Part 1: Discover Your Family’s Food Heritage
Genealogy is more than names and dates. Studying social history
will help you better understand how your ancestors lived.
CHAPTER 2
They Brought Their Food With Them
Immigrants brought recipes, raw ingredients, and even seeds from their homelands. How did these food traditions meld into our ancestors’ diet?
CHAPTER 3
Oysters, Peacocks, and Green Jell-O
Food traditions vary by region, state, county, city, and even neighborhood. This chapter explores the impact of climate, ethnic and religious groups, and industry on our food.
The foods your ancestors ate were often influenced or dictated by technology, location, and social and political events such as economic depression and war.
This chapter explores the evolution of cookbooks since the eighteenth century and explores menus from nineteenth-century restaurants.
CHAPTER 6
How to Find Your Ancestors’ Recipes
The best place to find family recipes is in your own home. You can also interview relatives and research local cookbooks to learn more about your ancestors’ diets.
Part 2: A Look Back at Historical Recipes
CHAPTER 7
Decipher Old Cooking Terms
Having trouble understanding an old recipe? This chapter includes a vintage glossary of cooking term, measuring charts, and cooking times.
CHAPTER 8
The Arts of Dining and Cleaning
Cookbooks are more than just recipes. Read vintage advice on menu planning, table setting and decorating, and proper cleaning techniques.
This chapter contains recipes from both community cookbooks and cooking school cookbooks from the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
Record your own family recipes in this journal section.