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How America ate, thought
Book tells of pre-WWII customs, trends, recipes
THE FOOD OF A YOUNGER LAND
By Mark Kurlansky
(Riverhead, $27.95)
By MARK BROWN World Scene Editor
Published: 6/24/2009 2:20 AM
Last Modified: 6/24/2009 3:57 AM
It was a time of dime drip coffee, cornmeal and molasses. Sometimes all three, three times a day.
But it was also the era of the clam bake, the "sugaring-off" (a Vermont, maple-syrup soiree), Washington Wildcat Parties, and a thing called the North Carolina Chitterling Strut.
In essence, people tended to eat more locally, less packaged and with more pride, if not abandon. In a sense, it was a lot like Sept. 10, 2001
"The country was divided by five regions," said Mark Kurlansky of the Federal Writers Project assignment dubbed "America Eats." "Each had a writer to write an essay on the region. Nelson Algren did the Midwestern one.
"Then, Dec. 7, 1941, the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. Dec. 8 and 9, Katherine Kellock sent out letters — everybody get your copy in now."
Katherine Kellock was in charge of "America Eats," the project that never made print. But the gist of it — say, the suggestion of what the Works Progress Administration effort to define how the country ate during the New Deal era might have sounded, if not looked, like — comes through in Kurlansky's "The Food of a Younger Land" (Riverhead, $27.95).
"After they'd done a guide book to just about everywhere," he said, "she (Kellock) came up with the idea of American food. What do they eat and how do they eat.
"What you get is a view of 1940 America, which was a considerably different place than today. World War II changed everything."
Right off, it put the skids on
out-of-work writers getting paid to write.
"People sent in what they had," Kurlanksy said, "most never to see the light of day. Kellock got fired and gave everything she had to the Library of Congress."
What the project lacked in professionalism — the people like Algren and Eudora Welty were to have provided the polish, through their regional essays — it made up for in detail. There are local customs, city trends, cultural legacies and culinary wonders in "The Food of a Younger Land" that were sitting idle when Kurlansky stumbled onto the 2-foot-high stack while compiling his notes for his other eating anthology, "Choice Cuts."
"It was wonderful reading through this stuff," he said. "These people who wrote this never imagined it would be read 70 years later. Some were writers out of work, and some couldn't really write but they could type."
"The Food of a Younger Land" isn't a cookbook, necessarily, though it has recipes. (And if you can locate 30 pounds of oxtails, a 10-pound beef soup bone, and five pecks of root vegetables, the recipe for a Minnesota Booya Picnic sounds as boisterous as it does tasty.)
It also hasn't been pruned for political correctness. The signs and styles of the times — in all their Americana, however embarrassing and sometimes crude — have been retained. So, it's as much of Kellock's project as Kurlansky could make it: a document of how America ate. And thought.
"Americans don't really look at America much," he said. "I left everything with all of its blemishes."
Oklahoma ‘Eats’
The Oklahoma portions of “America
Eats” are enlightening, if not light, endearing,
if not near and dear. Mostly, they
involve corn and slow-cooked cattle.
“There are some nice bits about Oklahoma,”
author Mark Kurlansky said when
he found out where I was calling from.
“Particularly one about eating eggs and
wild onions in spring.”
Here’s what else “The Food of a Younger
Land” has to say about Oklahoma, by
chapter heading:
Choctaw Indian Dishes: Submitted by
“Peter J. Hudson, Choctaw,” it features
methods for Tash-labona and Ta-fula, both
cormeal mushes of a sort, the former with
salt and fresh pork.
Funeral Cry Feast of the Choctaws: “The
intrusion and curiosity of the white people
has tended to lessen the frequency and
publicity of the funeral cry,” read an entry
referencing “Indians & Pioneers,” a collection
of WPA interviews (see next entry).
Notes on Oklahoma Pioneer Eating: “The
2nd year we had a good crop of sweet
potatoes and sorghum cane. We children
helped strip the cane for the sorghum
— and such sorghum?”
When John walton Became Governor of
Oklahoma: “In thirty minutes the National
Guardsmen were thrown in to control the
tidal wave of humanity which was soon
formed into the fifteen lines which continued
pouring through the serving units until
late Tuesday night.
“ ‘Hot Dawg, some barbecue!’ declared
a youth …”
(From the Daily Oklahoman, Jan. 10,
1923)
Oklahoma Prairie Oysters: “With the cows
driven far from the scene, three men climb
the fence and descend among the milling,
bawling mass of calves.”
An example of the recipe-writing
style that Kurlansky chose to publish
as is, versus edit for political
correctness.
KENTUCKY HAM BONE SOUP
(A Plantation Recipe)
1 quart fresh or canned tomatoes
¼ teaspoon black pepper
4 medium potatoes, cut in
cubes
1 small head cabbage, shredded
1 ham hock or 1 pound ham
scraps
3 quarts water
3 onions
salt to taste
Boil ham in water with tomatoes,
pepper and 1 onion. Cook
1 hour if ham has been previously
cooked, otherwise cook 2
hours. Do not add salt as ham
will usually furnish enough.
Add other ingredients and
simmer 2 hours. Season to
taste. Skim off all fat. This is
an excellent way to use the
undesirable pieces of ham, and
makes a hearty luncheon for
the laundress or for anyone
who likes hit.
Serve with corn bread and
a slice of pie to make a really
traditional Southern meal.
A good one for your test
kitchen.
OKLAHOMA KUSH
“Kush,” popular dish
among pioneers:
Take cornbread and
crumble it up, cut up
some onions, add black
pepper, a pinch of salt, a
little lard or butter, put
it in a pan, pour boiling
water over it (add eggs if
desired), then put it in the
oven and bake.
Clearly from a time when people were cooking
— and eating — more beans. The recipe doesn’t
say but go ahead and cook a pound of beans. Add
water if it dries out, and season with molasses and
mustard to taste.
MAINE BAKED BEANS
Baked Beans — Beans are picked over every
Friday night and set on the back of the stove to
parboil. Before breakfast on Saturday morning
the earthen bean pot is brought from the pantry,
the beans are given a final rinse then put in the
pot; a tablespoon of molasses, a teaspoon each
of salt and dry mustard are added and nearly
a quarter-pound of fat salt pork is partially
submerged in the beans and the pot is filled with
water. A hot fire is kept, water is added from
time to time until 2 o’clock and after 3 the fire is
allowed to die down.
MISSISSIPPI MOLASSES PIE
3 whole eggs
3 tablespoons light cream
3 tablespoons melted butter
1 cup molasses
1 cup sugar
1 tablespoon meal (corn)
1 teaspoon vanilla
Beat eggs enough to mix well (be sure not to
fluff, just well-mixed, and put white and yellow
together), add sugar, molasses, butter, cream,
vanilla and corn meal last. Mix all well. Bake in
uncooked pie shell, in moderate oven until knife
stuck into it does not stick.
Mrs. J.B. Black
Colonial Tea Room, Jackson, Miss.
Mark Brown 581-8335
mark.brown@tulsaworld.com
By MARK BROWN World Scene Editor
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