Portside

The story of boiled peanuts is as complex, fraught, and global as the South itself. To acknowledge the complexity, and challenges, of their history is to acknowledge the ingenuity of the people who worked to preserve their culinary heritage.

Lemonade became an emblem of the temperance movement. Lucy Webb Hayes, First Lady from 1877 to 1881, bore the nickname “Lemonade Lucy” for her refusal to serve alcohol in the White House.

The etymologies of food words are a path through the history of how we eat and cook.

Thomas Downing’s Oyster House opened in 1825 in the heart of the financial district. Not only did Downing turn oysters into a delicacy, but he was also the first to dish out fine dining.

Food was a weapon of control by slaveholders, most often used as a mechanism for domination and exploitation. The story of African American food has also been a story about self-determination and ownership.

Food is complicated. That creation you love from “The Great British Baking Show? It’s been the subject of arguments over culture, identity and copyright.

The film “Roadrunner” about chef Anthony Bourdain,, who tried to make his food-based adventures as authentic as possible, generates discussions about the ethics of the art form itself.

Food history – and food programming on TV – has been whitewashed for centuries. This powerful series sets an example of how to start correcting the record

For her book, America: The Cookbook, Gabrielle Langholtz looked at cookbooks as well as narrative and anthropological books to fully explore America’s culinary history—Little House on the Prairie and the Sterns’ many varied books among them.