Food in the United States, 1820s-1890 (Food in American History)
This volume is indispensable for understanding this period in American history and the consumer culture today, through its survey of inventions and new technology, the beginnings of classic American food brands, regional foodways, and diet fads. Annotation. The period from the 1820s to 1890 was one of invention, new trends, and growth in the American food culture. Inventions included the potato chip and Coca-Cola. Patents were taken out for the tin can, canning jars, and condensed milk. Vegetarianism was promulgated. Factories and mills such as Pillsbury came into being, as did Quaker Oats and other icons of American food. This volume describes the beginnings of many familiar mainstays of our daily life and consumer culture. It chronicles the shift from farming to agribusiness. Cookbooks proliferated and readers will trace the modernization of cooking, from the hearth to the stove, and the availability of refrigeration. Regional foodways are covered, as are how various classes ate at home or away. A final chapter covers the diet fads, which were similar to those being touted today.
Beyond its central premise, the book can be read through the connected lenses of Nonfiction. Those themes offer useful points of attention as the characters, ideas, or world develop, especially where the book complicates the expectations of its primary category.
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What the reading experience may hold
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Nonfiction
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Balanced tone · Measured pace
A comfortable full-length choice for steady daily reading.
A good fit if…
Readers who want a thoughtful experience and enjoy noticing the connections beneath a book’s surface story.
This book's DNA
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A quick reading snapshot
Edition facts and catalog signals to help you decide whether this book fits what you want to read next.
- ISBN-13
- 978-0-3133-3245-6
- Language
- English
- Edition record
- OL9422724M
A more thoughtful way into this book
This guide uses the edition details and category signals above to help you choose deliberately. It does not replace the author's work or a full review.
A comfortable full-length choice for steady daily reading.
Begin with its place in Nonfiction, then notice where the book resists that label.
Read for connection, not completion.
Mark one passage that sharpens the book's central concern and one that complicates it. That tension often reveals more than a quick summary.
Three questions to carry with you
- Whose perspective organizes the story, and whose perspective remains outside it?
- Which sources or lived experiences carry the author’s central argument?
- How does the book change the way you understand its larger subject?
Editorial framework by Wesley Bryan, BookenDeX Founder and Editor.
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