Food and Get Out The Vote Strategies in Chicago

Brown betty, a simple but delicious hot apple breakfast dish, recipes below

As mentioned in an earlier post, during the Depression, many African Americans historically loyal to the Republican Party of Lincoln, became registered Democratic voters. In Depression era Chicago for example, Democratic Ward leaders announced that if African American wanted the Federal National Relief Agency (NRA) programs to continue to feed them, they had to vote Democratic. The strategy proved effective as the slogan “Let Jesus lead you and Roosevelt feed you” became popular on the South side of Chicago. Other campaign slogans said, “If Lincoln were alive today, he’d be a Democrat.” The slogan “Do not bite the hand that feeds you,” made it’s point with hungry voters in Chicago. NRA relief included disturbing food staples like lard, flour, and sugar. Here’s one of my favorite recipes for Brown Betty which is easy to make with sliced apples, cinnamon (I had Jamaican All Spice and cloves) and plenty of sugar as a sweetener. This is a great tasting breakfast meal on a cold fall morning like we have today in New England; it will also make your house smell wonderful. My children love it!

Traditional brown betty recipe: http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Apple-Brown-Betty-106204

Crockpot brown betty recipe: http://www.olsouthrecipes.com/crockpot/apple_betty.html

Vegan brown betty recipe: http://vegweb.com/index.php?topic=14007.0

Brown betty tart recipe: http://katecupcake.blogspot.com/2010/08/brown-betty-tarts.html

Electoral Politics and Food: The Gilded Age

Chicken and cornmeal dumplings soup, recipes below

I started talking about the role of food in electoral politics on Wednesday. Yesterday post talked about get out the vote machines and food and drink during the antebellum period. The practice continued here in the United States until roughly the end of the Reconstruction period—1865-1877. It wasn’t until after that period that states started using secret ballots. Previous to the 1880s each political party used different colored ballots which allowed them to know how each eligible male voted (women remained disenfranchised until 1920). It wasn’t until the cost of buying votes with a meal and stiff drink became too expensive that party leaders championed the secret ballot during the Gilded Age of the late nineteenth century. Historian Joe Gray Taylor insists “the most striking fact about the diet of the New South, from the Civil War through World War II, is not that it changed, but how little it changed.” Some traditional get out the vote meals I found included chicken and biscuits, turkey dinners, roast beef dinners, and soup and sandwiches. Here are some hearty chicken and dumpling soup recipes

Chicken and cornmeal dumplings soup recipe: http://shesinthekitchen.blogspot.com/2010/03/chicken-vegetable-soup-with-cornmeal.html

Vegan Chicken and dumplings soup recipe: http://vegweb.com/index.php?topic=26554.0

Electoral Politics and Food: A Steak in Your Vote

Tomahawk steak, recipe below

I am starting a new foodways series today on “election day treating,” the historic practice of insuring voter turnout and political allegiants with the promise of food and or drink. Here is my first installment. We are a week away from midterm elections which will determine who controls the U. S. House of Representatives and perhaps give republicans or democratic control of the U. S. Senate. In addition there are important local elections and more than thirty gubernatorial selections around the country. The political fervor reminds me of a story that my Cousin Katie told me long ago. She was perhaps the best cook in our family and a delight to be around. As a doctoral student studying history at Syracuse University in the 1990s, I lived off campus at my older Cousin house on Borden Avenue on the North West side of the city of Syracuse; she was in her 70s at the time. It was election season in the 1990s and I was surprised to learn that she was a registered Republican. I was Surprised because, like most African Americans, our family was full of registered Democrats with roots in the political realignment that occurred with blacks flocked to the Dems during the era of FDR and his Federal National Relief Agency (NRA). The NRA provided food relief for many African Americans on the verge of starvation. The story goes that Cousin Katie moved to Syracuse from Ossining, New York sometime in the late 1940s. She quickly learned that the Republican Party in her area of the city gave out fat and juicy steaks to those who supported GOP candidates. As result, during tough times, some like my cousin realigned themselves politically with their stomachs. Below is a very serious steak recipe that is not at all vegan friendly but it works with this story.

