The Food of a Younger Land: The WPA's Portrait of Food in Pre-World War II America

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The Food of a Younger Land: The WPA's Portrait of Food in Pre-World War II America

3.32 of 5 stars 3.32 · rating details · 1,048 ratings · 256 reviews

A remarkable portrait of American food before World War II, presented by the New York Times-bestselling author of Cod and Salt.

Award-winning New York Times-bestselling author Mark Kurlansky takes us back to the food and eating habits of a younger America: Before the national highway system brought the country closer together; before chain restaurants imposed uniformity an...more A remarkable portrait of American food before World War II, presented by the New York Times-bestselling author of Cod and Salt.

Award-winning New York Times-bestselling author Mark Kurlansky takes us back to the food and eating habits of a younger America: Before the national highway system brought the country closer together; before chain restaurants imposed uniformity and low quality; and before the Frigidaire meant frozen food in mass quantities, the nation's food was seasonal, regional, and traditional. It helped form the distinct character, attitudes, and customs of those who ate it.

In the 1930s, with the country gripped by the Great Depression and millions of Americans struggling to get by, FDR created the Federal Writers' Project under the New Deal as a make-work program for artists and authors. A number of writers, including Zora Neale Hurston, Eudora Welty, and Nelson Algren, were dispatched all across America to chronicle the eating habits, traditions, and struggles of local people. The project, called "America Eats," was abandoned in the early 1940s because of the World War and never completed.

The Food of a Younger Land unearths this forgotten literary and historical treasure and brings it to exuberant life. Mark Kurlansky's brilliant book captures these remarkable stories, and combined with authentic recipes, anecdotes, photos, and his own musings and analysis, evokes a bygone era when Americans had never heard of fast food and the grocery superstore was a thing of the future. Kurlansky serves as a guide to this hearty and poignant look at the country's roots.

From New York automats to Georgia Coca-Cola parties, from Arkansas possum-eating clubs to Puget Sound salmon feasts, from Choctaw funerals to South Carolina barbecues, the WPA writers found Americans in their regional niches and eating an enormous diversity of meals. From Mississippi chittlins to Indiana persimmon puddings, Maine lobsters, and Montana beavertails, they recorded the curiosities, commonalities, and communities of American food.(less)

Hardcover, 398 pages

Published June 11th 2009 by Riverhead Hardcover

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Jul 07, 2010 Karla rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: cookbooks

The book cover says...."A portrait of American food - before the national highway system, before chain restaurants, and before frozen food, when the nation's food was seasonal, regional, and traditional". I was expecting a light read, with some humor thrown in - and I was blown away.

At the height of the Depression, the Works Progress Administration (WPA) was developed to put many of America's jobless to work doing things such as building parks (Eagle Point Park with gorgeous Frank Lloyd inspire...more The book cover says...."A portrait of American food - before the national highway system, before chain restaurants, and before frozen food, when the nation's food was seasonal, regional, and traditional". I was expecting a light read, with some humor thrown in - and I was blown away.

At the height of the Depression, the Works Progress Administration (WPA) was developed to put many of America's jobless to work doing things such as building parks (Eagle Point Park with gorgeous Frank Lloyd inspired architectural pavilions and ponds in Dubuque, Iowa)or painters such as Grant Wood (American Gothic) who has huge murals painted in the Iowa State Library, and many other creative projects to preserve America's rich history. One of the projects the WPA started was the Federal Writers' Project to help record and preserve for history the regional and ethnic foods that someone had the foresight to see were going to change, or disappear altogether with the increasingly easy transportation and influx of new ideas from different areas of the US and the world.

The book is broken down into regional areas and features short vignettes written about foods, food customs, recipes, and how they played a social role in a time now long past. Many of the short essays were written by authors who went on to become famous, others were written by average writers who simply had a tale to tell. What came out of it is a book that literally transports you back in time and enriches your sense of history in a very real way. Some of the foods talked about made my mouth water with anticipation, others made me cringe, but all showed just how much we've lost in the last century with the shift to frozen and shelf-ready standardized foods as well as the limited choices in drive-ins and chain restaurants. Many people have lost the knowledge and the eagerness of delayed gratification of biting into the first fruits and vegetables of a given season and the recipes that sprang from them, the delight of the special recipes that only a neighbor could make for the town festival, and the richness of choice and taste that came from each region's way of using what was produced close to home.

This book is a time transporter. Don't miss a chance to take the trip!

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Jun 13, 2011 Debbie rated it 3 of 5 stars

This book is a pretty neat idea - publishing long forgotten works from the Federal Writers project . But, alas,, much of that work deserves to remain in the dust bin of history.

I did enjoy parts of the book quite a bit. A few of the vignettes, such as the Italian feed, are quite charming. Some of the recipes are hair-raisingly gruesome - Indiana pork cake, combining ground pork and molasses comes to mind as a prime example, though lutefisk is obviously a candidate as well.

