A Visually Delectable Graduating Project: Modernizing Food Still Life Paintings into Photographs
by Meg Jones Wall
When it came time for me to start considering my final project for the Gastronomy program, I admit that I was completely overwhelmed. I knew that I wanted to use my photography skills and my interest in food styling to create some kind of visual project. It took several months of stressing, and a lot of help from my peers and advisors, but eventually I worked it out — I would research historic food still life paintings, then turn them into modern photographs. Having little experience with art history and still learning a lot about photography and food styling, I was pretty intimidated with my project. However, the delight of being able to play with food, figure out how to recreate these stunning (and extremely specific) props, and learning to manipulate my images in the proper way was too tempting to pass up.
The ultimate purpose of the project was to help me gain a greater understanding of the use of artistic elements in the paintings, such as composition, color, light, balance, and shape, as well as to create a visual collection of the images that could be studied and compared. After a lot of agonizing I chose three still life paintings, each featuring a glass of wine and other food items, from three different artists: Pieter Claesz, Paul Cezanne, and Georg Flegel. After researching and analyzing the paintings, I then created two photographs to accompany each one — a recreation of the original image, and an interpretative photograph done in my own artistic style. The final project was a book of the images, which includes some brief explanations and analysis, and an accompanying paper that goes into more depth on art history and the artistic elements that I focused on.
Pieter Claesz, “A Still Life with a Large Roemer, a Knife Resting on a Silver Plate Bearing a Partly-Peeled Lemon, Walnuts and Hazelnuts, on a Marble Ledge”
I won't lie - creating these photographs was no easy task. Many of the props were so period-specific that to purchase replicas would be far too expensive, especially considering the amount I was already spending on food, plates, fabric, wine...I was forced to create goblets with glasses I already had, coupled with cuff bracelets, aluminum foil, paint, and a lot of imagination. Other items were simply impossible to find, so I had to be creative and develop substitutes that wouldn't be so different from the original as to be distracting.
Paul Cezanne, "Still Life with Bread and Eggs"
Taking the photographs themselves was almost as challenging as the preparations — I would shift all of my items a centimeter, then take 20 more shots, obsessing over the tiny details that could completely change the composition of the image. If the balance was off or the color was too dull, it was like a blaring spotlight on my error, too wrong to be ignored. But the final photos are worth all the time and effort it took to create them. I modernized the images, using my own style, in the process, improving my photography and emphasizing my personal photographic signature.
Georg Flegel, "Snack with Fried Eggs"
Meg Jones Wall graduated from the MLA Gastronomy program in January, and is currently developing the food section for an online magazine that will be launching in the fall. When she's not writing, Meg can be found wandering farmer's markets, developing recipes, and photographing everything in sight for her food blog, ginger-snapped.
Art and Food: 17th Century Dutch Still Lifes Good Enough to Eat
by Emily Contois
As the first summer session comes to a close, we're all ruminating what we absorbed and discovered during the past six weeks of intense study. If you are a BU Gastronomy student and would like to share a few words on your summer session experience, please contact me!
What follows is a bit of what I learned in Professor Jonathan Ribner's Art and Food course (ML 672), a class which sharpens the skills of critical observation, description, and analysis in a most delectable way...
Jan Jansz den Uyl’s Breakfast Still Life with Glass and Metalwork hangs in the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. Technically brilliant, this sumptuous and realistic still life depicts the trademark features of seventeenth century Dutch painting, using light, shadow, perspective, and reflection to create a work good enough to eat.
Unlike other famed Dutch painters of the period, such as Pieter Claesz, den Uyl emphasizes vessels more so than edibles in this painting. The food appears entirely or partially eaten, leaving us to discern the character of the meal from the remaining vessels. The many fine dishes left askew on the table, including an elegant blue and white porcelain dish elevated near the center, indicate a high quality meal.
Notably, den Uyl also includes vanitas themes, elements that mark the passage of time and man's mortality. Black wisps of smoke linger above a recently extinguished candle, marking both the end of this meal, which by the eaten food and toppled vessels has concluded hurriedly, and the end of life, which approaches us all. A pocket watch rests in the center foreground, tracking time as it marches forward with or without us.
The positioning of the objects creates both drama and unity. While the layered positioning of the objects may appear at first glance haphazard, it is purposeful, creating a distinct, harmonious geometry. An ascending diagonal line of plates from the right converges with another diagonal line of toppled vessels from the left. Together they climb to an off center apex, crowned by a tall Venetian goblet of grey glass with a decorative swan head, which stands before an arched niche. This arch is also mirrored in the curved edges of the plates and vessels, while the vertically climbing diagonal lines of the piled plates runs nearly parallel to the rays of light streaming in from the left.