Tomahawk steak recipe: http://mantestedrecipes.com/recipe/2808/tomahawk-steak.aspx

Civil War Foodways Series: Charleston County, South Carolina

Molasses sticky buns, recipe below

Many of the southern recipes that call for molasses may have originated during the Civil War when the confederate government rationed luxury items such as sugar, particularly in non-sugar producing states. As the war raged on Union blockades prevented the importation of sugar from Louisiana, Florida, and the Caribbean to ports in the Carolinians and Virginia. To meet the challenge of cooking during the Civil War and sugar rationing, many recipes called for molasses. “Long Sweeting,” as people called molasses in Charleston County, South Carolina during the Civil War, was used to make molasses sticky buns. Molasses sticky buns, according to WPA writer Wendell B. Phillips, “were made of a rich biscuit dough, rolled thin, spread with molasses and butter, rolled up like a jelly roll, then sliced thin, placed on a biscuit tin and baked. This does not sound like it would be so good, but try them!” Phillips was one of many writers who collected local recipes for the America Eats Project during the Depression. It was a proposed WPA book that never made it into publication. America Eat Sources are in archives scattered around the country. I found this molasses sticky bun source in Washington, D. C. in the archives of the Library of Congress. Here is a recipe for molasses sticky buns below:

Molasses sticky bun recipe: http://sweet-recipes.com/bread-recipes/molasses-sticky-buns-recipe/

Civil War Foodways Series: Black Cooks in Confederate Camps

Dandelion salad with beets and cheese, recipe below

Throughout the U.C. Civil War, some confederate armies depended on the labor of slaves and free blacks pressed into service to construct fortifications, transport materiel, tend cavalry horses, and cook mass camp meals for both officers and the rank and file soldiers. Historically enslaved Africans had learned how to hunt and cook wild game like turkey, raccoon, and rabbit, and also how to cook local plant foods like dandelion greens. Except for the turkey, most Africans had already hunted and cooked corresponding animals in West Africa. Similarly, Africans had also cooked with oysters before arriving in the Chesapeake Bay region and the Carolinas. The same is true with plants, but much of the knowledge of local edible plants in North America they had learned from Native Americans during the early colonial period. Here is recipe for a great dandelion salad with beets and cheese. I had this at a Southern Foodways Alliance Conference down in Oxford Mississippi and it was out of this world good.

Dandelion Green Salad with Beets and Goat Cheese recipe: http://flapperfood.blogspot.com/2009/07/dandelion-green-salad-with-beets-and.html

Civil War Foodways Series: Becoming An Expert Cook

Wild huckleberries on a tree

Huckleberry pie, recipes below

When soldiers did obtain food they then had to confront a shortage of utensils and pots and pans. Some made cooking utensils from the halves of captured canteens and cooked meat on the points of sharp sticks. Others mixed meal and flour in turtle shells, calabashes, shirttails, and other surfaces. By the end of the war many white soldiers who previously had no cooking experience became experts at creating what became southern delicacies after the war—huckleberry pie, roast pork, turkey, and opossum. For black southerners, such dishes were nothing new. By the end of the war in 1865 Northern forces had advanced deep into the black belt. In some instances, pitched battles and foraging soldiers ruined productive fields and sent domesticated hogs and wild game almost into extinction. Here is a recipe for some good down home huckleberry pie that fits well with civil war foodways story. What would be your last meal request if you were going into a battle you thought you would not survive?

Huckleberry pie recipe: http://blogs.kcrw.com/goodfood/2010/08/huckleberry-pie/

Apple-Huckleberry Pie recipe: http://www.bojongourmet.com/2010/01/apple-huckleberry-pie-with-sourdough.html

Civil War Foodways Series:Care Packages From Home

Southern fried chicken, recipes below

As we shall learn later, during the civil war the sweeteners representative one of the food items in highest demands along with vegetables. Believe it or not soldiers on occasion received care packages of a sort from home, more than likely these came from wealthy families. Among confederates soldiers and their families, care packages representative an early war years phenomena particularly in and around Richmond, Virginia the capital of the confederacy. Southern fried chicken, a delicacy among almost all sectors of the south, arrived quite often to the soldiers stationed near Richmond. One story goes that a wealthy southerner from Mecklenburg County, Virginia, shipped some 300 live fowls to troops stationed in Jamestown Virginia. How to make really good fried chicken may seem intuitive to those of you who are comfortable in the kitchen. But I regularly meet folks who are not and they appreciate the recipes like these below for fried chicken.