Problems, however, alm...more

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May 07, 2011 Hester rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: history, america-american-history, american-writers, food, native-american-related, the-south, southwest

Hot dog, this book was fun! It uses documents from the Federal Writer's Program(part of the WPA) to document regional American cooking after canning was introduced, but before fast food and frozen tv dinners became a way of life. I wish this book has been published before my father died. The first sections after the introduction are about Vermont and my father was born in Bennington in 1929. This is the food he grew up with. I remember him describing butternuts and stopped at elderly ladies' hom...more Hot dog, this book was fun! It uses documents from the Federal Writer's Program(part of the WPA) to document regional American cooking after canning was introduced, but before fast food and frozen tv dinners became a way of life. I wish this book has been published before my father died. The first sections after the introduction are about Vermont and my father was born in Bennington in 1929. This is the food he grew up with. I remember him describing butternuts and stopped at elderly ladies' homes who sold Victorian style dinners from their living rooms. He said one winter night, on Valentine Street, when it was snowing, he say a man in a sleigh pulled by a horse. That was a rare sight, but it still happened.

Several of the dishes were really interesting and I would like to know how to cook them in modern kitchens. The Vermont picked pumpkin and pickled butternut recipes looked especially appealing. I wish I knew how the "Spanish" of the Southwest cooked their dried vegetables(esp pumpkin and cucumber). Lastly, I would like to know how to make the sourdough pancakes that show up over and over again.

There were all sorts of lost flavors I would like to try. I have never tasted a native persimmon and have only seen the Asian varieties for sale. My father used to hunt pheasant in Pennsylvania, which apparently was popular in Nebraska, but I have never tasted it.

There were plenty of other things that I am glad we have left behind, or are trying to. The extreme racism in the Southern sections turned my stomach. There was also a condescension and hostility towards outsiders epitomized in Eudora Welty's essay that I disliked. Men seemed to work very hard at proving they were men(see the multiple entries about `oysters').

There were long descriptions of Native American food traditions and the America of days gone by had a lot more seafood. New England ate more vegetables than I imagined. There were several dinners and suppers listed that were either vegetarian or used very little meat. (less)

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Mar 03, 2011 Jeffrey Hake rated it 5 of 5 stars

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN THE FRIEDMAN SPROUT ON DECEMBER 3, 2010 (http://friedmansprout.wordpress.com/2...) AND CAN ALSO BE FOUND ON MY BLOG AT http://gardenglow.tumblr.com/post/275...

For his latest work, The Food of a Younger Land, Mark Kurlansky (author of Cod, Salt, and Nonviolence) has delved into the unpublished past of the United States. The Federal Writers’ Project (FWP) was an agency of the Works Progress Administration, the massive government program established during the Great Depressi...more ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN THE FRIEDMAN SPROUT ON DECEMBER 3, 2010 (http://friedmansprout.wordpress.com/2...) AND CAN ALSO BE FOUND ON MY BLOG AT http://gardenglow.tumblr.com/post/275...

For his latest work, The Food of a Younger Land, Mark Kurlansky (author of Cod, Salt, and Nonviolence) has delved into the unpublished past of the United States. The Federal Writers’ Project (FWP) was an agency of the Works Progress Administration, the massive government program established during the Great Depression for the purpose of putting millions of unemployed Americans to work. At times employing over 4,000 writers, the FWP is most famously responsible for the American Guide Series. However, Kurlanksy reveals FWP’s more unlikely endeavor: “America Eats”. “It was to be a book on eating traditions and foods in the various parts of the United States,” he writes, “show[ing] varying ethnic traditions as well as the regional and local customs.” Kurlansky goes on to describe the intention of the book’s executors, as well as the project’s complex blend of personalities, politics, and setbacks that ultimately resulted in its dissolution into the march of history.

Nevertheless, progress was made on the writing of ”America Eats” before the project dissolved, and the documents themselves never disappeared. These folios, transcripts, and odd fragments sent from around the country to the Washington office of the FWP, while never published, lingered on in obscurity in “five boxes filled with onionskin carbon copies” amongst the shelves of the Library of Congress. In researching for another piece, Kurlansky uncovered these boxes and “accidentally stumbled back into prewar America”. In The Food of a Younger Land, he has organized, edited and compiled an idea of “America Eats”, and in essence, completed the work that the FWP could not as it became an arm of the US military in preparation for war. In addition, he brings this work into the modern era, peppering the book with details on the unspoken backgrounds and fates of the book itself, its myriad authors, and the varied content of its pages.

In this way, The Food of a Younger Land is a unique book, in which Kurlansky plays a synthesis of roles that one does not normally see in the popular press. At times, of course, he is an author, but he certainly did not write the bulk of this book and “author” does not describe his central role. Editor may better describe Kurlansky’s roles, as he undoubtedly spent months poring through these documents. He succeeds at establishing an order and remediating numerous discrepancies in unfinished documents and rough drafts while maintaining the original author’s voice. However, to accomplish this, he also needed to stretch beyond the role of editor to personal and cultural historian, reconstructing the life story of obscure authors or establishing the context of a particular story, recipe or preparation.

