking
"Like a carving knife cutting up a Thanksgiving turkey, Muckenhoupt deftly takes apart legends about New England cuisine. Showing us the recent and invented ‘traditions’ about all sorts of ye olde foods, from Boston Baked Beans to Cranberry Sauce, Muckenhoupt reveals the multi-ethnic New England behind the Yankee image; the real-world fish-sticks as well as the pseudo-traditional clambake. Thanksgiving will never seem the same." -- Paul Freedman, Chester D. Tripp Professor of History, Yale University
"In this very readable and informative account, Meg Muckenhoupt skillfully demonstrates how food can be used to ‘read’ history, illustrating how and why the imagery surrounding iconic foods of this region developed and persisted. Her intertwining of archival data, ethnographic observations, and cultural studies scholarship offers enticing insights into foods frequently used in national celebrations as well as for everyday meals, making this book relevant to anyone interested in American cuisine." -- Lucy Margaret Long, Director of the Center for Food and Culture, Bowling Green, Ohio
"Equal parts history book, cookbook, and cultural criticism, Meg Muckenhoupt’s
The Truth about Baked Beans: An Edible History of New England serves up a satisfying, delectable read that just might give Yankee stalwarts a hint of indigestion. Throughout, Muckenhoupt challenges prevailing notions about so-called traditional New England dishes while advocating an expansive, more inclusive vision of the history of the region’s cuisine—and of its future." -- Megan St. Marie * Résonance *
