Focus 580; Culinary History As A Window To Family Resilency

In this hour of the program we will go to the focus 580 archives and repeat a show that was first broadcast last November. We do have a lot of past programs on our website by the way if you'd like to go back and listen to some U.S. dot edu is the place to go. Do keep in mind as you listen to this conversation with Barbara Haber from last November this is an archive. And in this hour will not be taking your calls in this part of focus 580 will be talking about food. Now this is something that we talk about on the program on and off and certainly once a month where for a long time we've been doing the show and we did it the first hour this morning where we talk about cooking and exchange recipes and you know always have a good time. This hour when we talk about food it will be in I think a slightly different way and that is what we can learn about people and culture and perhaps history by looking at the subject of food. Who cooks what they cook how they cook. That's something that's been an interest of our guest Barbara Haber for quite a long time and she's the author of a book that's titled From

hard tack to home fries an uncommon history of American cooks and meals this is a book that first came out in the spring of 2002. And then in paper published by Penguin just last year June of 2003 which takes a look at cooking and food in American history at various periods She's also written about food for many different publications. Los Angeles Times Harvard Magazine she's coauthored the chapter on culinary history in the Cambridge World History of food until relatively recently she also served as curator of books at the Slesinger library at Harvard University's Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study and when she was there she worked to develop one of the country's most important collections of cookbooks and books on food history over 16000 volumes in fact. Also there they have papers of food figures including MFJ Fisher and Julia Child and Elizabeth David. So her interest in

food and cooking goes back some way. Glad to have you here. Well thank you it's my pleasure. Maybe just to begin I'm interested in starting at at the end of hardtack to home fries this chapter about what cookbooks mean. Right. And you know I think about the fact that if today if you go into a bookstore the cookbook section is enormous. And in addition we have then what if you go to where the magazines are a lot of magazines are cooking there are many websites devoted to cooking today. And of course on cable television we have an entire channel. What he's cooking shows 24 hours a day and I'm sure that there would've been a time when the when the Food Network was getting going in the idea someone put out the idea somebody. I'm sure people would have said are you you're kidding right 24 hours a day cooking shows. And of course it's been very very popular and some of the people on the Food Network have become big stars because of their of the programs that they have done all of that would suggest that we're obsessed with with

food and with cooking. What do you make of of that. It's phenomenal. It's what I make of it compared to the earlier years when cooking shows were on radio and not very often. It was a modest thing. And I think that on television on a lot of the credit went to Julia Child who was unusual that she was given primetime on public television. And I think she started a trend. But I think that what the Food Network has accomplished is really quite extraordinary. I've been on airplanes where everyone has a private television set and very clear from the ways some of the male passengers were dressed. You'd expect him to be watching the business networks but they were watching the Food Network and all you can say is that food has become a spectator sport. It's entertainment. I think people will make real eating instead hearing about it or reading about it. I have come across a statistic that 20 percent of books published are

cookbooks. Nobody really knows how many there are because we can't keep track of the privately published books that are often put out to support local churches or arts groups or whatever. People love it and let me tell you people collect these things. I know that because when I was curator at the Schlesinger library frequently I would get calls from people offering to donate their books to the library and especially they would call me offering to donate their their 20 years of Gourmet magazine. And I it was heartbreaking to have to tell them that I didn't need their set because we already had one of them. You know it's someone and I don't recall who this was the coined this term for this a fascination with cooking and food. And I think the term was gastro porn gastro porn right that's in the vernacular now which which speaks to the degree of the obsession I guess what the what what sort of need

does touch in people I think varies. You will have noticed that the cookbooks that have been published in the last 15 or 20 years are lavish they cost about at least $35 or 40 they're not simple books of recipes. One expects beautiful multi-colored photographs of the food and you're disappointed if the photographs aren't there. So the books are very expensive. I think it's possible for people to who I know they do they buy these books and they're not in their kitchens they're on their bedside tables they're reading about food. They're reading about food in foreign countries in lieu of travel. And my best example of a kind of gastro porn which to me means you know it's instead of doing it you're reading about it is a collection that came from an elderly woman whose brother had died and to her complete astonishment his bedroom closet was filled with hundreds of cookbooks. And she didn't even know of his interest and did the library want them. I was thrilled