Out of this strange synthesis emerges a fun and colorful story about an America that did not know its food was about to undergo a forceful transformation. This was an America far more divided and defined by its food traditions than the modern era where crowds gathered in Maine for the North Whitefield game supper, South Carolina for backwoods barbeques, and Washington for smelt fries. Massachusetts scoffed at the clam chowder of Rhode Island and abhorred that of Long Island, and possum saw immense, if dwindling, popularity in the South. And the voice of the authors of “America Eats emerges”, as racial epithets are retained for posterity alongside the reminiscence that squirrel tastes “something like chicken” and a 60-gallon soup known as “Booya” calls for three pounds of salt and pepper “to taste”.

The Food of a Younger Land is a joy for foodies, history and anthropology geeks, and those who simply love a good, well-told story. At times enlightening, hilarious, dark and mouthwatering, this book has again proved Mark Kurlansky to be an engaging and versatile writer. Enjoy The Food of a Younger Land at your leisure, but when you’re finished, keep it in your kitchen for the old-fashioned recipes of hearty meals long past.(less)

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Jan 01, 2011 Chris rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: historical, nonfiction, not-graphic, adult

I’m ashamed to admit I dropped my Kansas Folklore class in college. In some ways I think I was too young to really appreciate the topic, but in other ways I enjoyed it too much. Or I enjoyed it in the wrong way, rather. It was fascinating and fun, not academic, so I listened and read with rapt attention but never really took notes or consolidated my learning, and when it came time to take tests over facts and details I realized I was totally unprepared. To preserve my GPA, I dropped it halfway t...more I’m ashamed to admit I dropped my Kansas Folklore class in college. In some ways I think I was too young to really appreciate the topic, but in other ways I enjoyed it too much. Or I enjoyed it in the wrong way, rather. It was fascinating and fun, not academic, so I listened and read with rapt attention but never really took notes or consolidated my learning, and when it came time to take tests over facts and details I realized I was totally unprepared. To preserve my GPA, I dropped it halfway through the semester and stopped going. (But not before hearing how my professor became the foremost authority on the history of the cattle guard.)

Nevertheless, my interest in folklore has remained. Grown, if anything. Which made The Food of a Younger Land a great fit for me. This book is a portrait of the culture of the United States as seen through food practices before technology homogenized everything, when food was still local and eating had a very distinct regional personality. It’s history and anthropology and food and cooking and writing, all rolled into one package.

In some ways I could have quit after the lengthy introduction and been happy, because I learned about an aspect of U.S. history I was unaware of. A bit too much of that introduction follows, so I won’t belabor the point here, just say that it was fascinating reading. As was the rest of the book, although I approached it in the wrong way. It reminded me more than anything of travel food TV shows like Anthony Bourdain’s and Andrew Zimmerman’s, where they use food to learn about cultures. Those are episodic in nature, and if you watch too many in a row you begin to lose track of anything practical you’ve learned. I listened to the audio of this book in marathon sessions and found myself too frequently losing focus on the string of essays, recipes, and whatnot, because this is best digested in bits and pieces since that’s what it’s composed of. I’d like to go back and reread much of the actual book when I get a chance. And try some of the recipes, even. Highly recommended.

From the introduction:

A few years ago, while putting together Choice Cuts, an anthology of food writing, I discovered to my amazement that government bureaucrats in Washington in the late 1930s were having similar thoughts. But these were not typical bureaucrats because they worked for an agency that was unique in American history, the Works Progress Administration, or WPA. The WPA was charged with finding work for millions of unemployed Americans. It sought work in every imaginable field. For unemployed writers the WPA created the Federal Writers’ Project, which was charged with conceiving books, assigning them to huge, unwieldy teams of out-of-work and want-to-be writers around the country, and editing and publishing them.

After producing hundreds of guidebooks on America in a few hurried years, a series that met with greater success than anyone had imagined possible for such a government project, the Federal Writers’ Project administrators were faced with the daunting challenge of coming up with projects to follow their first achievements. Katherine Kellock, the writer-turned-administrator who first conceived the idea for the guidebooks, came up with the thought of a book about the varied food and eating traditions throughout America, an examination of what and how Americans ate.

She wanted the book to be enriched with local food disagreements, and it included New England arguments about the correct way to make clam chowder, southern debate on the right way to make a mint julep, and an absolute tirade against mashed potatoes from Oregon. It captured now nearly forgotten food traditions such as the southern New England May breakfast, foot washings in Alabama, Coca-Cola parties in Georgia, the chitterling strut in North Carolina, cooking for the threshers in Nebraska, a Choctaw funeral, and a Puget Sound Indian salmon feast. It also had old traditional recipes such as Rhode Island jonny cakes, New York City oyster stew, Georgia possum and taters, Kentucky wilted lettuce, Virginia Brunswick stew, Louisiana tete de veau, Florida conch, Minnesota lutefisk, Indian persimmon pudding, Utah salmi of wild duck, and Arizona menudo. Ethnic food was covered, including black, Jewish, Italian, Bohemian, Basque, Chicano, Sioux, Chippewa, and Choctaw. Local oddities, such as the Automat in New York, squirrel Mulligan in Arkansas, Nebraska lamb fries or Oklahoma prairie oysters, and ten-pound Puget Sound clams, were featured. Social issues were remembered, as in the Maine chowder with only potatoes, the Washington State school lunch program, and the western Depression cake. There was also humor to such pieces, as the description of literary teas in New York, the poem "Nebraskans Eat the Weiners," and the essay on trendy food in Los Angeles.