In a most virtuosic endeavor, den Uyl paints not only an empty glass goblet of grey glass, which reflects the light off its convex surface, but by laying the goblet on its side, he also portrays the metallic surface of the pewter flagon and the copper tazza as seen through the glass of the goblet itself. Placing the goblet and tazza on their side, den Uyl creates unexpected angles from which to view the items, including the reverse engraving inside the base of the tazza, viewed from underneath. Because the artist’s last name means owl in Dutch, he often whimsically signs his works with hidden owls, as seen at the top of the handle of the large pewter flagon at the left.
This large and dramatic den Uyl painting commands the wall where it hangs at the MFA. It not only realistically reproduces the world as the eye sees it, but also renders the food, plates, goblets, and utensils depicted more astounding on the canvas than they appear on our own breakfast tables.
The Museum of Fine Arts is located at 465 Huntington Ave., Boston. The museum is open Monday, Tuesday, Saturday, and Sunday from 10 a.m. to 4:45 p.m., and Wednesday through Friday from 10 a.m. to 9:45 p.m. Admission is free with BU ID, $20 without student ID, and $22 for adults; free to the public on Wednesday evenings. By public transportation, take the Green Line E trolley or the number 39 bus to the Museum of Fine Arts stop or the Orange Line train or bus routes 8, 47, or C2 to the Ruggles stop.
If you are unable to visit Boston, you can view many MFA collections online, including the Northern European collection, which features several seventeenth century Dutch still life works of note.
Emily is a current gastronomy student and graduate assistant, editing the Gastronomy at BU blog, January-August, 2012. Check out her research in food studies, nutrition, and public health on her blog, emilycontois.com.
BU Gastronomy Professor and Program Coordinator, Rachel Black, Receives ASFS Pedagogy Award
Photo from BU Today, by Cydney Scott
We sincerely congratulate Dr. Rachel Black, Assistant Professor and Gastronomy Program Coordinator, who was presented the Association for the Study of Food and Society's Food Studies Pedagogy Award at the annual conference this past weekend.
The ASFS Food Studies Pedagogy Award recognizes instructors and courses that use innovative and successful pedagogical techniques to reach students.
Black was honored for her summer 2011 course, Urban Agriculture, which was profiled in BU Today's One Class, One Day series. Students also created a course blog, Gastronomes Garden.
Summer Reading Isn’t Just for High Schoolers: How to Draft Your Food Blog Reading List
This is the second post in a two-part series on effective food blog reading. Check out the first post, Five Habits of Highly Effective Food Blog Readers.
by Sarah Morrow
To aid you in the critical process of selecting food blogs and news sites to follow, this post provides discretionary tips for both navigating and participating in online food communities.
These tips cannot only help you pick and choose what sites to follow, but if you’re considering starting a site of your own, they can also provide a framework for your own work.
Timeliness
How frequently is the site updated? If a site is updated multiple times in a day, keeping up with it can be daunting. If it is updated infrequently, it can be difficult to maintain a core audience, let alone attract newcomers. It is important to find a balanced medium between these two extremes. How many articles are you comfortable reading in a sitting? How many articles do you think your readers want to read at a time?
Content Quality
What information is being presented and how? Is this information original or not? If there is another source, has s/he been cited? How clearly and grammatically well-written are the articles? Is the author’s voice engaging? Do anecdotes relate to the rest of the post, or are they filler content? What is actually written in a blog post is just as important as if a blog post is written.
Presentation Quality
This may sound a little strange, but the layout and design of a site can not only attract or dissuade repeat visitors, but it can also actually clue readers into a site’s credibility and usefulness and the author’s dedication. While it’s true that not every poorly designed blog is useless or every sleek site is trustworthy, the care food bloggers put into their site often reflects the time and care they put into their other work. Pictures can also persuade or dissuade readership. While not all food is pretty, having a clear, well-lit photo can still encourage your readers to try your recipe for an Asian-spice infused gumbo or to check out the new sub shop on the corner.
Audience
Who else is reading these sites? You can keep track of this by browsing through reader comments. For your own site, moderating is key. Responding to your audience can encourage return readership. Likewise, how a food blogger responds to his/her own audience can help you decide is s/he is someone you want to read or interact with. Having a dedicated core audience can be more valuable than encouraging high traffic. If readers are staying to comment and the author is interacting with them, it’s usually a clear sign that the content being presented is encouraging discussion.
