By Merry Post Special to The Ellsworth American One of my favorite 19th-century vegetable recipes comes from a religious group that practiced communal property ownership and free love. The Oneida Community formed in Putney, Vt., around a charismatic leader, John Humphrey Noyes, and moved to upstate New York in 1848. They were one of a …
By Merry Post Special to The Ellsworth American It wobbles and rebounds like an alien life form. Once an ornament for elaborate banquets, it became an odd form of salad popular in the 1950s. But gelatin, or jelly if you are British, actually goes back centuries in European cuisine. Long before the age of Jell-O, …
Editor’s note: Tracy Scheckel hails from Lindenhurst, N.J. — her Nana us from Naples and Papa from Sicily — and she learned a thing or two in the kitchen. Among them was Italian Easter Pie. After innocently divulging the recipe, Tracy was nearly shunned for life, but she moved to Ellsworth and now can share …
By Merry Post Special to The Ellsworth American It would be easy to ridicule the accomplishments of the temperance movement and its earnest reformers. Even when the temperance movement was at its peak of popularity, songs such as “The Lips That Touch Liquor Shall Never Touch Mine” were lampooned. National prohibition lasted for 13 years …
“It is a time-consuming process for each batch, but we feel it is necessary to make a good product,” Light explained
“I’m gonna miss most, and I think I’m starting not taking it for granted … the interaction daily with the students,” Bill said in a recent interview.
By Merry Post Special to The Ellsworth American Community cookbooks from the last quarter of the 19th century sometimes include advertisements that hint at the importance of public mourning customs. The “Excelsior Cook Book,” put out in 1891 by the Congregational Church of Rutland, Vt., includes two advertisements that show the need for proper mourning …
“I was a completely blown away by how many varieties [of seaweed] there are. I just thought seaweed was seaweed.” — Kara Ibarguen, cooking instructor, Maine Coast Sea Vegetables
By Merry Post Special to The Ellsworth American The European custom of naming foods after famous people gave us dishes such as Beef Wellington and Tournedos Rossini (named for the Duke of Wellington and the Italian composer, respectively). Americans usually reserved their honorific food names for desserts. Presidents Washington, Madison, Harrison, Tyler, Taylor, Lincoln and …
Special to The Ellsworth American In the 19th century, chicken usually contained just chicken meat or chicken parts sauced with gravy and baked in pie pastry. I found a more interesting vintage recipe that brings to mind two remarkable Rhode Island women who shattered expectations for women of their time. One, Elleanor Eldridge, was the …
Special to The Ellsworth American The 1800s were golden years for the manufacture of patent medicines. These untested proprietary products were sold over the counter. Before the Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act of 1938, American entrepreneurs sold hundreds of dubious preparations as medicine with no legal requirement to list their ingredients or to prove efficacy …
“Just before COVID, I decided I wanted to write a cookbook,” said Steele, who has lived on a small farm in Dixmont for the past seven years with her husband. “I really wanted to write an egg cookbook.”