Kellock called the project America Eats. . . .

Ironically, the chaotic pile of imperfect manuscripts has left us with a better record than would the nameless, cleaned-up, smooth-reading final book that Lyle Saxon was to have turned in. A more polished version would still be an interesting book today, a record of how Americans ate and what their social gatherings were like in the early 1940s. Like the guidebooks, it would have been well written and well laid out. And it would not have had frustrating holes and omissions. But we would have had little information on the original authors. There are among these boxes a few acknowledged masters, such as Algren and Eudora Welty, some forgotten literary stars of the 1930s, and authors of mysteries, thrillers, Westerns, children’s books, and food books, as well as a few notable local historians, several noted anthropologists, a few important regional writers, playwrights, an actress, a political speechwriter, a biographer, newspaper journalists, a sportswriter, university professors and deans, and a few poets. They were white and black, Jews, Italians, and Chicanos--the sons and daughters of immigrants, descendants of Pilgrims, and of American Indians. Typical of the times, there were a few Communists, a lot of Democrats, and at least two Republicans.

One thing that shines through the mountain of individual submissions is how well they reflect the original directive: “Emphasis should be divided between food and people.” It is this perspective that gives this work the feeling of a time capsule, a preserved glimpse of America in the early 1940s.(less)

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Aug 24, 2010 Katie rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: nonfiction

Mark Kurlansky’s The Food of a Younger Land cooks up a vivid description of an earlier time when regional cuisine ruled the country. During a visit to the U.S. Library of Congress, Kurlansky stumbled upon the archives of a Works Progress Administration (WPA) project that aimed to document America’s eating habits and customs in the late 1930’s.

Written by hundreds of different Federal Writers’ Project authors dispatched to all corners of the United States, the original publication, entitled Ameri...more Mark Kurlansky’s The Food of a Younger Land cooks up a vivid description of an earlier time when regional cuisine ruled the country. During a visit to the U.S. Library of Congress, Kurlansky stumbled upon the archives of a Works Progress Administration (WPA) project that aimed to document America’s eating habits and customs in the late 1930’s.

Written by hundreds of different Federal Writers’ Project authors dispatched to all corners of the United States, the original publication, entitled America Eats, was planned to be a 75,000-word book on “American cookery and the part it has played in the national life.”

Unfortunately, the deadline for all submissions was the week of Thanksgiving 1941, days before the attack on Pearl Harbor. As a result of World War II, America Eats was never published, and only the unedited articles archived at the U.S. Library of Congress are what remain of the intended book.

Kurlansky chose the most interesting of the original submissions for The Food of a Younger Land. The collected submissions offer a unique look at American cuisine before fast food and frozen dinners graced our tables. The original authors’ writings take readers across the nation, serving up glimpses inside America’s kitchens, dining rooms, and restaurants.

The section, “New York Soda-Luncheonette Slang and Jargon” lays out how to order your meal in typical New York City diner-speak. Want two fried eggs on toast with a cup of coffee? Just ask for: Bull’s eye on a raft with a brunette. “Colorado Superstitions” teaches that if a woman puts a piece of wedding cake under her pillow for seven consecutive nights, she’ll dream of her future husband on the last night. And if you’re in the mood, the recipe for “Georgia Possum and Taters” appears simple and easy-to-follow. If opossum isn’t your taste, the other recipes and stories are sure to inspire the foodie in anyone.

A bit of local flavor is sprinkled throughout “The Middle West Eats” section, including a piece describing the Lyon County Beef Tour and Barbeque written by William Lindsay White. The article was originally published in The Emporia Gazette in August 1939. Entitled “Kansas Beef Tour,” Kurlansky introduces the section with a very brief biography of W.L. White.

“Urban Kansas Eats and Drinks,” another Kansas entry, provides an amusing portrait of what Kansans ate in the late 1930’s when “Mr. Average Kansan” was described as a “lover of beefsteak.” The unnamed WPA author writes, “The average male Kansan likes to look upon food in quantity, and is not one to bother about the intricacies of the culinary art, although he insists upon good cooking.”