Everything you wanted to know about southern fried chicken link: http://www.southernfriedchickenrecipe.com/

Video of Butter milk fried chicken recipe:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uxEhH6MPH28

Video of vegan fried chicken recipe:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=te6Cv7RTazU

Civil War Foodways Series: Cultural Differences on the Battle Field

Ash cakes, recipe below

By the nineteenth century the majority of South majority poor white population enjoyed all parts of the hog, corn bread, greens, sweet potato pie, candied yams, and black eyed peas and rice. This why for instance on the eve of the Civil War poor white and black southerners are eating the same greens, rice or corn based meat scarce diet. Pork and corn bread, sweet potato, and sweetmeats represented the most requested foods among Southern troops. In the Union army, African-American troops requested additional corn bread and pork as rations. When commissary officials complied, southern-born white soldiers celebrated the change, while “their Northern-born comrades, accustomed to beef and wheat bread, complained bitterly.” Moreover Union officers subjected African Americans to corporal punishment reminiscent of their enslaved experience, and assigned them to menial duties like cooking rather than combat. Below is a link to how to make ash cakes, which were common during the civil war.

Ash cake recipe: http://tomahawksadventuretravel.blogspot.com/2009/11/tomahawk-style-ash-cakes.html

Civil War Foodways Series: African-American Cooks on the Battlefield

Peach fried pie, recipes below

During the Civil War (1861-1865) both Confederate and Union soldiers very often depended on African-American cooks on the battlefield. Northern army officers put free-born blacks and runaways into segregated regiments, paid them less than white soldiers, and fed them inferior food to that of white soldiers. A soldiers rations most often included coffee, sugar, a dried biscuit called hardtack, and salt or fresh pork or beef. They also might receive vinegar and dried fruit and vegetables as part of their rations. On rare occasion commissaries sent them fresh veggies like potatoes, onions, carrots, and turnips. With these food items African American camps cooks had to come up with meals that satisfied their regiments. Here is a recipe for fried pies, or crab lanterns as some called them, which I suspect were made during the war. On the battle field they would have been made with dried fruit and vinegar rations and lard and flour acquired by barter or gun point. They are shaped into fruit filled turnovers and would have been deep fried over a camp fire in a cast-iron skillet. Fried pies remained popular after the war because they traveled well and did not require refrigeration; that’s why I suspect they were special food during the civil war.

Detailed fried pie recipe with lots of photos:http://www.southernplate.com/2009/07/easy-fried-pies.html.

Green Tomato Mincemeat fried pie recipe:http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Green-Tomato-Mincemeat-Fried-Pies/Detail.aspx.

The U. S. Civil War and Food Series: Morris Island, South Carolina

Potato soup, several civil war soup recipes below

Starting a series today on the US Civil War and food. "[W]e don’t get our rations as we ought to. All the rations that are condemned by the white troops are sent to our regiment,” writes Benjamin Williams, a nineteen-year-old African American private from Philadelphia in the Union Army. Writing from jail on Morris Island in South Carolina he goes on to say, “You ought to see the hard tack that we have to eat. They are moldy and musty and full of worms, and not fit for a dog to eat,” he wrote on July 8, 1864. Hardtack is the name Union soldiers gave the almost hard as concrete tasteless biscuit that the US commissary Department handed out as rations along with salted meat and canned goods. During fierce fighting and times of austerity Union soldiers survived in part on hardtack and in part on foraging and creative cooking ideas. Recently a Dessert Storm veteran told me how he and members of his platoon would come up with really creative meals with their canned field rations which they would jazz up with bartered foods, herbs, and spices from among the locals where they were stationed in Middle East. Below are some civil war era soup recipes:

Civil war soup recipes: http://americancivilwar.com/tcwn/civil_war/Civil_War_Cooking_Recipe/civil_war_soup_recipe.html

Hispanic Hispanic History Month and Foodways Series: Conclusion

Afro Brazilian street vender hawking food hauled on her head near a nineteenth century slave market in Rio

I hope you enjoyed reading my post on Hispanic History Month and Foodways as much as I did writing it. As always I learned allot of new information and made connections to work that I've done in the past. In todays conclusion I wanted to share an hour long interview I did on Wisconsin Public Radio. The following is a prerecorded radio interview I did on Here on Earth: Radio Without Borders:

In honor of Hispanic Heritage Month, food historian and blogger Frederick Douglass Opie is tracing hominy, plantains, spicy peppers, and tomatoes through the Pre-Columbian cuisines of the Aztecs, Incas, and Arawaks to today. Curried Yucca Crab Cakes with Piquillo Pepper Sauce and Mango-Papaya Chutney anyone?