to get the collection for the library because these books had never seen a kitchen they had not. So no matter stay as cake batter anywhere. And so I took them and I had to go through them to see you know what we would keep for the collection and all of that and in many cases substitute his copy for what it was on the shelf. But what I also found were pages of writing of listing of recipes peanut butter cookies or chocolate covered peanuts and written in a spidery hand. And there were other clues that would suggest that this was a man on a really limited restricted diet who could only pretend or think about eating. You know the delectable delicious comforting things that he remembered from. Earlier times. Also what's interesting to me is well and on the one hand we have a lot of people who are who are fascinated with food and cooking and love to if not cook look at the books and watch people on television who are

professionals and and have elevated those people to be celebrities. I suppose they always sort of were in a way but even even more of that than they used to be. And at the same time we were told that Americans have a weight problem and that we can trace that to a couple of things. One might be the lack of physical activity. But the other is poor choices and people eating a lot of prepared foods that are not very healthy. That and that have a lot of the the big tastes that maybe human beings are prone to like anyway. Sugars sugar salt and fat Yeah. And it seems that in a sense when it comes to food we have these two Americas. People who maybe aren't thinking very much about what they eat or maybe aren't eating very carefully and maybe aren't eating very well and then this other group which I would assume to be the smaller group that are interested in cooking at least theoretically at a very sophisticated level. Why what what does that tell us.

Well I would even go so far as to say as the war is within a single person that first of all you have the enormous availability of rich and fattening and unhealthy foods at the same time you have campaigns going on to try to educate people about making choices. So in fact right before coming to Illinois I read quickly about a new discovery made by Harvard scientists that there are two separate parts of the brains that operate that cause that contention within individuals on the one hand. It's part of the brain that leads to addiction. So that could account for going after the sugar in fat and salt and what have you and the other part is the reasonable part of the brain that says you're not supposed to have that. You're supposed to eat yogurt and fruit and I think that we are constantly dealing with the battle as individuals and why then is that not a surprise that the whole societies dealing with this as a battle. Well one of the chapters in the book is devoted to a discussion of two. Famous names in in health food. People who were

food reformers that we probably know now because their names have been attached to particular foods. That is Mr. Graham. It was the father of the graham cracker and Mr. Kellogg who I'm not sure which is much him as it was his brother popularized cornflakes. Right. And both of them had very strict ideas about health that people should avoid. All of that the fun stuff should avoid caffeine and alcohol. I think probably they were both believe everybody should be vegetarians and that they had very strong pledges very strict sort of regimens about how people should live and had this idea that there was this very strong connection between your health and and what you ate. So I guess that really the idea that. That there is this connection and that there are that there are people who really want to whip you want to shape by saying you know eat this way and don't eat these things. Right we have the haves that always been with us.

Well I am that chapter by talking about dieting these days so I obviously I see this all as a continuum. And it was it was very interesting in the in the mid-1980s people were drinking whiskey for breakfast I mean water wasn't safe or they were drinking cider and they were drinking all kinds of hard things that we would beer that we wouldn't think is a very good idea these days meat particularly pork and and fatty cuts of pork were served maybe three times a day and lots of salt vegetables were hard to come by unless you had a garden and if you lived in New England that would be only a few months of the year that that would be available. So there's no question that people were eating badly they were drinking badly and Americans needed reforming. Americans need reforming for all kinds of other reasons but it was Sylvester Graham's genius to attach reform to substitute what we were eating and and his belief in abstinence of all sorts was his credo and he had a huge influence on a whole line of people that followed including Dr.