Kurlansky’s collection is an ideal read for any gourmand or history buff. The Food of a Younger Land offers a vast smorgasbord of edible delights guaranteeing every reader a spot at the table. So, grab a fork and dig into this pleasing work.
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Jul 26, 2010 Karima rated it 3 of 5 stars

If nothing else, read the introduction of this book.(overall content is spotty.) In the intro, author M. Kurlansky gives an overview of the FWP (Federal Writer's Project) which was a part of the WPA (Work's Project Administration)under Franklin Delano Roosevelt. The WPA was a nation-wide program whose goal was to alleviate household unemployment. Though more costly to create and sustain jobs for the unemployed,the benefits are inestimable.
I do so wish our present administration could put the lik...more If nothing else, read the introduction of this book.(overall content is spotty.) In the intro, author M. Kurlansky gives an overview of the FWP (Federal Writer's Project) which was a part of the WPA (Work's Project Administration)under Franklin Delano Roosevelt. The WPA was a nation-wide program whose goal was to alleviate household unemployment. Though more costly to create and sustain jobs for the unemployed,the benefits are inestimable.
I do so wish our present administration could put the likes of this in place for our people NOW.

from Booklist:
Just what we need in hard times, recipes for booya, mullet salad, Georgia possum and taters, kush, and Montana fried beaver tail. Kurlansky, the author of best-selling books about salt, cod, and oysters, discovered these gems in a two-foot-high stack of the “raw, unedited manuscripts” for an inspired but never completed WPA endeavor titled America Eats. As he explains in his invigorating introduction, the Federal Writers’ Project sent starving writers of all stripes (Nelson Algren, Zora Neale Hurston, Eudora Welty, and other who qualified just because they could type) across the country to gather information about “American cookery and the part it has played in national life.” The results are vivid and playful dispatches from pre-interstate, pre-fast-food America, when food was local and cuisine regional. Kurlansky selected zesty writings, factual and imaginative, describing barbecues, fries, and feasts; profiling families; and defining New York City luncheonette slang (“blind ’em” means two eggs fried on both sides). Fun, illuminating, and provocative, this historic reclamation appears while we’re in the midst of the worst financial crisis since the one Franklin D. Roosevelt fought with his job-creating stimulus package and while we’re grappling with a plague of unsafe food and environmental woes associated with industrial agriculture. But don’t despair. Whip up Ethel’s Depression Cake, and throw a bailout party. --Donna Seaman (less)

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Jul 21, 2010 ICPL Staff Picks added it

Shelves: staff-picks-blog, maeve, nonfiction

The Food of a Yonger Land : A Portrait of American Food–Before the National Highway System, Before Chain Restaurants, and Before Frozen Food, When the Nation’s Food Was Seasonal, Regional and Traditional — from the Lost WPA Files is a fascinating compendium of what Americans ate in the 1930s. The book is edited and illustrated by Mark Kurlansky, best selling author of Salt : A World History and Cod : A Biography of a Fish that Changed the World among many other titles. In The Food of a Younger L...more

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Mar 23, 2010 Maggie rated it 3 of 5 stars

I thought this book would satisfy two of my constant cravings: looking at restaurant menus online & looking through vintage cookbooks. But it didn't really do that. The subtitle "...before the national highway system..." also really grabbed me -- but I didn't come away from the book learning why the national highway system, etc. changed so much. So, rather than the bulk of the book being WPA manuscripts, I guess I would have preferred more commentary.

According to this book, the most ubiquito...more

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Jul 20, 2009 Paige rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: audio-books, history, food

Back before eating locally was trendy, it was a necessity. In Depression-era America, one of the WPA projects for out-of-work writers – including Eudora Welty, Saul Bellow and Zora Neale Hurston – was the documentation of regional food traditions. The bombing of Pearl Harbor cut the project short, and the unedited manuscripts were sent to the Library of Congress where they gathered dust for many years.
Fast forward several decades, and enter Mark Kurlansky (author of several outstanding books tha...more

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Jul 15, 2009 Deborah rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: history, food

I first heard about the book when the author was interviewed on NPR and while I was interested in the topic (the subtitle is long enough to make description almost overkill – “A Portrait of American Food Before the National Highway System, Before Chain Restaurants, and Before Frozen Food, When the Nation’s Food Was Seasonal”) I was particularly intrigued by the story behind the papers he describes - planned but never executed WPA writing project America Eats.

The book consists of a selection of t...more I first heard about the book when the author was interviewed on NPR and while I was interested in the topic (the subtitle is long enough to make description almost overkill – “A Portrait of American Food Before the National Highway System, Before Chain Restaurants, and Before Frozen Food, When the Nation’s Food Was Seasonal”) I was particularly intrigued by the story behind the papers he describes - planned but never executed WPA writing project America Eats.

The book consists of a selection of the writings chosen by Kurlansky from the stash found at the Library of Congress along with his - well, annotations essentially. Not annotations in format per se but in intention. He either puts the piece or writer in context, or - in the case of some of the pieces (notably those from the Deep South) makes it clear that these remain as they were and were written in ‘Very Different Times.’

It’s not the comprehensive look at what America was eating at the time (as America Eats was intended to be). Oh sure, there is some of that - by virtue of the fact that the material being used. And I love the diner slang lists and the idea that there was a knock down drag out fight somewhere over mashed potatoes. Foodies With Views are always good for an evening’s heated debate. But I don’t think this book isn’t intended to reflect what America was eating at the time as much as was a look at the project that was undertaken, who was involved, what sort of obstacles and challenges they faced and - in the end, a glance at ‘What Might Have Been.’

