BiblioVault - Books about Regional & Cultural

Ladie Borlase's Receiptes Booke

David E. Schoonover

University of Iowa Press, 1998

Ladie Borlaise's Receiptes Booke, an English manorial and culinary manuscript, has been in existence for at least 333 years. This manuscript, bearing dates from 1665 to 1822, provides a unique compendium of culinary history that opens a window to the aristocratic, social, agricultural, horticultural, economic, and medicinal aspects of English country life.

The Borlase manuscript is a kind of miscellany. Included are recipes not only for all kinds of foods but also for distilled waters, remedies, dyes, soaps, and perfumes. A housewife of that period was responsible for keeping her family healthy and her house clean and sweet smelling, and so the manuscript features directions for preparing medicinal “oyles,” waters, “glysters,” powders, “ballsoms,”a “true Majistery,” and a julep, with healing powers for a number of ailments from apoplexy and gout to cancer and the plague.

The cookery recipes concentrate almost entirely on sweets and meats with only a few mentions of vegetables. More than half of the recipes included in this manuscript are for sweets. This was important as sugar was entering Britain in greater quantities and because people believed in sugar's supposed health benefits. Several recipes for preserved fruits reflect a changing diet and appetite among the British as the availability of fruits and vegetables increased in both quantity and variety.

David Schoonover's informative introduction places the Borlase manuscript in its historical context with special attention to the economic and social changes of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, which brought about a new emphasis on housewifery and the management of households. He also provides a brief summary of the Borlase family history—born in 1621, Alice Bankes, Lady Borlase, died in 1683 at the age of sixty-two years—and a description of their home at Bockmer Manor at Medmenham, Buckinghamshire.

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Laughing to Keep from Dying

African American Satire in the Twenty-First Century

Danielle Fuentes Morgan

University of Illinois Press, 2020

By subverting comedy's rules and expectations, African American satire promotes social justice by connecting laughter with ethical beliefs in a revolutionary way. Danielle Fuentes Morgan ventures from Suzan-Lori Parks to Leslie Jones and Dave Chappelle to Get Out and Atlanta to examine the satirical treatment of race and racialization across today's African American culture. Morgan analyzes how African American artists highlight the ways that society racializes people and bolsters the powerful myth that we live in a "post-racial" nation. The latter in particular inspires artists to take aim at the idea racism no longer exists or the laughable notion of Americans "not seeing" racism or race. Their critique changes our understanding of the boundaries between staged performance and lived experience and create ways to better articulate Black selfhood.

Adventurous and perceptive, Laughing to Keep from Dying reveals how African American satirists unmask the illusions and anxieties surrounding race in the twenty-first century.

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Life in a Northern Town

Cooking, Eating, and Other Adventures along Lake Superior

Mary Dougherty

Wisconsin Historical Society Press, 2017

"Generations of men and women have stood on these beaches, listened to water rushing over these basalt rocks, and picked wild blueberries here well before I sailed into the Bayfield harbor. The families of those men and women are still here, tethered to a place where they can slip behind their ancestor’s eyes and take in essentially the same view."
—from the Introduction
In 2007, Mary Dougherty and her family moved from St. Paul to the tiny Bayfield Peninsula, surrounded by the waters of Lake Superior and Chequamegon Bay in far northwestern Wisconsin. There they set out to live their lives against a backdrop of waterfalls, beaches, farm stands, and a quintessential small town of 487 people. Through recipes, stories, and photos, this book explores what it means to nourish a family and a community. As Mary Dougherty incorporates what is grown and raised in northern Wisconsin into her family’s favorite dishes, she continues a cultural tradition begun by immigrants hundreds of years ago. The result is a one-of-a-kind collection of globally and regionally inspired recipes featuring local cheeses, meats, and produce from the farmers in and around Bayfield—pho made with beef bones from a farm in Mellen, Indian meatballs with curry powder made in Washburn, chowder with corn and potatoes from a farm stand in Ashland. As she knits herself into the Bayfield community, Dougherty comes to more fully grasp the intricate relationship between food and community.

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Locavore Adventures

One Chef's Slow Food Journey

Weaver, Jim

Rutgers University Press, 2012

America’s fast food culture reflects not only what we eat—foods that are processed and packaged for convenience—but also how we eat—munching as we multitask and not really tasting the super-sized meals we ingest. But in recent years, a more thoughtful philosophy about food has emerged. Developed in Italy, where fresh ingredients and artisanal techniques are prized, the Slow Food movement has rapidly gained a following in North America. The skeptics among us might wonder if it is possible truly to enjoy a Slow Food lifestyle—one based around local, seasonal ingredients—in our fast-paced world.

In Locavore Adventures, acclaimed New Jersey chef and restaurateur Jim Weaver shares his personal story of how he came to solve this problem—building a local slow food culture that is ecologically responsible and also yields delicious results. Weaver tells of his odyssey founding the Central New Jersey chapter of Slow Food, connecting local farmers, food producers, and chefs with the public to forge communities that value the region’s unique bounty. More than forty recipes throughout the book, from Hot Smoked Brook Trout with Asparagus Puree and Pickled Cippollini Onions to Zuppa di Mozzarella, will inspire readers to be creative in their own kitchens. Locavore Adventures is a thoughtful memoir about growing a sustainable food culture and a guide to slowing down, savoring locally grown food, and celebrating life.

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