Every wondered how we got into this fix of needing so many plates - or more specifically why you’re supposed to put a set of plates on a registry for a wedding that you are never gonna use?  Or at least why did people do that on the regular ,even just 20 years ago?   And now it means you have relatives that are trying to push off plates on to you that you never got to eat off as a kid - and now why in the world would you want to lug them around now?   For what’s at the bottom of these mysteries, and how we got into this fix - I look at the history of plates from my particular American Food History vantage point.

The only good thing I can say about this recipe is that it uses quotation marks correctly.

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As a child reader, I always thought it was so quaint that "dinner" was this old-timey word for lunch.  It was a "Dinner Pail"  - which was a crude Indian Tiffin - only 1 chamber - vs. a Lunch Box. But I had never spent any tme thinking about why and how Dinner was the big meal of the day, and supper was toast dipped in cooling stew. Until I thought about it in terms of cooking in the dark.  When the sun goes down at 4:25 pm, why was anyone making all manner of food they can't see!? But - the Whale as Light in the early 1800's started to make it's mark.  Sure factories were changing the rhythm of life, but without artificial light to support the change, it never would have taken. The age of sail was also the Age of the Pursuit of the Whale. So come join the chase.

One month after the Trump administration ordered all work to stop at the Revolution Wind project, a judge ruled Monday that the project can restart.

Celebrate National Public Lands Day by finding a place to visit and get involved at  https://www.neefusa.org/news/volunteers-across-country-take-part-national-public-lands-day or https://www.nps.gov/subjects/npscelebrates/public-lands-day.htm And get into what was getting to be popular as vegetables in the early 19th century. How did Avocado Toast become a thing?   Well, it would never have gotten the traction it did with out practice runs by spinach or even more glamourously by celery. And those would have never had a chance if not for the propensity for food fads developed by the early 19th century Americans who had lost their food traditions and were now looking for something new. Join me on the journey to see what was cool in plant foods in the early 19th century.  We can't all be spring peas after all.

Wake up America!  Coffee is on its way to becoming the drink of the people.  Sure Cider and Beer are out there... but coffee is coming up on the outside. But how did one brew coffee in the 19th century? And just how weak was it? To find out, tune in.