And speaking of what might have been - I’m not sure America Eats would have lived up to the standards set by the American Guides travel writing project, which is was loosely patterned on. The coontributors writing is as wildly uneven as their topics are broad - and there seems to be no template any of them followed. There are poems and losts, recipes and essays. Seemingly whatever the food muses prompted them to put down, they put down. I’m not sure how America Eats would have ended up - and possibly it isn’t fair to judge based on these pieces (as incomplete and rushed as they apparently were) which are all that remain of a project interrupted by Pearl Harbor. Quite a lot of them were raw research reports from the field and wouldn’t have appeared in this format in the finished product. The best parts of the book are, in the end, Kurlansky’s as he explains how this book came about, describes the history and intentions of the project and profiles some of the participants - those known at the time and unknown now as well as the then unknowns whose names are now familiar to us all.(less)

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Jul 06, 2009 Sarah rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: foodgloriousfood, non-fiction, history

During the Depression, the Federal Writers Project employed thousands of out-of-work writers. One of the FWP's unfinished projects was an overview of the regional cuisine of the United States. Even in the thirties, regional specialties were starting to blend into the homogenized menus we see across the country today.

Roughly categorized by region, there are some true gems in this rough. Kurlansky offers some small amount of commentary and context, but primarily lets the drafts of the FWP writers'...more

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Jul 17, 2009 Emily rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: non-fiction, meridian

This was a fascinating history lesson in more than just a culinary sense. It encompassed culture, language, and politics (the WPA was part of the New Deal created to employ out of work writers, editors, reporters, etc.). I realize that it was limited in its scope by what was turned in almost 70 years ago, but I kept wishing there were more essays or entries representative of other parts of the country.

I liked the controversy discussed in the Northeast section regarding the proper style of clam c...more

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Jul 14, 2012 C.interruptus rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: food, history, non-fiction

As with any compilation of writings by different authors, the quality is uneven and I skipped several parts because they didn't hold my interest. On the other hand, it has its own charm, the rawness of the material and the WPA authors' variety of approaches to recording regional food traditions and cultures. Recipes abound (or rather, often, vague quantities like "take some butter," the kind of thing that differentiates historical recipes from our standardized ones) for mint juleps, chitlins, be...more

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Jun 10, 2011 KatieSuzanne rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: audiobook

I attempted to listen to this as an audiobook but since it's half history and half recipe book it was torturously boring during the recipe parts. Who's lame idea was it to make a cookbook an audio book? I had it playing in my kitchen while I was baking, like I often do with my audiobooks, and it kept mixing me up with its reading of lists of ingredients while I was trying to follow my own baking instructions…except the audio book one was full of opossum, snakes, and rocky mountain oysters…so it...more

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Jul 19, 2012 Sabrina rated it 4 of 5 stars

A mere fifteen months after Franklin Delano Roosevelt's inauguration as President of the United States, the Emergency Relief Act was passed in April 1935. And less than one month later, FDR, despite the controversy surrounding the Emergency Relief Act of 1935, signed an executive order creating the Works Progress Administration, the WPA. The goal of the WPA, as FDR envisioned it, was to put "blue collar laborers to work building government projects", focusing at first on small and useful project...more

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Oct 21, 2011 Bree rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: nonfiction

I'm a little torn on how to rate this book. The introduction was fabulous - a real overview of the history behind the FWP and America Eats, book to come. But in some ways, it made the individual sections redundant and repetitive by being too complete.

The individual sections, clearly unedited, are offensive, bizarre and fascinating in their historical authenticity. They are also repetitive, as there was clearly overlap in each of the regions. Particularly in the descriptions of Native American fo...more

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Aug 27, 2011 A.J. rated it 4 of 5 stars

A book that takes a while to read and digest, but it is deeply interesting if you like finding out about traditional, local food. It makes use of materials gathered towards the end of the Depression years and at the beginning of the Second World War for a Works Progress/Project Administration (WPA) project for writers. The writers were asked to make observations on the traditional foods of their region, with the aim of producing a book entitled 'America Eats'. The entry of the US into the war pu...more

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Oct 24, 2010 Glenn Murphy rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I'm not really sure where to begin my thoughts on this book. It has recipes for everything from making jonny cakes to preparing a 60 gallon batch of Booya (many of the ingredients are measured in pecks). Although at times this book seems like little more than a collection of forgotten recipes, it is also a multi-faceted history book. At the time the material was collected, it was still possible to interview people who were alive during the Civil War, who had traveled the Oregon Trail, and who ha...more

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Dec 13, 2010 Kelly rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: food, history

So, way back during the Depression, did you know that the WPA also paid writers to write? One of their projects was to compile descriptions of regional foods and eating habits. The WPA disbanded before the project was completed, and the various drafts landed in the Library of Congress until Mark Kurlansky realized how badly they needed to be published.