Purpose and Intent
What is the point of the site —and does it live up to that intention? If you’re writing a food blog, know why you’re making and sharing the recipes chosen, and understand what makes your work unique. With the ever-growing number of food blogs out there, it’s easy to be part of the crowd. If you know why your work is different and important, you can use that same reasoning to pick other engaging food bloggers to follow.
If you’re just getting into the online food community, whether writing or reading, here are my starting site picks. These sites are wonderful examples of authors who provide strong, timely, relevant content.
Recipe Sites
- 101 Cookbooks
- Angry Asian Creations
- Biscuits & Such
- Coconut & Lime
- Joy the Baker
- Smitten Kitchen
- Tasty Trix
Food News and Recipe Hubs
Food Writing
Sarah Morrow is a BU Gastronomy student and the head writer at inthecactusgarden.com.
Five Habits of Highly Effective Food Blog Readers
This is the first post in a two-part series on effectively reading food blogs.
by Sarah Morrow
These days, food blogs are everywhere. As gastronomy students, we have an urge to not only read all the food news and recipes we come across, but to participate in the myriad of online food communities. This urge, however, leads us to a very difficult question: How do we handle the wealth of information out there? This post looks at the general logistics of processing news and information from food sites and offers tips for synthesizing those particulars.
1. Organize from the start
Clutter is the ultimate evil. If you collect recipes, using a virtual journal (such as MacJournal) or online mediums (such as Pinterest or Evernote) to sort links, save directions, and tag entries can cut down on that clutter. By making definitive decisions from the start about how and where you will maintain data, you can effectively save yourself time later. Saving full recipes offline is useful because not only can you retain the direct link to the original recipe, but also because occasionally sites are discontinued, server crashes lose posts, or authors decidedly remove content. Saving recipes to your own files can help ensure information won’t disappear.
2. Find an RSS feed reader that works for you
RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feed readers direct new content from sites to your own personal hub. Different feed reader provide different features. Google Reader, one of the more popular readers online, can be used from any device, yet searchability for saved articles within the reader can be cumbersome and difficult. Articles that have been deleted are sometimes re-downloaded to the reader. Programs such as Vienna (which, full disclosure, I use) save articles to your computer rather than to an online cloud, but, in the reverse of Google Reader, provides more sophisticated tagging and marking features, as well as permanently deletes unnecessary articles. These might sound like trivial factors, but organization processes can affect both how we read and how efficiently we process and understand materials. RSS readers are particularly helpful when it comes to following high-content sites, such as The Kitchn, Serious Eats, and YumSugar. These sites often post anywhere between 3 to 10 (sometimes more!) articles a day. By using a feed reader, you not only ensure that you don’t miss any posts, but that relevant or interesting information is saved for later.
3. Skim
Just as we must pick and choose the amount of attention we give to various readings for class (It’s true!), it’s also important to remember that not every news piece or recipe requires your full attention. In many cases the title of a post can provide you with enough information to decide if the post is save-worthy or not. Sites such as The Huffington Post’s Food Section (which used to be Slashfood years ago) publish anywhere from 10 or more posts a day, yet many of these posts are merely blurbs, poorer versions of articles written on other sites, or reposted articles. Being able to quickly discern whether an article is a useful read or not is not only a major time saver, but it can also save you from utilizing less-than-worthy sources.
4. Don’t be afraid to remove sites from your reading roster
If you find a site isn’t providing the content you need, don’t hold onto it. Likewise, if a writer has stopped writing for several months let it go. Ironically, while sustainability is a hot food blogging topic, it does not always apply to the bloggers themselves. Many food bloggers start writing with the best of intentions — be it to share their personal experiences, develop kitchen skills, or to connect with other food enthusiasts — but an impressive number of these bloggers disappear after only a couple of months. Holding onto dead sites is holding onto clutter.
5. That said, archives can be sources
This is especially true when it comes to recipe collecting. Even if a site is essentially dormant, looking through past posts can provide a treasure trove of ideas and information.
While these are just starting suggestions, it can be important to decide how you are going to read before you decide what you are going to read. Online food blogs, news sites, and commentary are pervasive and ever-growing and there is no way any one person can tackle it all. By creating your own system, though, you can effectively process a good chunk of it.
Sarah Morrow is a BU Gastronomy student and the head writer at inthecactusgarden.com.