Kellogg who opened the famous sanitarium in about quit Michigan. Is this something where you think that is something that you think is particularly American the reforming impulse. Absolutely I think that we think if we if we change ourselves then somehow we will have an impact on what happens to everybody else. I see this in women's history so much a lot of the 19th century household management books talked about it. Advising women they learn to cook well if they learn to housekeep while that then they would keep husbands out of saloons and haven't and it puts the this whole pressure on keeping the American family safe and sound. The into individual duty of the woman in this case. So that's that's one particular example. But I think in general that we are always interested in motivational speakers who are interested in new diets new techniques new advice. It's not difficult to get going on something like that and get a

following. I think that Americans are self-critical enough so that they will succumb to a lot of of this kind of leadership. You know it just it we don't seem to be able to stick with it. You know I think somebody else comes along and then. We have a short attention span as well. What's phenomenal today I think is the end durability of the Atkins diet. I learned recently that some pasta factories and Italy are closing because of the falling off purchase of their product. Now that's interesting because I think not very long ago I recall reading something about and I'm sorry that I can't. I wanted to make note of it and I didn't but it was it was somebody who tracks food trends who said that he thought that maybe the interest in this no carb or low carb kind of way of eating had peaked and that in fact we had a lot of people who had they missed their bread they missed their pasta. And that may be there will be people will be going back to eating those other things because they did but

they didn't you know they could maybe could give them up for a while but didn't want to give them up forever. Well. The other thing is that there have been no long term studies of people who stay on a low low carbohydrate diet. What we do know is that people who all diet in different ways start off and the people who skip the carbs lose faster. But after a year the low calorie people will catch up and everybody is sort of at the same place. What we don't know is what happens after a two or three years someone going on essentially a high fat and high protein diet. And I think when those studies come out it probably will have an impact. Our guest this morning is Barbara Haber. She's authored a book that explores some of these ideas the book is titled From hard tack to home fries an uncommon history of American cooks and meals and it's now available and a paperback edition published by Penguin. She's the former curator of books at Harvard University's legendary library which interestingly enough it is as I understand it is intended to be a library

specializing in women's history. That's right. And you have Betty for Dan's papers there. Absolutely. And so I guess it was somewhat controversial the idea of collecting all these cookbooks some people said well now wait a minute that's that's not that's not the kind of image of women that we're really interested in here that you know there's a lot of explanations for that. Cooking and cookbooks have received a bum rap along with kitchens from the point of view of early feminists who job it was they felt to give attention to it. Women in the public sphere so that a lot of the earlier generations of people doing women's history earlier 70s I'm thinking of were interested in talking about suffrage and abolition and temperance and the big social movements or women who had made significant changes in the American labor history movement or other sort of heroines who had an impact on social progress. Jane Adams you know people like that.

I felt that there have always been more heroines more women have been at home taking care of families than have been doing these other kinds of things. And my feeling always has been that these these people this to was women's history and one way of talking about cookbooks is saying that this is their literature that cookbooks describe American life or any kind of national life and give you all kinds of clues to the people who cooked and served and who took care of other members of their families. Well one of the things that you've said that you think is that when it comes to historical. Resources that cookbooks are are under utilized right for that. In fact they have a lot of things that they can tell you right but that historians haven't often tapped into. I purposely chose subjects in my book to talk about the Civil War for example or will World War 2 the Philippian theatre the Irish famine you know big subjects a big big historic important things in order

to tell a food story within the framework of mainstream history and to show that that that women who were responsible for food and the feeding of people made a difference within the context of war. Well give me give an example. A lot of the women who served as volunteer nurses in the Civil War were responsible for what was called Diet kitchens these these were constructed by army surgeons who knew nothing about nutrition. Most people didn't know anything about nutrition at the time the 1860s. So they made up crazy to modernize formulas and diets to be given to wounded soldiers you know if the if the guy had a bad cough then than give him donuts. And there was whiskey and lot of hard liquor involved in all the diets but they seemed really. Not sensical sensible in terms of what we know today of nutritional science but the women were instructed to follow these doctor's orders because the doctors had the power

in these hospitals. However when the women were dealing with the patients sick and dying men who had a craving for milk or for eggs or for whatever they knew that if they got the foods that they were craving for it would do them more good than to follow some abstract order. And so they broke rank. They did their best to procure to look and find the foods that would comfort these soldiers. And a lot of them did much better. These are women who were used to dealing with sick people with children with aged parents and all the rest of it. They were transferring those skills to the warfront. And and I you know I took great note of that. It was one of the things that I'm really struck by and it's an upgrade to Clay for a found sort of understanding to come to but that when it comes to food whatever you grew up with whatever your mother made or your grandmother because indeed of course it's going to be the women who were there that the home cooks.