I was a bit concerned about the size of the book -- a book 300+ pages long, full of unedited works has the potential to drag. Instead, the short...more

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May 26, 2012 Mary Molinaro rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: food, cookbook, cooking, cultural

Very interesting look into American life in the 1930s through the food of the country. Food at that time was very regionalized - that was before any chain restaurants. One could only get certain foods in certain places. These stories and recipes were collected by writers in the WPA era Federal Writers' Project. After the writers completed the American Guide Series they moved on to a project entitles America Eats. The manuscripts were to be turned in to the editors around Thanksgiving 1942. Short...more

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Aug 14, 2012 Jen rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: audiobooks

8/.14.12 finally finished. I thought about not finishing but I was at least 2/3 of the way through, so I kept going. I hold to my previous comments. There are some interesting bits scattered throughout, but overall I feel like this was something I would have preferred to skim through in a paper copy. My last gripe is about the narrator. His voice is very generic, white, and bland. Many portions of the essays from the original materials included interviews and portions written in dialect(especial...more 8/.14.12 finally finished. I thought about not finishing but I was at least 2/3 of the way through, so I kept going. I hold to my previous comments. There are some interesting bits scattered throughout, but overall I feel like this was something I would have preferred to skim through in a paper copy. My last gripe is about the narrator. His voice is very generic, white, and bland. Many portions of the essays from the original materials included interviews and portions written in dialect(especially from the South, including former slaves) and while I commend the narrator for going all in and reading and occasionally singing in the dialect, it made me feel slightly uncomfortable and offended. It might just be me, and I'm not sure if it would have been better or worse for him to just read it straight without making the effort.

8.9.12 - about halfway through, and my perception about the format for this was correct. while i am finding the ideas here interesting, i think it would have been better to read this in print form. the narrator doesn't indicate what is an author's note and what is original text from the WPA files. Which themselves were unedited, so it feels like every essay from a southern writer includes the same recipe for hoe-cakes. I think reading in print form, the author notes and original material would be clear, and I could skim over all the recipes. This is partially a reflection on the book, but mostly just about it probably being a poor choice to produce as an audiobook.

One thing I am finding interesting is the similarities between modern cooking and cooking then. Many of the same brands of foods were available then and still are now, they mention things like Lea and Perrin's Worcestershire sauce. The techniques haven't really changed for some things either, but some are very differnet. I like cornbread, but am unlikely to make it any way other than in my oven...though campfire hoe-cakes might be a good idea to try sometime.

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Listening on audiobook. I had seen the book mentioned somewhere and happened upon it while browsing my library's downloadable audio books. Not sure this is the best format for this work, and initially I wasn't sure I wanted to keep up with it but I think I will for now.

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Oct 01, 2009 Cherie rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: essay-colletions-read

This is a collection of essays and recipes from the WPA writers' project. The collection itself is a bit of a mishmash and feels incomplete. But that's because it is incomplete, as the project ended before completion. But it's an interesting collection of glimpses into regional culture.

Many pieces seem biased, either in favor of the region presented (did Vermont really invent strawberry shortcake?), or in a condescending fashion (the portrait of a chitlin' feast is just awful by today's standar...more

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Apr 26, 2009 Bill Hall rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: history

“The Food of A Younger Land” provides an interesting glimpse at a United States not all that far in the past, but one that seems very, very far away. The materials for this book were generated by the Federal Writers Project (FWP) seventy years ago—a time still within memory for tens of thousands of Americans. Yet the food landscape of the land has changed immensely, due in large part to improved technology and transportation and the spread of restaurant chains.

Kurlansky’s introduction provides a...more

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Sep 10, 2011 Laura rated it 3 of 5 stars

Book Synopsis: “A portrait of American food— before the national highway system, before chain restaurants, and before frozen food, when the nation’s food was seasonal, regional, and traditional— from the lost WPA files.”

I think the reason I wanted to read this was that I was curious to find out what America was eating in the years prior to my birth (1947). For those less enamored of American history and not familiar with the acronym WPA, it refers to the Works Progress Administration, a program...more Book Synopsis: “A portrait of American food— before the national highway system, before chain restaurants, and before frozen food, when the nation’s food was seasonal, regional, and traditional— from the lost WPA files.”

I think the reason I wanted to read this was that I was curious to find out what America was eating in the years prior to my birth (1947). For those less enamored of American history and not familiar with the acronym WPA, it refers to the Works Progress Administration, a program created during Franklin D. Roosevelt’s administration which was conceived to employ millions of out of work Americans. Part of this program involved a project called “America Eats” which was administered by the Federal Writers Project (FWP).

The idea was a make-work project for America’s authors, some of whom reached literary fame in later years (i.e., Eudora Welty for one). Their task, to “chronicle the eating habits, traditions, and struggles of local people” before those traditions were altered or lost entirely by modern eating trends and habits. The project, “America Eats,” was abandoned in the early 1940's because of WWII.