BU Gastronomy ASFS 2012 Presentation Schedule
It's time for this year's Joint Annual Meetings and Conference of the Agriculture, Food, and Human Values Society (AFHVS), Association for the Study of Food and Society (ASFS), and Society for Anthropology of Food and Nutrition (SAFN).
The conference takes place in New York City, June 20-24, at The New School and New York University.
With more than 120 panels planned, there are also plenty of opportunities to observe, discuss, and participate in presentations by BU Gastronomy faculty, students, and alumni.
THURSDAY, JUNE 21 @ The New School
8:30 – 9:55 am
Panel: Indigenous Knowledge
65 W. 11th Street (enter at 66 W. 12th Street), Wollman Hall, 5th Floor
- Danielle Ceribo: “Soy Sauce and Coconut Milk: The Effects of Colonialism, Globalization and Diaspora on Guamanian Foodways”
Panel: Food and Media I
66 W. 12th Street, Room 716
- Sydney Oland: "’Don't Buy All the Hotdogs’" An analysis of the foodways of Liz Lemon and 30 Roc”
2:30 – 3:50 pm
Panel: Subvert the Dominant Foodways Paradigm: Countercultural Producers and Consumers and the Communities that Love Them
66 W. 12th Street, Room 715
- Netta Davis (Faculty): “Craft, Commerce and Communion and the Cultural Work of Alternative Cookbooks”
- Chris Maggiolo: “Crafting Change: Activism and the American Craft Beer Industry”
- Erin Ross: “Actively hanging out through the Paper”: The Formation of Punk Communities through Cookzines
Panel: Indigestible Culture: Gastro‐Politics, Food and Conflict
66 W. 12th Street, Room 404
- Lucy Long (Faculty): “Exploring conflict through Food: Soda Bread in Northern Ireland”
4:10 – 5:30 pm
Panel: Good, or good for you? Examining the contexts and meanings of the pleasure, health, and morality of eating
66 W. 12th Street, Tishman Auditorium
- *Catherine Womack (Faculty): “Good, or good for you? Examining the contexts and meanings of the pleasure, health, and morality of eating”
FRIDAY, JUNE 22 @ New York University
2:00 – 3:25 pm
Panel: Food and Migrations I
Furman Hall (245 Sullivan Street), Room 316
- Joyce Krystofolski: “Cultural Transmission of Culinary Tradition of Italian Immigrant Women”
3:35 – 4:50 pm
Panel: Booze and Chews: The Cultural Politics of Civility and Intoxication
Vanderbilt Hall (40 Washington Sq. South), Room 214
- Ken Albala (Faculty): “Chew”
Panel: Obesity: Cultural and Systemic Factors
Vanderbilt Hall (40 Washington Sq. South), Room 206
- Emily Contois: “Keeping Americans Fat and Coming Back for More: A Rhetoric Analysis of Diet Literature”
SATURDAY, JUNE 23 @ New York University
8:30 – 9:55 am
Panel: School Food
Vanderbilt Hall (40 Washington Sq. South), Room 216
- Erin Powell: “From Mystery Meat to Local Meat: The School Lunch Lady Revolution”
10:05 – 11:20 am
Roundtable: Food and Music: Directions for Further Research
Vanderbilt Hall (40 Washington Sq. South), Room 214
- Ken Albala (Facutly)
- Lucy Long (Faculty)
11:40 am – 12:55 pm
Panel: Alternative Food Systems: Methods, Meanings, and Movements
Vanderbilt Hall (40 Washington Sq. South), Room 206
- Rachel Black (Faculty): “Alternative research methods for studying alternative food systems”
- Carole Counihan (Faculty): “Can ‘Alternative’ be ‘Inclusive’ in the Italian Food Movement?”
Panel: Food Heritage I
Furman Hall (245 Sullivan Street), Room 212
- Katie Dolph: "Innovation and the Frontier: Exploring the Construction of Regional Identity in Oregon's Willamette Valley”
2:30 – 3:50 pm
Panel: Taste and Culture II
Vanderbilt Hall (40 Washington Sq. South), Room 216
- Sarah Morrow: “Drink Up! Drinking Holidays, Social Deviance, and Taboos”
4:10 – 5:30 pm
Panel: Food in Education IV
Furman Hall (245 Sullivan Street), Room 120
- Lucia Austria: "Teaching Taste: A look into how culinary school students learn food”
Panel: Food Heritage II
Furman Hall (245 Sullivan Street), Room 310
- Michelle Hastings: “Lobster Tales: Distinguishing Historical Fact from Historical Fiction”
Food News Round Up: Soda Size Squabbles and Other Tidbits
Everyone and their mother has an opinion on New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg's proposal to limit restaurant soft-drink servings to 16 ounces.
