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97 Orchard: An Edible History of Five Immigrant Families in One New York Tenement

Jane Ziegelman

3.72 · Rating details · 2,652 ratings · 450 reviews

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Hardcover, 253 pages

Published June 1st 2010 by Smithsonian

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Start your review of 97 Orchard: An Edible History of Five Immigrant Families in One New York Tenement

Jun 01, 2017 Brina rated it really liked it

Shelves: history, new-york-city, immigration, food

One of the things I enjoy about goodreads are the many book challenges offered by groups that allow me to read a wide range of books that I otherwise would not have considered. A popular challenge in a lot of the groups I am in is the A to Z Author Challenge where one reads a book by an author whose last name starts with each letter of the alphabet. For my Z selection I selected 97 Orchard by Jane Zeigelman. Zeigelman is the director of the Kids!Cook program at the New York Tenement House Museum One of the things I enjoy about goodreads are the many book challenges offered by groups that allow me to read a wide range of books that I otherwise would not have considered. A popular challenge in a lot of the groups I am in is the A to Z Author Challenge where one reads a book by an author whose last name starts with each letter of the alphabet. For my Z selection I selected 97 Orchard by Jane Zeigelman. Zeigelman is the director of the Kids!Cook program at the New York Tenement House Museum. This book details life of newly arrived immigrants over the course of one hundred years, five families of different ethnic groups who made one building home.

Prior to the civil war, one of the first groups to immigrate to the United States were the Germans. Decades before World War I when they were seen as a threat to security, the Germans were viewed as model immigrants. Being from Western Europe, they blended in with Caucasians already on American soil and they were viewed as hard workers. Yet, Germans hung on to many traditions, including their food. Mid 19th century New York was still very much a rural urban center; Germans opened breweries and factories to produce their national cuisine including sausages and beer. Prior to their arrival, Americans beverage of choice had been rum. Yet, the German presence slowly changed this as taverns and saloons opened in the German neighborhoods, allowing workers to stop for a beer on the way home from a long day. In addition to beer gardens, Germans are responsible for introducing both the hamburger and hotdog into American traditions, both foods now considered a symbol of this country.

After the Germans, the next group to make their presence felt on American soil were the Irish. Fleeing from the Great Potato Famine of the 1840s, parents placed their children on ships in hope that they would have a better life in the United States. Yet, the Irish were met with discrimination from older immigrants, predominately because of their catholic faith. As a result, they were relegated to menial jobs including street cleaning and factory workers. Their culture was their one means of expressing themselves, including the dance that we know today. Zeigelman writes less about Irish cuisine because she points out that as a group they were most likely to eat at home. The one food of theirs that has made inroads in mainstream society has been corned beef and cabbage, although it is still not on par with other foods considered national dishes.

No two groups immigrated to the United States from the 1880s to the 1920s more than Italians and Eastern European Jews. Both groups cooked with savory spices and herbs and were responsible for a plethora of pushcart vendors peddling their cuisine throughout the Lower East Side. While both the bagel and spaghetti and meatballs are revered by Americans today, this was not always the case. Health workers attempted to Americanize both groups, starting with the children attending public schools. They instituted cooking classes in hopes that the children would learn the importance of eating blander foods and bring these lessons home to their parents. Yet, both Italian and Jewish homemakers had been cooking since they were young children and clung to their traditions from home. Despite the valiant efforts of health officials, both ethnic groups continued to prefer the comforts of home including dill pickles and Italian ten course Sunday dinners. Along with the Germans and Irish, Jews and Italians are responsible for creating a melting pot culture as the United States grew to be a country of many immigrants.

Zeigelman weaves the history of immigrants along with their food contributions to American history and key recipes for each ethnic group's cuisine. She points out instances where each group chose to Americanize and others where they adhered to their traditions from home. The 97 Orchard tenement building was emblematic of the changes immigrants underwent over an one hundred year period, and the building is now part of the New York Tenement House Museum. An interesting look at how food influences a people's history, 97 Orchard was a thought provoking read, which I rate 4 stars. ...more

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Oct 01, 2010 The Library Lady rated it it was ok

Shelves: adult-history, disappointing-books

This book's title is deceptive. There is very little about the five immigrant families in this book. The real focus is on how the arrival of various groups of immigrants influenced and changed the food world of New York City in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
The people have little more substance than cardboard figures tucked into the story to illustrate it. And while there is some interesting information about food of the period here, the style is so higgledy- piggledy, jumping from one ...more

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Jan 26, 2011 Iowa City Public Library added it

