Once upon a time, people ate gloriously. Instead of spending vast sums for delicate towers of dainty food as some do now, they spent lavishly for dinners consisting of oysters, consomme, baked fish, cheese souffle, roasted chicken, creamed potatoes, green peas, celery, cranberry jelly, more oysters, crackers, cheese, sherbet, sponge cake, meringue, fruit and coffee. Yum! Although, one wonders, or at least I do, how did women manage to eat anything at all while wearing a corset?
Mr. Levenstein's book is an interesting account of how we got from there to here, and some of the health fads in-between (mastication, graham crackers). Most interesting is a section about the determined effort of American sociologists to deny entry of ethnic culinary foodways. Why eat spaghetti when you have a roast and two vegetables?
Fascinating reading, and the old-style menus can give one ideas for holiday dinners, if nothing else. Mr. Levenstein makes the intriguing point, because so misguided (to me) that we cannot imagine eating as people did a hundred years ago, that we would, indeed, find it distasteful. I find it somewhat glutinous, but no less appealing for that. Bring on the oysters!
Go To Page: 1