That's what you think is food. And it can be no small thing to get people to have something different try something different because that's just not when you see it on the plate. It's like the the go back to the story about the women in the civil wars about the Jewish Confederate woman who was searching for what it is she could serve the troops that would help them. And she said Well chicken soup that would probably be good. And so she she serves there's this wonderful quote where she serves a bowl of chicken soup to a soldier and she decided to put parsley in it. And he said well it's not like my mammy made. And you know maybe I could get some of it down except for these weeds that you have. Ticking there so it's sort of you know like the Garrison Keillor joke about home cooking if you happen to been raised that way. That's right. That's right. Well human beings unlike pets or other animals give enormous meaning to what we eat what we eat we connected with particular occasions birthday celebrations Christmas Thanksgiving especially is such an American holiday and it's full of traditions. I know I myself produce and replicate my mother's

Thanksgiving meal and my own rule just for myself is I can always add something but I can't take anything away. So I'll always prepare the exact meal my mother prepared and if I want to throw in an extra pie fine. But don't take away the pies that she always served because it's more meaningful that's I'm in communion with my mother. I think every Thanksgiving she's been gone a long time. But it brings back a lot of positive feelings for me. And I think that's what happens with people all the time a certain kind of birthday cake will be de rigueur for a birthday. Picnics Fourth of July celebrations they're all just loaded for us. Historically if you take a look at who who has done for all probably forever most of the cooking it's women it is the Muslim women of the cooks. People who cook professionally. That is people you know. Her liver her paid to be cooks the chefs have been men. Now in recent years I think we're starting to

see more and more women go into cooking as a profession and becoming well-known and recognized and indeed if you if you look through the pages of the cooking magazines and you see the things that they have written about who are the important cooks What are the food trends what are the the restaurants that are getting a lot of attention more and more and more you're seeing women as as the executive chefs and as people who are determining the menus and making the food and so forth. How do we how do the numbers look like in terms of prose I wonder if you know how it breaks down according to I don't know the exact numbers but I know it's still a male dominated profession and I would also point out this is hard work. I mean until recently in this country and certainly it's true abroad it's blue collar work. People work long hours they get to they get to work at about let's say a restaurant is open just for dinner. And you're responsible for the kitchen you get there 11 12 o'clock and in the early afternoon make sure that the line chefs are there that the prep is going on and all the rest of

it. You don't get home till about 11:00 12:00 at night. That's the life of a professional chef. Also men and women can't keep on doing it. It's a young people's profession. It's very hard work you spend all your time on your favorite restaurant kitchens are very hot exactly but you get caught you get burnt and you're carrying lugging heavy heavy things and a lot of women it's tool can do it. And if they're successful I'm what Boston has quite a few female owners and chefs. Lydia Shire for instance Jody Adams is there. They've all been awarded and received a lot of attention. But I'm anxious to see how they move. Lydia Shire has more doing management. She says she's hired executive chefs in her restaurants and because Lydia is no longer a kid. So you know like any work in the higher up you go the more management you're doing in the less hands on. You know it just it interests me I guess in a way that that is the reality

of working in a kitchen that is than the number of people who are really at the top who make decisions who make a lot of money are very few. That's right that most everybody else they don't make a great deal of money and that's very hard work. And so that's the reality and yet there seem to be just a wrong number of people there that that are fascinated with the idea of that as a career and some of those people are people who have had some other career doing something else and are wanting to do this as a second career. That's right. That's right. Particularly if there is in the law a lot of lawyers are being retooled and going to cooking school. And I was just I met a young chef the other day I was in his restaurant quite a young guy early 30s still. And I was hearing about his day and what his plans are and all the rest of it. And he too said that he expects that he will be able to do this and when he's even 40 he you know that sounds like a good to me but it's seems to him that that he would burn out by then and that his plans would be to expand and hire you know maybe get a second or third restaurant