Shelves: nonfiction, staff-picks-blog, anne, history

For me, the most memorable parts of Betty Smith’s A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, a coming-of-age novel set in the tenements of Brooklyn, involve food. When I think about that book, my mind jumps to the scenes when Francie Nolan buys half-priced stale bread from the bread factory wagons or when Francie’s mother tells her how to get the butcher to supply them with fresh ground beef. Food was important. The good times for Francie’s parents are described when they both had steady jobs and were able to ea ...more

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Jun 07, 2012 Jeff Crompton rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

This book was a gift from my wife, who knows that I'm interested in history and, well, food. I wasn't convinced that it was something I really was interested in reading, but I found it fascinating. As some other reviewers have said, don't take the subtitle too seriously - there is little history of the five families who lived in the same tenement building at 97 Orchard Street on the lower east side of New York. Rather, those families serve as representatives of five groups of immigrants - German ...more

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May 23, 2020 Chris rated it really liked it

Shelves: food-essays-memoirs, 2020-reads, new-york-city, quarantine-reads, non-fiction

My dad picked this book up at a book sale and thought I would enjoy it and he was right. Two years later I'm getting to it, but better late than never! I'm third generation with my family coming through Ellis Island, so this was a fascinating read of five immigrant families who lived in the same tenement building at 97 Orchard Street on the Lower East Side. With a focus on the food they cooked, as well as some of the food changes happening in this country, it was a fascinating historical read! Z ...more

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Jun 08, 2010 Melissa rated it did not like it

I actually abandoned this book before finishing it because I found it to be uninteresting and not compelling. I expected a history of specific families and their experiences in the tenement and how these related to the food they ate. In this book the notion is more of a gimmick than a historical tale though, and each family history was basically just a venue for presenting a generalized overview of a certain immigrant group and the foods they ate. The information presented was not very surprisin ...more

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Jun 25, 2013 Steve rated it it was ok

Potential, potential,potential. The concept here is great. Let's take a story rich concept (tracking immigrant families through a NY tenament over 40 years) and explain their lives and such. On top of that, let's work food in as a primary detail. I'm game. Sounds awesome. The problem is, there's no story here. This is an educational book. This is like going to a museum and reading the placards around the different exhibits. This makes sense to a degree since its tied to 97 Orchard - New York's t Potential, potential,potential. The concept here is great. Let's take a story rich concept (tracking immigrant families through a NY tenament over 40 years) and explain their lives and such. On top of that, let's work food in as a primary detail. I'm game. Sounds awesome. The problem is, there's no story here. This is an educational book. This is like going to a museum and reading the placards around the different exhibits. This makes sense to a degree since its tied to 97 Orchard - New York's tenament museum. I didn't get that at all from the book flaps. I was fully expecting a story. I was expecting tales of hardship and triumph and woe and joy. Note...I also missed that this was mostly about food which I should have gathered by the sub-title.

I like going to museums. I read all the little write-ups. All of them. In that context this was great. If I was reading this in the tenament museum I probably would have loved it. The basic layout had potential and there were stretches that were great. Some spoilers below... Each chapter started with a little history of the "characters" and their people (German Jew, Irish, Hungarian Jew, Italian and a fifth I have missed). There's a bit of history (which I always enjoy) and a brief background of the specific folks. But there's a lot of generalities. They could have been this, could have done this. The story isn't there. The "characters" are just a conduit to speak about their food traditions. The next thirty-fifty pages are basically an expansive list of their habits (shopping, coking, eating) of a class and type of people. They check in with the family on occasion, buy not nearly enough. Also sprinkled through is recipes. Again, the book is mostly tied to food.

Again...this is interesting. But the sales pitch is wrong. Its misleading to present this as a history of the families or the tenament. Its neither. Its a discussion or lesson on food. The tenament barely plays into it. And the families are very generic with information pulled from a census. As a museum tied piece (and I'm 99% sure this is) they probably have to stick to the facts. But, I would love to see more tie-ins to the family. More...story.

Overall...there is potential here. It just doesn't come through. If you love food and love non-fiction this one is good for you. If you love the tenament museum then yes. If you want a tale of five families living their lives (actually doing something other than eating) then take a pass.

