From Hardtack to Homefries

March 25, 2002
The tasty graham cracker, a beloved bedtime snack of many children, began its life as the linchpin of its originator Sylvester Graham's fanatical early–19th-century health campaign to curtail sexual excess, especially masturbation and more then once-monthly marital coitus. Facts such as these, interwoven with informed, witty discussions of social, political and economic history, make Haber's tour through the history of American food so entertaining. Since food has so often been consigned to the domestic realm of woman, Haber's study is in essence a history of American women: the "Harvey Girls," who worked in the chain of reasonably priced railroad depot restaurants that revolutionized public eating in the 1880s and '90s; how Eleanor Roosevelt and her general housekeeper Henrietta Nesbitt had to balance White House menus, which had to seem both fancy and economical during WWII; the role of a small tea shop, started by faculty wives in Cambridge, Mass., as a boon to women refugees in the 1940s. While Haber doesn't explore issues in depth (her discussion of why Irish immigrants were antagonistic to African-Americans would have been helped with references to Noel Ignatiev's 1996 study How the Irish Became White), she does cover a wealth of material with a breezy style and a fine eye for historical detail.

March 15, 2002
Drawing on cookbooks, diaries, and memoirs, noted food historian Haber here presents some of the major events of American history through the lens of food history. Chapters cover such topics as the diets of POWs during World War II, why the food was so bad in the FDR White House, the role of the Harvey Girls in feeding the Western expansion, and the "diet kitchens" run by Civil War nurses. Each chapter works better as an interesting and well-written essay than as a contribution to a linear history of American cooks and meals. Some of the chapters are quite funny, such as the one on America's food reformers, which includes a digression on Haber's favorite modern diet books. An annotated bibliography, photographs, and several illustrative recipes are also included. Curator of Books at the Schlesinger Library at Harvard University's Radcliffe Institute, Haber has been profiled in Bon App tit, Newsweek, and other publications. Recommended for public libraries and academic or special libraries where there is interest in food history. Mary Russell, New Hampshire State Lib., Concord

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