and be managing all three. But putting executive chefs in each of those places. There's glamour the other thing he said that I want to talk about was how he felt when he first saw his restaurant kitchen as a kid and he looked at the the commotion the hysteria the excitement the drama back and it's like theater in the front. People are sitting you know demurely being taken care of by waitstaff and in the back there's all this wild drama going on. And he thought this is for me. People fall in love with that scene with some people who are listening. Charleston lie number one hello. Hi. I've been trying to avoid hydrogenation ingredient and this is really hard especially when I go grocery shopping and I'm cooking for my family that ages of my children are 14 on down to four. And of course my kids want to that have lots of partially hydrogenated oil. Do you see this as

something. It's going to get better it's already in creative storage not having so much of trans fat. And I'll hang up and listen. Thank you. Thank you. Well I know that I don't know if it's passed yet but I think so that pretty soon the food labeling will indicate if products have hydrogenated fats in them. My own point of view is not to buy them when I shop in a grocery store I go all around the edges and I don't go much through the middle aisles. And I think it's all the cookies in the crackers and that kind of stuff that's that's full of that stuff. It's not hard to make cookies. It's not even hard to make crackers I know this sounds hot. But if you just sort of try to make some of these products that that the could be both appealing to your children and also healthy for them I think you would get so much satisfaction out of doing that and just steer them away from from the foods that are too salty or too fatty with the wrong kinds of fats. And I have found that if kids early on taste good and healthy food will that they

can have a place you have a preference for it. And do you think that if we get to the point where the trans fats are are actually labeled and it's on stuff that people are going to pay attention to that is going to influence their decisions about what they buy. Well work with cholesterol you know which was started that whole anti fad craze when people were buying all those sugary cookies and they got sick you know with diabetes. There's a lot of educating that still has to go on. And I think if people are made aware and some health professionals feel that the trans fatty acids are the worst things that you can possibly eat. I think knowing that you're not going to give it to your kids and so you have to find some substitute. I think people will. Yes I will pass the main point here and we're talking with Barbara Haber she is a former curator at the slush near library at Harvard University's Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study where she developed one of the country's most important collections of cookbooks and also books on food history over 16000 volumes. Also there they have the papers of

food notables including MF K. Fisher and Julia Child and Elizabeth David. She has written for various publications about food and she is the author of the book from heart attack to home fries and an uncommon history of American cooks and meals. This is now available in a paperback edition is published by Penguin So if you're interested you can go out there in the bookstore and look for questions or Welcome to 3 3 3 9 4 5 5 toll free 800 to 2 2 9 4 5 5. Let's have you talk a bit more about some of the things that are in the books and I guess one of the things that I find pretty interesting is the story about the food in the Roosevelt White House. Yeah apparently because there for for a long long time the sort of the story was that it was just awful. It was awful. And the question then the question was Well why was it so awful. And apparently it was because the cook was just not a very inspired cook. That's right. That's right. If you look at any book of memoirs written during

by any of Roosevelt's contemporaries everyone talks about how bad the food was in the White House and the saying around Washington was if you're invited there for dinner eat first because the food is bound to be bad and it's far as I was concerned it was sort of the last chapter that I wrote for this book and I address it as as an unresolved historic mystery. And so I looked into it and what was wonderful is that I found out that the woman responsible for the White House food had left behind a memoir and a cookbook. And I felt I could really do justice to the story and get at the truth by reading all the negative stuff and then then reading her own defense of her position. And in reading it I discovered that there had been a very special relationship between this woman her name was Henriette and as but an Eleanor Roosevelt they had been friends in Hyde Park. Mrs. Nesbitt her husband had lost his job and she rolled up her sleeves and started baking. She knew how to bake and baked well and sold it to neighbors the Roosevelts bought her products and then when they went

on to be governors he was the governor. They would order product from Hyde Park and sent on the train to be so you know to be served in the governor's mansion. And so the next step was to for business but and her husband to be invited to work at the White House or she was the head housekeeper and he was in charge of the inventories. And the complaints when the Roosevelt children were in and out of that house all the time the food was like boarding house food. She would serve cheap cuts of meat like tongue and innards of sorts and have a revolving pattern of five or six different menu was over and over again. Nothing fancy at all and it's easy to condemn her if you just look at that side of it. But then I read her side of it and she points out that they were in the midst of a depression and then a war things were scarce. It wasn't proper she felt for the people in the White House to be eating and serving food that was sort of high off the hog when