This book was a gift from my wife at Christmas. I was actually pretty stoked to read it. Sad that it didn't pan out... ...more

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Jun 13, 2011 Kathrina rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: history, foodie

If you mix a people's NYC history from the period of 1890's through 1930's, full of every kind of immigrant with their crazy last names, constant clatter of languages, bustles and suspenders, greasy packs and steamtrunks, and mix that with the smells of knish and streudel, mutton chops and saurkraut, almonds in sugar syrup and gelato, I WILL MOST LIKELY READ YOUR BOOK. Something about that great expectation, enough to spend your last penny to ship your family across the globe for a new beginning ...more

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Jan 14, 2012 Margaret Sankey rated it really liked it

From the culinary curator of the Tenement House Museum in New York, a reconstructed history of the kitchens of five waves of families from 1860-1940--the Glockners (Germans), Moores (Irish), Gumpertzs (German Jews), Rogarshevskys (Polish-Lithuanian Jews) and Baldizzis (Sicilians). The cyclical food history pattern is always there--the immigrants are eating crazy, spicy, strange-smelling food and they should knock it off and quit hanging around with other emigrants in basement restaurants talking ...more

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Oct 28, 2010 Susan Albert rated it it was amazing

Shelves: food-agriculture

97 Orchard: An Edible History of Five Immigrant Families in One New York Tenement is remarkable not only for its stunningly rich documentation, but for the richness of its unique central idea: an intensive, extensive study of the foodways of European immigrant families who lived in a single tenement building over five decades. Using the building as the setting for her dramatic narrative, author and food historian Jane Ziegelman tells the multilayered, multidimensional stories of German, Irish, J 97 Orchard: An Edible History of Five Immigrant Families in One New York Tenement is remarkable not only for its stunningly rich documentation, but for the richness of its unique central idea: an intensive, extensive study of the foodways of European immigrant families who lived in a single tenement building over five decades. Using the building as the setting for her dramatic narrative, author and food historian Jane Ziegelman tells the multilayered, multidimensional stories of German, Irish, Jewish, Lithuanian, and Italian residents and the food traditions they celebrated.

In 1863, a prosperous German tailor built a home for his family in New York's Lower East Side, and rented out the other apartments in his building to German acquaintances. Using an impressive range of primary sources, Ziegelman reconstructs not only the history of Lucas Glockner's new building, but the story of the larger tenement neighborhood, product of the sharp rise in immigration that had begun some 40 years earlier and continued for more than a century. But the real heart of her narrative is the food the German immigrants ate, described in the German cookbooks Zielegman quotes (recipes included in the text), the groceries sold in the shops and bakeries on Orchard Street and in the larger markets, and prepared by Mrs. Glockner for her family. Ziegelman even takes us into the saloons and beer halls, and to the picnic grounds where huge Volksfests were held.

The remaining four chapters of the book are marked by the same careful, skillful attention to historical detail, food origins, culinary traditions, and even grocery lists. The Irish Moore family ate potatoes, fish hash, and corned beef and cabbage, and frequented restaurants such as Dolan's, where they could buy oyster stew for 20 cents, pickled tongue for ten, and crullers for a nickel. Mrs. Gumpertz, a quintessential Jewish mother, is pictured making gefilte fish (a dish brought from the Old Country, along with the oblong gefilte fish pot and the Sabbath candlesticks) and other Jewish specialties. The Rogarshevskys, who came to live at 97 Orchard after their arrival at Ellis Island in 1901, found the neighborhood full of pushcarts, where they could shop for the makings of their daily soups. During the Depression, the Baldizzis, like other Italian immigrants, spent their tiny food budget on a few indispensable staples: bread, pasta, beans, lentils, and olive oil, with free groceries provided weekly by Governor Roosevelt's Home Relief Program.

Over the decades, 97 Orchard Street was home to nearly 7000 working class immigrants. Boarded up for half a century, the building now houses the New York Tenement Museum (http://www.tenement.org), which features museum apartments that reconstruct the living situation for families like the Glockners and the Moores. For a look into the building, visit the Tenement Museum's website. And then read Jane Ziegelman's fine book, which so fully and dramatically documents the way the building's residents celebrated life in their new country with food cultures brought from the old.

