» At the end of the Depression, the
Federal Writer's Project began collecting recipes and cataloguing local food celebrations in order to capture the foodways of the United States. Editor Katharine Kellock enjoined her writers to "keep an eye out for food conflicts like New England arguments about chowder, and Carolina arguments about barbeque". Abandoned before publication, those manuscripts - documenting a pre-Interstate America whose cuisine was based on local, seasonal foods - have been languishing in dusty boxes in the Library of Congress ever since.
Now, Mark Kurlansky (author of Cod and Salt) has compiled a selection of these pieces into a new book: The Food of a Younger Land. Listen to the audio file to hear him talk about his struggle to balance racism and historical accuracy, and to hear him recite the spectacular poem "Nebraskans Eat The Wieners".
Update: Here's an excerpt and review.
