Where food history misbehaves.
Where food history misbehaves.
On New Year’s Luck, Inherited Rituals, and the History We Didn’t Know We Were Eating Dear Readers, This evening finds me writing somewhat off-script, the candles burned lower than planned and my thoughts wandering far beyond their usual mischief. In…
Dear Readers, It is commonly agreed, or at least politely assumed, that Christmas tables are governed by goodwill. Candles are lit. Chairs are pulled close. Everyone arrives prepared to behave. This assumption has never survived sustained observation. December gatherings tend…
A Yuletide Tale of Fermented Folly and Military Mayhem Dear Readers, Gather close, warm your hands upon the hearth, and prepare your most dramatically embroidered shawl, for tonight’s chronicle is no gentle fireside yarn. No, indeed. It is a tale…
As told by Lady Simmertown A Prelude to Gratitude Dear Readers, Settle in with a warm beverage and your most luxurious shawl, for the tale of American Thanksgiving is a drama worthy of any Regency drawing room. The holiday that…
A Scandal of Puritans, Pleasure, and the Pastry They Feared to Name… Dearest Readers, Summon your most delicate fan, for what I am about to reveal may cause even the stoutest hostess to gasp over her teacup. There exists a…
While the rest of the world clutches pearls at the mention of mortality, Mexico pours her a drink and invites her to dance. Día de los Muertos, the Day of the Dead, is not a lament, but a love story between the living and the departed. Born of Aztec devotion and baptized in Catholic incense, it is a celebration that spans centuries, from offerings in 1800 BCE to the golden marigold trails of today.
In this exposé, Lady Simmertown lifts her lace veil to reveal how ancient gods, Spanish friars, and a flirtatious skeleton named La Catrina conspired to make death the most dazzling guest at Mexico’s eternal feast.
In 1858 Bradford, England, innocent humbugs were laced with arsenic, turning a confectioner’s delight into a killer’s curse. The sweet shop windows gleamed with sugar, but behind the glass? A most deadly confection.
Sweetness curdled. Trust undone. Halloween reborn in horror. Dearest Readers, Gather close, for tonight’s tale is sugared with deceit and dusted with death. It begins not in the gothic manors of Europe but in the neat lawns of 1970s suburban…
A Trumpet That Never Sounded My most indulgent readers, clutch your forks as well as your pearls, for I bring tidings of a feast most peculiar, a banquet that never arrived, yet left fields barren, larders empty, and countless believers…
Dear Readers, Pray gather round, for I bring you a scandal so dreadful it singed not only the flesh of the poor, but the very reputation of bread itself. In the damp, unassuming fields of Europe’s countryside, rye was once…