Kurlanksy did the research to uncover the works that had been collecting dust and organized them into an enlightening and often, curious and informative read. He divided the country into five regions: the Northeast; the South; the Middle West; the Far West and the Southwest. As you might assume, there are foods that are unique to each region and even each state. The author’s included the recipes for the making of many of these dishes.

This made for an entertaining read thanks to the literary talents of the author and the creative writing abilities of the author’s included in this work. You might even recognize a recipe or two and may want to even add them to your recipe collection. It is interesting to note that in recent years we have been encouraged to eat seasonally and regionally (a.k.a., locally) as did our predecessors. (“The more things change, the more they stay the same”??)(less)

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Sep 02, 2010 Joyce added it

The fragmentary essays here were all written just before WWII, but they are almost without exception steeped in the foodways and ethos of the frontier. There is next to no visibility into the massive urbanization, immigration, and industrialization period that America was going through... and in fact surprisingly little about farm life. Again and again the imaginations of the writers go back to natives, pioneers, and cowboys.

One startling realization is just how very much cornbread and beans wer...more The fragmentary essays here were all written just before WWII, but they are almost without exception steeped in the foodways and ethos of the frontier. There is next to no visibility into the massive urbanization, immigration, and industrialization period that America was going through... and in fact surprisingly little about farm life. Again and again the imaginations of the writers go back to natives, pioneers, and cowboys.

One startling realization is just how very much cornbread and beans were the staple foods of all Americans. There seems to be no end of ways to cook cornmeal with liquid! From simple patties molded with the hands and cooked in the ashes of the hearth, through farmhouse versions flavored with crackling or onion, on up to the custardy spoonbreads of the deep South... America was built on what many people now think of as the side-dishes at a BBQ joint. It's amazing how much more potatoes and bread people eat today, compared to a century ago if this book is at all representative.

Instead of restaurants, Americans of the early 20th century seem to have enjoyed community picnics, suppers, barbecues, clambakes, etc. I think we still have more of this type of thing than other countries, especially in smaller towns. Several of the essays also describe proto-restaurants, where a woman would cook for money in her own home. Restaurants are only mentioned in the context of New York City.

The biggest omissions here have to do with "ethnic" cuisines. There's next to no mention of Irish, Polish, Chinese, Jewish, Italian, Greek, Cajun, or Creole foods. German, Scandinavian, and Mexican cuisines get a few short segments, while "soul food" seems to be the object of some fascination although the segments dealing with African-Americans now come across the most dated. Some of the entertainment of the book is reading the painstaking descriptions of, for instance, "a Los Angeles sandwich called a taco". It's mind-boggling to think of all the favorite foods that were not considered fully "American" at the time: hot dogs, pretzels, pizza, corned beef, spaghetti, burritos, and pretty much anything with a flavor.(less)

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Jul 06, 2009 Michelle rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: cooking

Parts of this were very interesting but parts were not so well done; not surprising since the editor just included portions of the WPA files which were never published. Astonishing to read what some people used to eat. :-) One beef--the editor said that the Midwest had lost all connection with its regional food. Perhaps if one never ventures out of Omaha or Chicago or Kansas City. But lots of people out in the "real Midwest" still make their great-grandmother's potato salad recipe or fix pumpkin...more

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Aug 20, 2009 Lynne rated it 3 of 5 stars

I love the idea of this book. An abandoned WPA project discovered and researched by Kurlansky, then published virtually untouched with essays added by Kurlansky himself. And it is interesting to see how regional foods came into their own. But the book becomes dry at times, due in large part, I think, to the fact that these essays were published in their original form, which in the best case were hastily completed and, at worst, simply a listing of ingredients. But I feel the book's true merit li...more

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Mar 27, 2010 Mariah rated it 2 of 5 stars

During the Great Depression the WPA put people to work all around the country building dams, buildings and roads. Well what about the creative folks who were without a job? Our pal FDR didn't forget about them. They were hired to collect and write the history of America and information about the food from around the country. These writers and photographers were hired by radio stations to be your own Neighbor Lady who wold visit with you about recipes and keeping house. Kurlansky takes all the in...more

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Mar 26, 2013 Bob rated it 5 of 5 stars

Kurlansky is not the chief writer here - he edits together short pieces of writing on regional food and culinary customs that had been sitting in a box in the Library of Congress since they were abandoned at the tail end of the WPA Writers' Project.
Some are simply recipes (and sufficiently inexact by current standards that I wouldn't always know where to begin to try executing one), others are several page descriptions of social customs around food, all grouped by region of the country. The int...more

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About Mark Kurlansky

Mark Kurlansky (born 7 December 1948 in Hartford, Connecticut) is a highly-acclaimed American journalist and writer of general interest non-fiction. He is especially known for titles on eclectic topics, such as cod or salt.

Kurlansky attended Butler University, where he harbored an early interest in theatre and earned a BA in 1970. However, his interest faded and he began to work as a journalist in...more

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Books by Mark Kurlansky

Cod: A Biography of the Fish that Changed the World

The Basque History of the World: The Story of a Nation

The Big Oyster: History on the Half Shell

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