History of pizza

Pizza: a ‘species of the most nauseating cake … covered over with slices of pomodoro or tomatoes, and sprinkled with little fish and black pepper and I know not what other ingredients, it altogether looks like a piece of bread that has been taken reeking out of the sewer.’  (some foodie visiting Naples, 1836)

Britain's History Today is saluting the pizza, from its ancient origins, to its identification with the poorest of the poor in Naples, to its renaissance as a symbol of Italian unification when Margherita the new Queen of Italy adopted the basil/mozzarella/tomato pizza (showing the colours of the new Italian flag), to its conquest of the world in the twentieth century. 

Image: from History Today

 

Book notes: Chop Suey Nation

Interesting to see how food history has become a way to address diversity issues in Canadian history. Latest example I keep hearing about is Chop Suey Nation, a recent consideration of the Chinese restaurant in Canadian culture(s), by journalist Ann Hui.

Hui, who grew up in authenticity-obsessed Vancouver, begins her journey with a somewhat disparaging view of small-town “fake Chinese” food. But by the end, she comes to appreciate the essentially Chinese values that drive these restaurants—perseverance, entrepreneurialism and deep love for family. Using her own family’s story as a touchstone, she explores the importance of these restaurants in the country’s history and makes the case for why chop suey cuisine should be recognized as quintessentially Canadian.

 Image: Here, via Google Image. Search Google Images for "chop suey" and there are scores of photos -- and no two look alike!

History of dinner, TV dinner

I've caught several episodes of CBC-TV's brief summer series Back in Time for Dinner. There is food history on TV.

Okay, it's food history with a fair amount of cheese. This is a pretty soft presentation, very much for entertainment. The series immerses a Canadian family of five in the decor, clothing, technology, fads, and above all the food of six decades one after another, 1940s to 1990s, and it has to move fast and funny.

But time and again I was struck by how the program actually did achieve a certain time depth. The horror of the modern family obliged to follow the wartime forties' reliance on organ meats like kidneys ("All I smell is urine!") and other economical (and unprocessed) foods is striking, just as their disgusted amazement at the fifties' enthusiasm for jellied salads is entertaining.

But a sense of foreignness is effectively created. Back in Time for Dinner nicely notes how, when  kids went out for snacks and sociability in the fifties and sixties, they generally went to a mom-and-pop kind of place, not to the corporate-planned Macdonalds, Tims, or Starbucks we take for granted. The modern woman in the series, refusing to surrender her 21st century perspectives, effectively emphasizes the house work expected of women and only women, and the lack of kitchen technology in most of the decades they briefly inhabit.

The family seems very much white and Euro-Canadian -- until the father mentions his indigenous experience on his mother's side. And there were (a few) intriguing nods to diversity, as Canadians took shyly to Chinese food early, later to South Asian food (effectively linked to changes in immigration policy), later to global gourmet trends.   

There are even food historians -- U of T professor Jo Sharma for one -- featured.

Back in Time for Dinner ain't a Ken Burns documentary, for sure. But for a summer entertainment, I was kinda pleased with its sense of history and historical change.  Probably still available on demand on your TV service or online.

Book notes: McAfee on housekeeping notes from way back

Canadian food history continues to thrive. Melissa McAfee, archivist at the University of Guelph, and local publisher Rocks Mills Press have combined to publish The Canadian Receipt Book containing over 500 Valuable Receipts for the Farmer and the Housewife, based on a book first published in 1867 and held in the university archives. It promises advice from deworming the bronchial passages of a cow to the proper use of "cocoaine" to making a nice lemon pudding.