everybody else was told to tighten their belts. She was concerned about Roosevelt's infirmities that that they had bad eating habits ate too much butter and cream and all that sort of thing. And him his her conviction that men had to be encouraged to eat their vegetables. So she had a kind of infantile attitude about you know what men are like. And for all these reasons and budgetary reasons there was no special amount of money. In addition to what was paid the money that that went on the table for food on the table came from his own pocket. And so for all those reasons she served the kinds of simple fare and she was very fond of gelatin salads which men particularly hated and that they were in vogue at that time and she learned how to make them when she visited a stuffer restaurant and so on. So at the bottom of the mystery when I see from everything she says about Eleanor Roosevelt and from what Eleanor Roosevelt says about Henrietta Naz but they were

good friends. And my conclusion is that this woman stayed in the White House for 12 years because Eleanor Roosevelt one did not care much about food anyway and two because she trusted her. She knew even though the food wasn't electable it would be served in time and everybody would be fed appropriately and in the meantime Eleanor had other things to do than worry about running the house. We have some other folks to talk with someone new Banna line number one. Hello good morning. Yes the caller I'm sorry the answer previously about for somebody from the old boy yours getting him to cooking prompts me to ask whether you know any. Interesting stories or anecdotes about the history of illegal involvement in food. It's prompted because I know one in which the Supreme Court was finally involved in deciding whether for commercial reasons tomatoes would be a fruit or of actionable. And since you've had so much experience dealing with food I was hoping you'd have some more of these

trivial and oddball anecdotes I'll hang up and listen. I wish I did. I don't do legal history and nothing surfaces. What popped into my mind when you when you spoke though was was the the business of who was president that that that tomato ketchup should be considered a matched I think that was Mr. Reagan was a rake. In connection with what would be an appropriate school lunch program that really got a lot of press and I think people who do agricultural history would really have a lot to say about all of that. I suppose the more I talk the more things occur to me but there have been been laws about adulterating bread especially all over the world that bread that has been such a staple for the Atkins diet in Western countries had to have a certain amount of nutritional value and that some bakers particularly the 900 century were adulterating it they were extending the flower with other white substances that were not food.

And so the law stepped in to create laws that insisted that food had to be this that or the other and the pasteurization laws occurred to me when we don't sell raw milk in stores it has to be pasteurized. You know anything that that has to do with public safety. And I think if we all had more time to think about it we could come up with a long list. To someone in Indiana line for. Hello. Well yes I was wondering at the library that you were associated with whether or not you had let's put it this way the oldest cookbook certain of the connection and you know how far back do you go do you. You have things for me to do. Period. Things like that. This particular library this particular library did not have things that went as far back as a PC is which is a book that's considered the oldest cookbook in

the world it's Roman era and the only one that I know of in the United States is in New York at a medical library medical library. The Schlesinger library was especially strong in American cookbooks and obviously America didn't go back all that long. It also had a very strong collection of French cookbooks I would say it had some 17th century material but its strength in the rare area was mostly 18th and 19th century but the oldest kopek we have is is Roman How about when I can remember the dates I'm not going to say it but it's considered the first cookbook. The day just went out of my head early earlier there are some tablets there are some. I think Yale has some kind of engraved tablets that have beer recipes. I've heard I've heard that that exists. OK other questions welcome we have about 10 12 minutes left in this part of focus 580 with killer story and Barbara Haber. If you have questions you can call us at 3 3 3

9 4 5 5. Toll free 800 2 2 2 9 4 5 5. One of the chapters in the book is about the Harvey girls and about these restaurants that were started to go along with the train line because at the time people there were there wasn't much in the way of good food if you were traveling by train and that this man Mr. Harvey had this idea that you could establish a chain of restaurants and that people would definitely respond if you could give them good service reliably good food in a very clean place and that people would would would definitely flock to them because there were the other choices where bad to none. That's right. He was a genius I think. He was an English man who came to this country when he was about 15 had knocked around New York in the south and learned you know what good food was. And he connected with us in Topeka and Santa Fe Railroad and together they produced the idea that if the restaurant was at every depot