Listen now: http://www.wpr.org/hereonearth/archive_101008k.cfm

Hispanic History Month and Foodways Series: Nineteenth Century Brazil

Coarse sea salted marinated and pan fried sardines, sardine recipes below

The Parisian Adèle Toussaint-Samson (1826-1886) traveled to Brazil in the early 1850s where she would live with her husband and children for twelve years. Toussaint-Samson had a wealthy uncle who lived in Rio. Toussaint-Samson became a keen observer of Brazilian foodways including seafood and African slavery; Brazil was the last country in the Americas to abolish slavery in 1888. She provides a wonderful description of a fish market in Rio “where abound sardines, shrimps, oysters, and delicious fishes, which are bought alive.” She goes on to describe a female Afro-Brazilian street vender near the market selling “smoking batatas doces [sweet potato dish], fried sardines, and some angú” (manioc flour gravy) under a large linen umbrella. Here are two Brazilian sardine recipes appropriate for this memory of fish in nineteenth Rio.

Brazilian fried sardine recipe: http://www.all-fish-seafood-recipes.com/index.cfm/recipe/Sardinas_Fritas

Marinated pan fried sardine recipe: http://www.audreycooks.com/audreycooks/?p=394

Hispanic History Month and Foodways Series: Tamales

Tamales, recipes below

The diary of fourteen year old Mariana Calderón y Oliveira provides important insights about cooking and eating in sixteenth century Mexico City. Elite Mexico City families like Mariana’s generally used Indian, Spanish commoners, and casta (people of mixed heritage) wage laborers to perform domestic chores like cooking. In the 1690s, Mexico City cooks prepared various types of corn tamales. At first Indians loathed the pork fat that Iberians enjoyed so much; later they incorporated them into their cuisine when they learned that using them in tamale batter improved the tamale’s texture. Typically they served these tamales with chilly salsa too hot for the average new comer from Spain. But the children of the first Iberian settlers such as Mariana grew accustomed to eating foods like tamales served with spicy hot salsa. As I mentioned yesterday, spicy hot is in today. Below are tamale recipes and a link to an a Marketplace radio story I enjoyed about the spicy food marketing trend in the fast food industry.

Plantain leaf tamale recipe: http://www.saveur.com/article/food/Guatemalan-Tamales-with-Ancho-Chile-Sauce

Vegan tamale recipe: http://joyouslyalivegoesvegan.blogspot.com/2007/10/tamales.html

Related links: http://www.roadfood.com/Restaurant/Reviews/1373/rhodas-famous-tamales

Spicy chicken a decades-old trend:

http://marketplace.publicradio.org/display/web/2010/09/17/pm-spicy-chicken-a-decadesold-trend/

Hispanic History Month and Foodways Series: The People of Maize

Mexican corn bread, recipe below

Don’t know if you have noticed, but spicy foods are in these days. Mexican food I can tell you from experience is spicy hot, even the nuts you purchase from street venders are hot! The Aztec empire covered the most of the region of the contemporary republic of Mexico to parts of Guatemala. The Aztec were the most powerful political force in Mesoamerica before the arrival of the Spanish in the sixteenth century. As proud imperialist, the Aztec were far from egalitarian. In terms of food, they forced groups they conquered, most of which were agriculturalist, to pay tribute, some it in food staples. Commoner women in the Aztec empire controlled local markets where they bartered and negotiated for important staples such as varies species of corn, tomatoes, and chili peppers. The people of Mesoamerica in ancient times were often called the people of maize (corn). This is because they ate and drink it had just about every meal. Mexican corn bread I really like, particularly the way Mexican cooks add fresh vegetables including chilies. Here’s a great corn bread recipe.

Mexican Cornbread Recipe:

Ingredients:
2 eggs, lightly beaten
¼ cup olive or canola oil
1 cup buttermilk
¼ cup or more of heavy cream
1 1/2 cups shredded cheese
1 large diced onion
1 cup fresh steamed corn
¼ cup diced green chillies
¼ cup diced red chillies
1 cup cornmeal (self-rising if available)
1/2 cup self-rising flour
¼ cup sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder (if self-rising flour is not available)
1/2 teaspoon baking soda (if self-rising flour is not available)
1/2 teaspoon salt

Method:
Preheat oven to 350°. In large bowl combine eggs, corn oil, and buttermilk. Add shredded cheese, corn, onions, and chillies. Mix well. In small bowl mix together corn meal, flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Slowly add dry ingredients to egg and corn mixture. Pour into greased cast iron skillet bake for 30 minutes or until an inserted toothpick comes out clean.
Best served warm

