You are here: Home / history Hello! You may remember me. From September 2011 through October 2024 (with some short intermissions) I published this little blog, Big Food, Big Garden, Big Life in rural Mississippi. I need very much to get back to writing. And so I’m making an effort to be back. And what better to start posting than with
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Above, from left to right: my new sterling salt spoon resting in a salt cellar, two demitasse spoons of different sizes, a standard teaspoon Lightening isn’t right, but you get the idea. I did polish each piece before I took the picture. Really! Our first stop after we made the decent into the Mississippi Delta
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Our Daily Readings have been on a roll lately. Everything Washington Irving (1783-1859) wrote is simply wonderful. What a writer! There are so many great stories in addition to those he’s remembered for today. “Wouter Van Twiller” is hilarious. Old Wouter was a real person, so this is humorously biographical. “The Voyage” is an account
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Below is a post from July 2020 I happened to find when searching for something. To the left is something I stumbled upon earlier today. I believe the proper response to the “librarian” is this: Burn in freaking hell for all eternity. Why, yes! I am a bit grumbly. It is 16˚F outside and 67˚
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May your day be everything you hope it will be. And like Snoopy, take a moment to remember the times that made for the first Thanksgiving.
Another random find from Mr. Big Food’s Bog Food Manual and Survivalist Flourishing Guide. This one from “Tributes,” Cooking with Czech Recipes Cookbook, Texas Czech Genealogical Society (2021). I take it this was written by someone just remembering what she’d been told by her grandparents. Very folksy. As we come to the close of our
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I cannot believe I have never posted this recipe before. It’s a classic and a Big Food Favorite. We made it for a soup tailgate one year and I was surprised to hear how many people knew of the restaurant. From Pea Soup Andersen’s, the famous restaurant in Buellton, CA PEA SOUP ANDERSEN’S SPLIT PEA
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From Master Chef Louis P. De Gouy, The Gold Cook Book (1947) Beans have been cultivated in the Americas since prehistoric times. Lima beans have been discovered in burial mounds in Peru, and early explorers found beans being cultivated by the Indians, from Canada to South America. In 1605, in a letter concerning the Indians
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This isn’t a political blog, though I have my share of opinions of politics and the state of worldly affairs. But this must be stopped one way or another–and hedged against if we can’t. By ‘we’ I mean normal human beings, the sort who have been on the planet long enough to know better than
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This isn’t from all that long ago–September, 2020–but it’s interesting and worth a repost. Tad on the longish side so if you aren’t flush with time, skim through the biography and prairie voles and get to the list of Getz’s major accomplishments. Interesting guy. Someone needs to write his biography. I do not have words
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The recipe is rather…duh. But the story is great! This one comes from the original Monticello cookbook. Mr. Jefferson became fond of this dish while in Italy and brought it with him to the colonies. Since he used “white or yellow cheese,” and since yellow cheese is very uncommon in Italy but common in the
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From the archives–June 11, 2013. I learned a lot doing those “on this day” type posts. oldest signer of The Declaration of Independence, who said, Those who would give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety it was in June of 1752 that Franklin flew a kite (1).
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On summer days, I still occasionally crave shredded carrots and crushed pineapple embedded in orange jello made with ginger ale. Don’t sneer; it is delightful and refreshing. Megan McArdle Take a minute and follow that link. If you love food, and appreciate the history of food and recipes in the United States–as Mr. Big Food
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Originally posted May 2019. The population of the town in which this high school was located was 8,704 in 1970, and 7,730 in 1980. By my count there were 37 students in the Latin Club that year. Years ago, seventh graders in this town had the option to take two year-end tests, one in language
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“Pepperpot is a patriotic dish originating in Pennsylvania and still much served in Philadelphia. It has a romantic history to tell. It was that bitter winter at Valley Forge; George Washington’s soldiers were in rags, food was ever lacking. Cooks made ends meet where there was nothing but ends and they met just over the
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But at my back I always hear Time’s winged chariot hurrying near. Andrew MarvelEpigraph to A Study of History Volume X (1954) Another from February 2019. This needs some context. The first of the year–most years–is when I conduct my annual book dusting. (At some point, I’ll get around to it this year.) It’s a
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“FN I. This point, important as it is, has recently been exaggerated by epistemologists. Note three errors in the following statement: “The difference between history and science is not that history does and science does not employ organizing schemes which go beyond what is given. Both do. The difference has to do with the kind
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My library contains a lot of old books by Great Thinkers addressing life’s most profound questions. What does it mean to flourish as a human being? How can we believe in a benevolent God in the face of brutish evil? What is the proper relationship of the state to the citizen? Why is Tuesday becoming preferable to Monday as wash-day?
From a series of newspaper articles I wrote in 2014. Cross posted to The Old Books Blog. Books Bygone: What does history mean to you? “What does history mean to you? Is it alive, or is it dead and buried in the past? Is it a list of dry happenings with drier dates, or is
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We begin with “Organized Innocents: MacDonald, Lewis, and Literature ‘For the Childlike’” by Daniel Gabelman in Informing the Inklings: George MacDonald and the Victorian Roots of Modern Fantasy (George MacDonald Society, 2018) which sets the stage by quoting a bunch of C.S. Lewis which I’ve read many times over, and some things that Locke had
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