that locals would come and use it but also that people who travel east to west. Would be able to have a variety of mails that would serve be served quickly and well what he was combat ing was that the two options that people had was either that they would carry their own food for let's say a three or four day trip and it would be fly ridden by the time they got to day three or even two. Particularly if there was if it was warm there were nothing. There was no refrigeration. The other option was that there were these scam artists along the way who were operating restaurants and you people would disembark from the train go in. They would be asked to pay up front and then the food would be served really very very hot and before people had a chance to eat it. The proprietor of the restaurant would be in cahoots with the conductor on the train who would toot the horn of the train telling everybody to get back right on and they didn't have a chance to finish it. And the same stuff would be repeated for the next set of victims. So Harvey came along and offered surprise food and beautiful service

and the whole sort of glamour of young women from the east were hired by him to be the servers they were called Harvey girls and they were you know dressed appropriately and served beautifully. And my contention in that chapter is that I think the West wound up with about 100000 of Harvey girls who wound up marrying ranchers and railroad men and what have you. And that in a sense they founded the West. Are there other important ways in which the restaurant and particularly a. One thing that now I guess we would call a chain restaurant. It had a important effect on how these people thought about food or thought about eating. Well I think the automobile probably is a way to look at it once we had that kind of rapid transportation individual transportation. You got hotels and motels I'm thinking of Howard Johnson for instance where you could be served again you would know what you would get. The

consistency is a big thing especially today and all fast food agencies and people could stop and get a reliable meal at a reliable price and be on their way again. I think what sets apart modern fast food chains from what heart of Harvey was doing is that Harvey was subsidized. He so he could serve food that was really extremely good and we don't get the quality today in fast food restaurants that that he was doing well it was very striking what you write about in the chapter that his restaurant lost money. They did they were expected to lose money if he saw that people were making a profit. He would immediately zoom down and question the manager and he would find out for instance that instead instead of cutting the pie into four parts he was cutting it into six parts and he put a stop to it or the ham was being cut tooth and he was stinting on ingredients. They would tell a story about someone specifically who the restaurant was doing something it was like losing a thousand dollars a month. And he found a way to cut it down he was only losing $500 a month. And

Mr. Harvey came and fired the guy. That's right. And put somebody else in there so he would go back to losing a thousand dollars that's right that's right because it was a loss leader. People would take their trips along the Atchison Topeka in order to get that kind of food. And so the whole equation was based on the fact that the food had to be a reasonable price and the quality had to be enormously. It was actually good for the railroad people to chose that route because because of our right and it was a small price to pay for the price of the tickets and the following that they got. Just fairly recently one of my colleagues on the afternoon program that we do here talked with one of the editors of gourmet magazine's new cookbook which is this enormous enormous book full of recipes and it's a general cookbook I know the book there is yes. And and I heard the conversation what I thought was interesting was the that the man that Celeste was talking with was making some comments about how over time we have changed the way we eat. Right and you could sort of see that

by looking at recipes particularly when you look at the older recipes because they have a lot of salt cream and butter. Right. And he he said you know some of those old some of the older recipes just they have people wouldn't tolerate that much lighter in the recipe anymore he would pass over the recipe or lard in apple pie dough. Yeah. And all of there are still people who would swear that's the only it is the best you can make you know. But I guess I'm thinking of you know ways in which we have we have really changed the way that we eat and we think about cooking and that just being one of them that is particularly we've cut way back on but if you go back to look at Craig clay Bourne's book which at one time was a sort of a standard book of The New York Times cookbook and published a lot of people's shows when you look at some of these recipes and just say no we just want this we do that though they'll be very fussy they'll be too many ingredients they'll be hard to do they won't include the

ingredients that we now have they're available. I was asked recently does the world really need a new comprehensive cookbook like like the gourmet book and the competing volume has been put out by Cook's Illustrated which is the best of. And I say Yeah the more the better because I like to look at these books as statements about what food is like at this particular time and place. And it's very revealing to compare the new gourmet with the one that came out in the 50s for instance which has bare meat in it or wild ducklings because it too was taken from the pages of Gourmet which had a lot of game cookery in those days. And so they they do tell a story that only these comprehensive volumes are going to answer do. So are today's recipes are the ingredient lists. Do they tend to be shorter than they had opened. I think so. I don't know if you know the Silver Palate cookbook as it was a real sensation when it came out. There are very good recipes and each recipe is about on one page it doesn't go on for pages and they they do have a simple list of ingredients.

