Ancient Pottery Fragments Reveal Prehistoric Fondness for Honey

A chemical analysis by international researchers of African pottery shards suggests that humans were collecting and storing honey roughly 3,500 years ago. … While some surviving cave paintings from Africa and Spain depict humans interacting with bees and honeycombs sometime between 40,000 to 8,000 years ago, sturdier evidence on the timeline detailing humankind’s early appreciation for honey has been hard to come by, which is why a team of international researchers was excited to stumble across exactly that – even if such a discovery was not at all what they were looking for. […]

Around the Table: The Making and Knowing Project

All of this underscores a key point about recipes as texts: they are texts of action, and to fully read them, we have to get our hands dirty, however imperfect our modern ingredients and bodies may be for the job. The knowledge encoded in recipes is practical and, to use Pamela Smith’s term, emergent: it unfolds not in the reading, but in the doing. At best, reconstruction allows us glimpses into past worlds of materials and expertise […] All of this underscores a key point about recipes as texts: they are texts of action, and to fully read them, we have to get our hands dirty, however imperfect our modern ingredients and bodies may be for the job. The knowledge encoded in recipes is practical and, to use Pamela Smith’s term, emergent: it unfolds not in the reading, but in the doing. At best, reconstruction allows us glimpses into past worlds of materials and expertise […]

UC San Diego Digitizes Materials in its American Institute of Wine and Food Culinary Collection

Cooks, bakers, and culinary historians around the globe now have immediate online access to nearly 100 volumes in the UC San Diego Library’s American Institute of Wine & Food (AIWF) Culinary Collection . Spearheaded by Special Collections & Archives (SC&A), this digitization project has allowed the Library to share […]

7 Wondrous Breads to Make When You’re Tired of Sourdough

This bread comes with a side of fortune-telling. With active dry yeast in short supply, many home-bakers who are sheltering in place have succumbed to the siren song of sourdough. But people have produced bread without yeast across history, cultures, and climes, leaving an incredible array of styles to […]