97 Orchard: An Edible History is social history at its very best, fully documented and beautifully written, a stunning testimony to the importance of food in our lives. Kudos to Jane Ziegelman for an original idea, artfully and provocatively executed! ...more

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Jul 01, 2013 Sher rated it it was amazing

The author traces five immigrant families -- all of whom lived in the 7 Orchard tenement in New York in the late nineteenth early twentieth century. The reader sees how these families lived and what they ate. In addition you'll be treated to a history of foods that finally made their way to the American palette and stayed there-- foods like pasta, frankfurters, a version of hamburger, pretzels, and many more. In addition I learned about the types of food shops and immigrant run restaurants that ...more

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Mar 07, 2011 James rated it really liked it

I read this because I visited the Lower East Side Tenement Museum at 97 Orchard last year. Jane Ziegelman is director of a new cooking program at the museum. The book purports to be the story of five families who lived at 97 Orchard: the Glockners, the Gumpertzes, the Moores, the Rogarshevskys, and the Baldizzis. When I visited, I saw the Gumpertz and Balidizzi apartments. Several Goodreads reviewers have commented that the book doesn't really focus on the families in the way that the title impl I read this because I visited the Lower East Side Tenement Museum at 97 Orchard last year. Jane Ziegelman is director of a new cooking program at the museum. The book purports to be the story of five families who lived at 97 Orchard: the Glockners, the Gumpertzes, the Moores, the Rogarshevskys, and the Baldizzis. When I visited, I saw the Gumpertz and Balidizzi apartments. Several Goodreads reviewers have commented that the book doesn't really focus on the families in the way that the title implies, and I suppose that's true, but that's really a fault of the title and not the book. As Ziegelman points out, poor people don't leave much of a paper trail, so, for the earlier families,at least, she had to rely on census data and municipal records to extrapolate the family story.

The meat of the book (if I may indulge in a food metaphor) is more general, i.e. the Moore chapter deals with the broader experience of the Irish immigrants. This chapter yielded the most interesting factoid. I knew that the Irish peasants in the 19th century subsisted almost entirely on potatoes (approx. 12 lbs per day per person), with the rest of the island's copious food production being consigned to export. What I didn't know was that they made the potatoes palatable with one of a number of separately consumed flavor agents known generically as "kitchen." This could be buttermilk, seaweed, salt fish or, at the most impoverished level , water infused with black pepper. Just as the Moore chapter focuses on the Irish relationship with potatoes, each of the other chapters highlights a foodstuff of deep significance to the culture under discussion: beer for the Gentile German Glockners, schmaltz for the Jewish German Gumpertzes (I also never knew, though it seems obvious now that I do, why poultry fat is so ubiquitous in Jewish cuisine - Jews couln't cook with lard or butter, the preferred fats in Central and Eastern Europe), pickles for the Lithuanian Jewish Rogarshevskys, and bread for the Sicilian Baldizzis.
There were a few annoyingly cute moments ("Let's look in on Mrs. Gumpertz"-type stuff), but very few. I though it was very well-written, well-organized, authoritative, and highly informative. Each chapter included recipes, which is a little trendy, but I thought the conceit worked better here than in the novels where I've encountered it. I would definitely recommend this to any foodie or history buff. ...more

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Jun 05, 2012 John rated it liked it

This should have been exactly up my alley, being about food history and inspired by one of the best museums in the country (the Tenement Museum in New York), but it bugged me a little. It's hard to say exactly why. I really enjoyed most of it, and I learned a lot about the evolution of ethnic restaurants in NYC and the ways that hot dogs and pastrami and spaghetti were introduced to the American palate through these immigrant communities. There are some recipes included, and they seem manageable This should have been exactly up my alley, being about food history and inspired by one of the best museums in the country (the Tenement Museum in New York), but it bugged me a little. It's hard to say exactly why. I really enjoyed most of it, and I learned a lot about the evolution of ethnic restaurants in NYC and the ways that hot dogs and pastrami and spaghetti were introduced to the American palate through these immigrant communities. There are some recipes included, and they seem manageable, at least some of them (Maybe I can make some Challah bread! That would be fun). The structural device of using five real families who lived at one time or another in this one tenement was a good idea- though really, Ziegelman spends very little time on each family. Introducing each one is just a way to talk about Germans, then Jews, then Italians, etc.
What bugged me though, primarily, was that Ziegelman writes things sometimes that seemed to come out of left field, and for which she doesn't provide any proof. Like "Abandonment was a special class of hardship reserved for East Side women" (104). Really? The only men who abandoned their wives were poor Lower East Siders? That can't be right. What is she basing that on? On page 175 she writes that street peddlers would drink "ten, twelve, fifteen glasses" of tea at the end of a workday. But there's no citation or anything- where is this coming from? I'm not saying I don't believe it, but I'd like to know where she got the information. Because at other times in the book, she seems to lean heavily on newspaper stories of the time that were not altogether neutral. When writing about Irish boarding house proprietors, for example, Ziegelman quotes from a New York Times piece from the 1870s, which describes a "slatternly" Irish maid and a boarding house lady buying disgusting meat for the tenants. According to Ziegelman, this "tells the story...of boardinghouse cuisine." But really? This is an unbiased source? I'm a little dubious.
But my dubiousness aside, if you are interested in foodways and how certain foods became "American", and how immigrants reinvented their cuisine when they got here (at least east coast immigrants), then I recommend giving this book a look. ...more