And it made very good food available to people stylish food available to people and doable for a lot of people. And I think that we could we use more olive oil now they're red that they're probably going to put as a statement on olive oil bottles saying it's probably very good for your heart and that will produce you know increase olive oil sales even more than they are now. Yeah I think I think that's true. Oh I think the other thing that struck me in having the conversation was that obviously the guys pitching that piece He's pitching his book which I'm sure he thinks is a good book. But one of the things that he talked about was that a lot of the recipes. I'm a little dubious of a claim like that but he said basically a lot of the recipes you could do say in about 30 minutes certainly and under an hour now. I still think that that means if you're fairly experienced cook and you've made it more than once. That's right. So that you can you kind of got it down but theoretically yes you could get to the point where I'm probably if you were fairly comfortable in the kitchen

and you where you were organized you could actually do it in 30 40 minutes had done your shopping and knew where you stored things and all the rest of it you know there's a lot of qualifications think of into it. But I think it's true if you've done all those things and done the preparation that you can and you know start started heating up the pan before you took your coat off that's when you know that the shortcuts. Yeah you know what. I'm just curious what do you think it is. The the the basic difference between a professional cook and the home cook and people of a pretty good you know a pretty good home cook I mean really what what makes the difference. Oh right. I happen to be someone who doesn't cook from chefs cook books and for a reason every every recipe will refer you back to two other recipes. They'll tell you to use some of your homemade broth and then you go to the page with the homemade broth and that's something that has to cook for 12 hours. Every good restaurant kitchen will have this kind of you know homemade broth. That's the basis of a lot of sauces.

But the home cook doesn't have that will have a bullion Kubler or a paste if you pay a little more you'll get a good sort of chicken based paste that you can make a broth with. And it's just more steps and more complications because chefs cooking has to be innovative in order for him to be famous and to be the celebrity he is and the cookbooks. Now these days celebrity chefs who have television programs and the books are the tie and this is the basis of a lot of cookbook publishing. And and the poor little home gifted cook who doesn't have a famous name is going to have a problem being published unless she becomes a TV star. Something that I'd like maybe as a way of you know we have a couple minutes left so as a way of finishing up in just a tie with the fact that the family resiliency program I brought you here one of the things that is lamented is the loss of

family the family dinner. Right. The fact that people are feeling very rushed. People are going off in 50 different directions. They're all very busy. And that we see less and less family sitting down and night and eating together. And a lot of people regard that as a loss. I do. I absolutely do. When my kids were young and I my family is I instead have very few rituals and the way our house was run but one of the the only the strongest observance we had was that we had dinner together and so people didn't have appointments around the dinner hour. Now I'm a good basic cook and I'm a quick one so that putting a meal and table is not a big deal. And I also recognize the instant gratification you get as a cook to produce something that if you're a family that people really enjoy. So when I told the caller before I will bake your cookies try to make crackers without the terrible fat I meant. It because everybody gains and you as a producer of good and healthy food will be the most will have the most to

gain. So that is is that helped by the fact that we seem to have more recipes and cookbooks that are designed to try to help you get that food on the table and a shot at a shorter that a lot of us are really trying to encourage people to cook and to bring back the family meal because it's not just about eating together it's about talking together. You teach kids manners at a table. You teach them how to have a conversation. There's a lot of civilizing that goes on around the food it's not just about the food it's about the whole family experience. So what's your favorite thing to do having one or two things. Well those depends on when you ask the question you know right now I'm obsessed with soup making was the right time. Yeah exactly exactly right. You know and if you'd asked me the question in July I'd be talking about fruit. But winter soups with beans and noodles and full of vegetables are things that I feel very good about cooking and serving. Well sounds pretty good to me. Well thank you very much my pleasure. For people who are interested in

reading I would recommend the book from hard tack to home fries an uncommon history of American cooks and meals by our guest Barbara Haber. It is available now in a paperback edition published by Penguin.