Will it help create a healthier food environment?
Will it help citizens to make healthier choices?
Will it limit choice?
Will it eradicate freedom as we know it?
Here are a selection of points of view on the issue, in no particular order:
- Mark Bittman encourages, limit soda for kids sake
- Former Coke marketing executive, Todd Putnam, speaks out against soda at Soda Summit
- Current Coke president answers questions on sugary drinks
- Huffington Post's experts argue both sides of the issue
- The Wall Street Journal takes it from the drink makers’ point of view
- Journalist describes cola civil war over soda size ban
- TIME reviews the proposal and offers a brief history of Bloomberg’s nudges
- Journalist imagines full ban comes next, predicts soda speakeasies
- News summarizes NY/NJ public reactions on Twitter
- Center for Consumer Freedom calls Bloomberg “dictator” and dresses him as “nanny”
- Center for Science in the Public Interest cites surprising support for soda curbing
- Food Safety News predicts soda size limit likely to pass
And in other food news:
- Disney to ban junk food marketing on children’s programming
- 2012 London Olympics food criticized
- Mark Kurlansky discusses Clarence Birdseye, frozen food foodies, and new book
- Celebrity chefs join farm bill food fight
Gastronomy Alumna: Hungry in Hungary
by Meg Jones Wall
The past few years have held some wonderful, life-changing experiences for me. I got married. I realized that working in retail does not suit my personality. I entered the BU Gastronomy program. I even had some food that I helped prepare and style published in the Boston Globe’s Thanksgiving cover story.
And as thankful as I am for these experiences, nothing quite compares to picking up your life, grabbing your crisp new master’s degree, and moving to Budapest for almost four months.
Crazy? Yup. Difficult? Incredibly. Worth it? Without a doubt.
As a foodie, a writer, and a photographer, having the opportunity to spend several months living in and traveling through Europe was something of a dream come true. This was my very first time in Europe, and I was determined to take advantage of it — particularly by using my blog to record all of our adventures. I traveled to incredible cities like Barcelona, Rome, Dublin, and Vienna. I took a road trip through Prague, Paris, Lyon, Nice, Venice... I even got to see the beautiful Alps.
But one of the coolest parts of our European adventure was the fact that we were living in a small apartment in Budapest, a city that I really never thought I would see. Most people talk about their dreams of visiting Western Europe (and trust me, I’m thrilled that we saw countries such as France, Italy, and Spain), but having the opportunity to live, work, and eat in Eastern Europe was something I’ll never forget.
Hungarian food is different than anything I’ve had in the States. Meat-based, creamy, rich, and filling, this cuisine focuses on poultry, pork, spices, and a lot of sour cream. Most of the more well-known dishes, like stuffed peppers, chicken paprikas, and potato stew, are fairly inexpensive to prepare, but are filling enough to feed a family for several meals — or in the case of my husband and I, almost a week. I had a blast collecting family recipes from people that I met, trying to get an “authentic” cooking experience in between sampling some of the city’s best restaurants. Of course, there were also plenty of American fast food chains - Burger King, Starbucks, and (to my surprise) T.G.I. Fridays.
Food shopping was such a joy. Beautiful farmer’s markets are everywhere, bursting with produce — huge potatoes, bright cabbage, and a surprising amount of fruit. The small market that I went to most often, just a mile from the apartment we were living in, even had a butcher shop, spice shop, and several cheese shops inside, making it easy for me to get most of the things I needed for any recipe I could come up with. Of course, certain things just aren’t available, and it’s odd what I found myself missing — peanut butter, spinach, and bagels were essentially impossible to find.
One unexpected benefit of being surrounded by meat and dairy products in almost every meal? I found myself spending a lot of time considering my own diet and food choices, especially after taking Warren Belasco’s The Many Meanings of Meat course in my last semester at BU. With such a severe language barrier, I found it extremely difficult to know where the food I was purchasing came from. Additionally, I found myself eating much more meat and dairy that I was used to, and wrestled with the plant-based diet that we had talked so much about in Belasco’s course. Food and diet considerations aren’t always reached overnight, or even over the course of several months, but I now find myself moving towards a vegetarian diet — something I may not have seriously considered before arriving in Budapest.
Now that I’m back in Boston, settled back at home and searching for the food career of my dreams, it seems a bit surreal that I lived in a country where I didn’t speak the language and didn’t know a soul for several months. But I made a few great friends, had some incredible adventures, and learned at least a few Hungarian words.