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Sep 01, 2011 Frank rated it really liked it · review of another edition

97 ORCHARD is a fun and educational read for even the most casual of foodie. The book discusses life of turn of the century immigrants from the late 1800's to the start of World War I. The typical life of German, Irish, Russian Jew and Italian immigrants are focused on and it is all presented through they eyes of their food. Unquestionably a very unique take on the immigrants story.

The story follows chronologically from the earliest influx of Germans on through the Italian influx leading into th ...more

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Jun 14, 2012 Dree rated it it was ok

Shelves: food, nonfiction, history, 2012-reads

The subtitle is "An Edible History of Five Immigrant Families in One New York Tenement." Unfortunately, that is not what the book is about. Rather, the author uses 5 families--the amount of info she has on each family can easily be found by a genealogist 30 minutes or less--of different ethnic groups who all lived in one building at some point over a 70-year timespan to frame a basic discussion of different food ways. Irish, German, German Jewish, Eastern European Jewish, and (southern) Italian. ...more

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Sep 15, 2015 David rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

This book is a fascinating and entertaining venture of the culinary experience of living in the tenements over a period of over sixty years and multiple waves of immigrants and nationalities. It covers the German, Irish, German-Jewish, Eastern European Jewish, and Italian waves of immigration.

The Tenement Museum on NYC's Lower East Side is a favorite place of mine, and this book goes incredibly well in tandem with having visited it several times. The book doesn't delve too deeply into the famil ...more

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Aug 10, 2018 Rachel Schmoyer rated it it was amazing

The title is deceiving since you think it’s about 5 families yet it’s really a history of food in New York City’s immigrant neighborhoods in the 1850-1930. That’s okay. This was Fascinating. This is a timely read as we are seeing immigrant relations in the news all the time. This gives me some background into Ellis Island although that is only a small part. Mostly it answers the question of what did immigrants in the city eat? How did they live?

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Feb 03, 2019 Lisa rated it liked it

I found the chapter on Eastern European Jewish food culture the most interesting, with its discussion of Ellis Island dining halls, the expansion of kosher eating and options on the Lower East Side, the pushcart culture of NY, etc. I'd have liked more on each family, because this is really more a history of five culinary cultures, members of which happened to live in 97 Orchard. Still, quite interesting in places. ...more

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Nov 16, 2019 Angela rated it it was amazing

This is everything I love about a non-fiction book: history, immigration, family stories, and food. Ziegelman tells the stories of families from Ireland, Germany/Prussia, Russia, and Italy based on records of their arrival, employment, births of children, and residency in a particular tenement building in NYC. Interspersed with photos, vivid descriptions of beer halls, street vendors, markets, and meals, she paints a picture of 19th century Manhattan that brought to life the immigrant experience ...more

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Jul 13, 2020 Karen Rush rated it really liked it

I really enjoyed this book although I did find the title a tad misleading. It does mention five individual families but more so follows the larger 'family' of immigrants from their particular country. Nevertheless, I was engrossed and found myself talking about it to anyone who would listen. I am left with one major thought after peeking into the pitiful kitchens and sparse pantries: Women are absolutely amazing and resilient. So often a meal was made out of virtually nothing yet food was presen ...more

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Aug 24, 2020 Kelly rated it really liked it

Shelves: 2020

97 Orchard barely has anything to do with five specific immigrant families, as the title states, but it does offer an edible history of five immigrant groups in one New York tenement. The book was interesting on many levels; the most basic was seeing how the everyday foods were once so exotic- spaghetti! It's also knowing history to understand the present moment. Immigrants coming for a better life isn't a new phenomenon and our country's dependence on them isn't new either. Immigrants have alwa ...more

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Feb 13, 2018 Joanna rated it liked it

Shelves: nonfiction, other-cultures, books-on-food

Ingenuity abounds in this history of feeding families and the food culture waves of immigration brought to the United States. This was also an eyeopening look (for me) at conditions at Ellis Island while hopeful immigrants waited to be approved for entry into the country at large. I was expecting to feel more engaged with the five families featured, but this really was all about the food. Recipes included!

