American History through its Recipes: The Janice Bluestein Longone Culinary Archive - Page 4

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American History through its Recipes: The Janice Bluestein Longone Culinary Archive
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Also, excellent collections of 
*Regional and Ethnic culinary Americana
*Charity Cookbooks prior to 1920
*Foreign-language American imprint cookbooks prior to 1950
*Culinary and women’s magazine
 *10,000 items of culinary advertising ephemera (Jell-O to stoves)
*Menu collection (just beginning cataloging)
*Houseware,  cooking and baking utensils and equipment catalogs (both home  and professional kitchens)
*Military and wartime cooking (both the homefront and in the fields and hospitals)
*Wine and other beverages
*Baking and Confectionery
*Hotels, chefs and restaurants
*Women’s empowerment through cookbooks
*Service and Servants
*Etiquette and manners
*Children’s cookery
*ETC., ETC., ETC.  [I feel I am slighting the collection; it is huge and diverse]

Here is an example of one item we are especially proud of:  the discovery and sharing of the first African-American authored cookbook – Malinda Russell’s A Domestic Cook Book, 1866.  For many years, the world thought that What Mrs. Fisher Knows about Old Southern Cooking, published in San Francisco in 1881, was the first black-authored cookbook in America (which Clements also has).  Many culinary historians thought there MUST be some earlier ones.  When Dan and I found Malinda’s book, published 15 years earlier, we discovered we had the only known copy in the world of the true first black-authored cookbook in America!  We spent many years, including our 48th wedding anniversary trying to track Malinda down in all the locales she mentions in her book.  Although we felt we came close, we are not yet certain we have done so.  We donated the book to the Clements.  For the Second Biennial Symposium on American Culinary History, we printed a limited edition facsimile of Malinda, with a new introduction and index.  It was given as a memento to attendees at the Symposium, and we still have a few copies left to sell. 

Malinda, as we call her, was born a free woman of color in Tennessee.  At age 19, she was on her way to Liberia in the Back to Africa movement when she was robbed of all her possessions.  So, she stopped in Lynchburg, Virginia and began to take in laundry and do other work.  She married, had a child born, as she tells us “crippled”, and her husband died after four years.  She then pulled herself up by her bootstraps and went on to become a well respected cook, and kept a boarding on Chuckey Mountain and a pastry shop in Tennessee.  During the Civil War, she was so outspoken pro-Union that she was once again robbed of her property by a “guerilla party” and was “obliged to leave home.”  She had heard that Michigan was the garden of the West and so she came to Michigan, near Paw Paw.  When the War ended she wrote her cookbook and had it published in Paw Paw in 1866.  And continuing her indomitable spirit, she wrote this book so she could return to Tennessee and reclaim her property, for her son’s sake.  This woman was remarkable. She is a role model. Her story is a true American story. 

With your expertise on the evolution of the American kitchen, what do you see as the future of American cuisine?

This is a difficult question to answer.  The world moves very quickly these days.

I think we will continue to have contributions to American cuisine by many new ethnic and immigrant groups. I think there will always be a battle between those interested in “eating to live” and those “living to eat.”   There will be many new inventions and methods of cooking (robots?).  Pressures of time, economic, ecological, climatic, political upheavals – all will affect the future of American cuisine.  Yet, there is hope that the old traditions will not be lost.  There are many young people who are interested in knowing the past and preserving what was best in it.

Thank you.
Jan Longone
Curator of American Culinary History
Clements Library
University of Michigan
Ann Arbor, MI 48109            February 28, 2010