And now that I can easily buy peanut butter again, I find myself really missing spaetzle.
Meg Jones Wall is a recent graduate of Boston University's MLA Gastronomy program, and worked as Communications Graduate Assistant and blog editor during the fall semester of 2011. You can find her recipes, photographs, and thoughts on food at her blog, ginger-snapped.
Alumna Profile: Vivian Liberman
by Emily Contois
When I asked Vivian Liberman when she first became interested in food, she exclaimed, “Always!” Liberman grew up in Colombia and loved going food shopping as a child with her mother. “Two things were my job,” she says, “to pick out the fruit and to shuck the peas.” She followed her love of food to culinary school, but at the behest of her mother also pursued undergraduate and graduate degrees in Hospitality Management. She has worked in restaurants, hotels, and spas across the United States, but she credits her studies in gastronomy for showing her food in a different light.
Liberman began the Gastronomy program in 2004, focusing her research broadly, but linked by the common thread of nutrition. She endorses a more practical approach to nutrition education, contending that teaching nutrition through culinary application is a more effective and realistic approach. In pondering her coursework at BU, Dr. Thomas Glick’s Readings in Food History course had a lasting effect on Liberman. “He taught me how to write and inspired me to continue the work that became my thesis,” she recalls. For her thesis, she researched the evolution of food advertising mascots, analyzing a variety of factors, such as social class, gender, and economics, shedding new light on the psychology of nutrition and consumer behavior.
Upon completing her MLA in Gastronomy, Liberman worked at Le Cordon Bleu in Miami for five and a half years. She currently works as the Training Manager at the Hotel Sofitel Cartagena Santa Clara in Cartagena de Indias, Colombia. Her current research explores public perception of molecular gastronomy and is authoring an entry for an encyclopedia on the topic and co-authoring a book chapter on food studies and foodservice with Jonathan Deutsch, Associate Professor, Kingsborough Community College, City University of New York.
When pondering the influence of the Gastronomy program on her career, Liberman says, “The program really opened things up for me and gave me a more well-rounded view point. It made me a writer, taught me how to read, and to think from a different perspective. It changed my entire outlook on the food world. I am more than a cook now. The Gastronomy program has changed my life. It’s really made it better.”
Emily is a current gastronomy student and graduate assistant, editing the Gastronomy at BU blog, January-August, 2012. Check out her research in food studies, nutrition, and public health on her blog, emilycontois.com.
Chicken Fricasee Face-Off: 18th Century Haute Cuisine versus 1950s Can-Opener Cooking
by Emily Contois
In the course, A Survey of Food History (ML 622), we were given a most delightful final exam question this semester: to compare and contrast two Chicken Fricasée recipes...
While it may appear at first glance that Francois Massialot’s recipe, “Poulets en Fricasée au Vin de Champagn” from Le Nouveau Cuisinier Royal et Bourgeois (1748),is the culinary superior of Poppy Cannon’s “Chicken with White Wine and White Grapes” from The Can-Opener Cookbook (1953), such an assumption ignores the complexity of each recipe as a unique product of a particular time and place. As Anne Bower contends, a cookbook can be read as a “fragmented autobiography” (Bower 1997: 32) that reveals unique details not only of the author’s experience, but also those of his or her time. Cannon’s recipe in particular fulfills Bower’s assertion that the main theme of cookbooks is the “breaking of silence” (1997: 46-47), as it reveals the struggles and desires of the 1950s American housewife.
Both of these recipes provide examples of period food trends. For example, first published in 1691 and in revised additions throughout the early eighteenth century, Le Nouveau Cuisinier Royal et Bourgeois featured haute cuisine, a new culinary tradition first articulated in seventeenth century France. Rather than the strong, 
heavily spiced flavors that had previously characterized European court cuisine, haute cuisine featured harmonious flavors, derived from the foods themselves. For example, the “Poulets en Fricasée” recipe does not include exotic spices or sugar, but instead showcases the flavors of the new cuisine with a sauce based on butter, aromatics, such as the onion and mushrooms that accompany the chicken, and sparse use of salt and parsley.
American cuisine of the 1950s also emphasized simplicity, though in a different way. Following World War II, manufacturers sought domestic markets for products, such as ready-made foods, that had been developed for military use during the war. Home economics texts, women’s magazines, product-sponsored recipe booklets, and advertising alike aggressively promoted processed “convenience foods” as time and energy saving wonders, ideally suited to simplify the busy housewife’s labors. More