Hispanic History Month and Foodways Series: Feeding the Mexican Revolution

Mushroom tacos, recipe below

The Mexican Revolution (1910-1920) was an armed populist movement against the dictatorship of Porfirio Diaz 1876 to 1911. During his presidency Mexicans peasants and proletariats endured poor living and working conditions. Many know about the men who fought in the revolution but what role did women play? The soldaderas or women soldiers fought in the revolution and some served as camp cooks and soldiers despite enduring hardships such as sexual harassment and or violence. Their military and culinary contributions to Pancho Villa’s Northern Army and Emiliano Zapato’s Southern Army or Zapatistas proved important. There are a number of books and articles published on them as soldiers but we know far less about their role in feeding the revolution. The soldaderas were typically mestizas (mixed ethnicity) or Indian women who helped meet a basic necessity of any military campaign—food, and food shortages did plague the revolutionary forces. Soldaderas foraged for edible plants, berries, mushrooms, herbs, and insects and bartered with locals for pigs, fowl, and dairy products. In addition, they hauled the pots and pans from one battle front to the next and gathered the wood needed to cook a meal. Soldaderas set up camp and cooked legumes, meat, other items that filled the tortillas made from corn; corn they ground, shaped, and cooked. These women feed the revolution under the constant sexual harassment and violence from male soldiers who often viewed women in public at that time without guardians or chaperons as loose and or prostitutes. Here is a recipe for mushroom taco filling below that goes well with this story.

Mushroom taco filling (Tacos de Hongos) recipe: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/23/dining/232mrex.html

Hispanic History Month and Foodways Series: Jalisco, Mexico

Mexican mini pecan pies, recipes below

In 1992 I went to Guadalajara, in the state of Jalisco, Mexico (in central Mexico) for a three month Spanish language immersion program (course work plus live with a family). I did this in preparation for doctoral program in history at Syracuse University where I earned my graduate degree. One the requirements was the ability to conduct research in a foreign language. Now was really naive I had convinced myself that after the three month immersion program I would be close to fluency in Spanish—fat chance, it took of course several years. I would go on to spend several summers living in Guadalajara, Mexico in the 1990s learning Spanish and exploring the cuisine. My most vivid memory was a small bakery on a cobble stone street in down town Guadalajara that sold miniature pecan pie like treats (pay de nuez). The filling had the most splendid pastry texture that was a combination of sugar and ground pecans, they were delicious! Pecans are indigenous to the state of Jalisco and thus the Amerindians of region had been cooking and baking with them long before the arrival of the Spanish in the sixteenth century. Here is a recipe mini Mexican pecan pie in Spanish and English below:

Receta de pay de nuez : http://mty-vegan.blogspot.com/2009/12/pay-de-nuez-mini-pecan-pies.html

Mini pecan pie recipe: http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=es&u=http://mty-vegan.blogspot.com/2009/12/pay-de-nuez-mini-pecan-pies.html&ei=C1ioTM6XOoH6lweWu9nKDA&sa=X&oi=translate&ct=result&resnum=7&ved=0CDcQ7gEwBg&prev=/search%3Fq%3Dpay%2Bde%2Bnuez%2Brecipe%26hl%3Den%26biw%3D1440%26bih%3D686%26prmd%3Div

Hispanic History Month and Foodways Series: Colonial Mexico

Nopalitos with Tomatoes and Onions, recipe below

In colonial Mexico City indigenous women gradually shaped the cookery and preferences of Iberian owned homes and eateries. This happened despite the attempt of Iberian born wives to teach their Indian cooks how to prepare meals according to Spanish culinary styles. In Mexico City the women servants who cooked for elite families slipped local ingredients like tomatoes into Spanish recipes believing no one would notice any difference in taste. However, Spanish women realized the change but also recognized that it “turned out much cheaper [and easier] to feed everyone” in a large household on meals made with available and less expensive local ingredients than scarce and expensive imported ones from Spain. In short, the culinary and economic savvy of Indigenous women, some free and some enslaved, resulted in the transformation that occurred in the diet of new arrivals from Europe. Here is a traditional Mexican recipe that is illustrative of the influence of indigenous women on Mexican cuisine.

Nopalitos with tomatoes and onions recipe: http://simplyrecipes.com/recipes/nopalitos_with_tomatoes_and_onions/