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Jun 16, 2019 Cindy rated it it was amazing

Two of my favorite things: history and food! This book covers the traditional meals of German, Irish, Italian, and Jewish immigrants and how the food evolved into American culture.

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Jul 19, 2017 Dina Natale rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

I could not put this book down! What a great history of immigrant culture and food.

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Dec 21, 2011 Caroline rated it really liked it

Through the 19th and 20th century, New York has seen waves of immigrants from various countries. In the 1800s, blocks of apartments known as tenements were developed specifically to house the incoming immigrants. The author concentrates on 5 families that lived at 97 Orchard in New York through the 1800s and early 1900s, and divides the book according to each family of Germans, German Jews, the Irish, Russian Jews and Italians.

These families however, appear rather briefly in each chapter and see ...more

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Jul 17, 2012 Jenny (Reading Envy) rated it liked it

Recommended to Jenny (Reading Envy) by: Karen

Shelves: foodie, location-usa-ny, read2013, around-the-usa, league-extraordinary-dorks

This book was interesting but a bit uneven in its coverage of five immigrant families who happened to live in one tenement building in New York City. The author just attempts to do too much, tracing the recent history of five cultures, tracking their shared immigration experiences, while also discussing the foodways of those groups - some based on cultural or religious difference, and some based on survival and availability of ingredients. It is true these are all related, but some of the histor ...more

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Aug 13, 2010 Nicole rated it liked it

I liked this book quite a bit. One of my favorite books growing up was A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, especially the passages about food or lack thereof, and this book covers similar ground in greater depth. I am making turnip latkes and pickled herring salad tomorrow because of the cravings this book inspired.

I do have some real problems with the way the book was constructed. I felt like it was trying to cover too much ground in not enough pages, so it was inevitably disorganized and incomplete. Lot ...more

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Feb 08, 2011 Jennifer rated it liked it

Recommends it for: my historian friends

Recommended to Jennifer by: Ruth

Shelves: read-2011, bad-ass-bookclub

This was an interesting but not well-structured discussion of immigration and culinary history, focused on five families (German, Italian, Irish, and both German and Russian Jews) in one New York tenement building (97 Orchard Street, to be exact). The information was fascinating, there were both recipes and many excerpts from 19th century newspapers and cookbooks, and there was lots of discussion about how food was both a way to assimilate but also to maintain culture. Each family gets a chapter ...more

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Jan 31, 2013 BookSweetie rated it liked it

Shelves: history, book-groups, non-fiction

A revelatory immigration culinary culture history using as a weak organizational tool one New York City tenement address, 97 Orchard, and five families who lived there: the Glockners (Germans), Moores (Irish), Gumpertzs (German Jews), Rogarshevskys (Polish-Lithuanian Jews) and Baldizzis (southern Italians). It may be surprising that the families serve only as a representation of their immigration group stories rather than being fully developed.

The book is worthwhile primarily for fascinating ...more

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Oct 28, 2013 Jennifer S. Brown rated it really liked it

Shelves: jewish-books, nonfiction

While the framework of this book is not very sturdy--the idea of following five families who live in the same building at various points is brilliant, but not utilized to its fullest potential; very little is told about the actual families--the food history of the Lower East Side of New York is fascinating! Through food, we can see the changes in demographics (from the German to Jewish to other ethnicities moving in, such as Italians) as well as the changing customs and mores. Food brought peopl ...more

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About Jane Ziegelman

Jane Ziegelman

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Jane Ziegelman is the director of the Tenement Museum's culinary center and the founder and director of Kids Cook!, a multiethnic cooking program for children.

Her writing on food has appeared in numerous publications. She lives in Brooklyn, New York. ...more

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“The Italians arrived with a strong musical tradition; they also had their faith. But food was their cultural touchstone, their way of defying the critics, of tolerating the slurs and all of the other injustices. It was their way of being Italian.” — 0 likes

“For Americans who believed that Italians subsisted on bread and macaroni, the edible delights available in the downtown restaurants came as a revelation.” — 0 likes

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97 Orchard: An Edible History of Five Immigrant Families in One New York Tenement

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Preview — 97 Orchard by Jane Ziegelman

97 Orchard: An Edible History of Five Immigrant Families in One New York Tenement

Get A Copy

Friend Reviews

Reader Q&A

Lists with This Book

Community Reviews

new topicDiscuss This Book

Readers also enjoyed

Genres

About Jane Ziegelman

Books by Jane Ziegelman

Related Articles

Trivia About 97 Orchard: An Ed...

Quotes from 97 Orchard: An Ed...

new topic
Discuss This Book