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Post by sugarhigh on Sept 29, 2014 11:33:20 GMT -4
How did I miss this thread?! I have a BA in history too, focus on the Middle Ages and Renaissance. I'm into all sorts of history though, especially the Russian tsars and Chinese emperors/empresses.
Has everyone watched The Supersizers Eat... show on youtube? They explore a number of eras through food, it's fascinating.
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Post by chonies on Sept 29, 2014 13:31:52 GMT -4
Ooh, fascinating! I love history of food-type things. I taught a food and culture class, and that was fabulous. I was reading about this topic recently: The French Influence On Mexican Cooking: La Comida Afrancescada. I'm really interested in how foods migrated around the world and became essential in foreign cuisines. Food historians might also be interested in Michael W. Twitty's blog Afroculinaria, which features his efforts to build a connected history of American food and African foodways. He also identifies as Jewish, and he covers a lot of Jewish food traditions, too. |
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Post by kanding on Sept 29, 2014 14:10:37 GMT -4
If you're thinking of a smaller geographical era, you might try The Big Oyster by Mark Kurlansky. It's a history of New York City through its relationship with oysters. Great reading and it flies right along.
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Post by Oxynia on Sept 29, 2014 17:21:26 GMT -4
Wow, food and history. Two of my favorite things, and I only thought one of them was edible.  |
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Post by ikmccall on Sept 29, 2014 20:12:52 GMT -4
If you're thinking of a smaller geographical era, you might try The Big Oyster by Mark Kurlansky. It's a history of New York City through its relationship with oysters. Great reading and it flies right along. His book "Salt" was so good and didn't he write a book about cod? |
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Post by divasahm on Sept 29, 2014 22:12:39 GMT -4
Feel free to sneer at my assumedly bourgeois foodie contribution, but have y'all watched Anthony Bourdain's Parts Unknown on CNN? I really enjoy hearing the stories of different countries and peoples, told through their food traditions. And Anthony is just a beautiful mess of a human being...
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Post by chonies on Sept 29, 2014 23:22:05 GMT -4
Yesssss....I love every single episode, but Mozambique (which might have been No Reservations) and the Congo episodes broke my heart multiple times.
Here's an area I don't know a lot about: Caribbean history. I was just watching the episode of Finding Your Roots with Gloria Reuben, who has mixed African and Jewish heritage but both parents are from Jamaica. At one point, Gates asked if she ever thought about slavery in her own family when she was preparing for her role in Lincoln. Reuben said, "no, because I didn't think there was any." I know the history of enslavement in North and South America is far, far more complicated than "Lincoln freed the slaves," but I was kind of surprised to hear that. Is that possible? This was as an especially dramatic moment in the context of the show, however, and FWIW, there was no discussion of more recent immigration.
Off to research, brb.
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Post by sugarhigh on Sept 29, 2014 23:32:01 GMT -4
Yeah, she's very wrong. As someone who grew up in the Caribbean learning Caribbean history there was widespread slavery, torturous oppression and numerous violent revolutions. If your family history is based in the Caribbean islands, it's very unlikely that there wasn't a slave in your ancestry.
I watched Parts Unknown on netflix and was nervous for Bourdain so many times. He goes to some really dangerous places. I really thought that he'd get hurt in Libya.
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Post by chonies on Sept 29, 2014 23:37:44 GMT -4
Yeah, she's very wrong. As someone who grew up in the Caribbean learning Caribbean history there was widespread slavery, torturous oppression and numerous violent revolutions. If your family history is based in the Caribbean islands, it's very unlikely that there wasn't a slave in your ancestry. Thanks, sugarhigh! I had been reading up on the 17th century indentured Irish recently, and slave uprisings more generally, so my first reaction to Reuben was a completely unsophisticated, "am I on glue?" Related: do you have a favorite era or event from Caribbean history that you want more people to know about? |
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Post by sugarhigh on Sept 30, 2014 0:18:30 GMT -4
Right now, I'm reading a locally published book about the negre maron in Dominica, escaped slaves who formed militias, set up their own communities in the mountains and conducted raids on the plantations and towns. Dominica was one of the last holdouts for slave settlements because of the ferocious natives and mountainous terrain so it has a different history from the other islands. Full disclosure: that's where I grew up so I am slightly obsessed, haha.
In general, I am all about the slave revolts. Learning history as a kid, there was a real emphasis on the efforts of the slaves to rebel so coming to the U.S. and learning African-American history was a real culture shock. It seems like education here mostly focuses on a couple of aspects of the civil rights era. Of course, I went to high school in the 90s, so maybe it's changed.
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