Book Log 2010 #23: Food of a Younger Land by Mark Kurlansky

The Federal Writers Project, part of the Works Progress Administration, had as one of its planned projects a work called America Eats, which planned to look at American foodways in each of five regions (based on the Census). Each region was to have one major essay supported by some smaller pieces, all put together from primary accounts submitted by project writers. Except this never happened, as the project eventually shut down during World War II.

Enter Mark Kurlansky, who brought together the source material for America Eats and put together this book, which uses the same regional structure but allows the source material to stand on its own. This allows for a more direct recounting of what American food was like in the 1930s, when food couldn't help but be regional and seasonal. It can be a little discordant, with pieces ranging from longer essays to recipies to lists, but it's also often fascinating, given the great differences between food at that time and food today.

It can also be a little racist, as Kurlansky has opted to keep pieces in their original language, which can include some descriptors for people that are no longer considered appropriate, as well as dialog put into a regional/racial "dialect" which went out of style with Amos & Andy. As jarring as that might be to modern readers, I think it was the right call to leave this sort of thing in, as it gives a more complete picture of the time the pieces were written.

And the book can also be unintentionally hilarious, as evidenced by the poem Nebraskans Eat the Weiners. 

It's not the easiest book to read from front to back, and you may find that a state you wanted to read about gets scant coverage due to a lack of source material. Still, if you're into food history this is certainly worth a browse at least.