HIST 840 Discussion Materials (Fall 2023 – Week 11)

HIST 840
SYLLABUS
WEEKLY DISCUSSION MATERIALS
SOME HISTORIC MENUS

Week 11: Wealth, Class, and Ethnicity

Readings:

Reay Tannahill, Food in History, pp. 230-251 (Chap. 17: “A Gastronomic Grand Tour: 1”)

Martha Carlin, “Provisions for the Poor: Fast Food in Medieval London,” Franco-British Studies: Journal of the British Institute in Paris, no. 20 (Autumn, 1995), pp. 35-48.

Jeffrey M. Pilcher, ¡Que vivan los tamales! Food and the Making of Mexican Identity (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1998), pp. 38-43, 52-57.

Hasia R. Diner, Hungering for America: Italian, Irish, and Jewish Foodways in the Age of Migration (Cambridge, Massachusetts, and London, England: Harvard University Press, 2001), Chap. 5 (“The Sounds of Silence: Irish Food in America”), pp. 113-45, 262-8.

Images:

Papal banquet servers, temp. Pius V, from Bartolomeo Scappi’s Opera (c. 1570)
Still life, c. 1615
Venison and lamb pasties, made from Edward Kidder’s recipe collection of c. 1720
Pieter Claesz, “Still Life with Turkey Pie” (1626)
Marcus Gheeraerts the Elder (1520-90), Fête at Bermondsey (c. 1569)
Modern pasty ad
Smoked herring
Pieter Claesz, “Still Life with Herring” (1636)

Italian immigrant to America, 1896: “An Italian type”

Two boys eating spaghetti in a street in Naples, late 19th cent.

Delmonico’s restaurant, New York, in the nineteenth century, and Menu from Delmonico’s restaurant, 18 April 1899

Advertisements for Giuseppe Garibaldi macaroni, for spaghetti, and for La Rosa pasta (“mother’s night off”) (1947)

Video: BBC’s mini-documentary on Swiss Spaghetti Harvest, 1 April 1957 (Panorama, narrated by Richard Dimbleby, 2:29 min.)

Video: “Lady and the Tramp” (1955): “Bella Notte” (3:45 min.):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8foQ2zBLlpA

Video: “Goodfellas” (1990):
Dinner in prison, 1973 (2:31 min.):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rQV6CijIzrc
Meal at Tommy’s mother’s house (played by Martin Scorsese’s mother, Catherine; 3:46 min.):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MTJz_hj6GXw

Irish immigrant family in America (with “growler” dinner pail?)

Dinner pail with campaign ad for McKinley and Roosevelt (1900)

Music: Edward Harrigan, “My Dad’s Dinner Pail” (1883):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NoTTV8W2DPQ (recording by Harry McClintock, 1928, 3:32 min.)
http://music.debracowan.com/track/dads-dinner-pail (recording by Deborah Cowan, 1995; 5:05 min.; start at 3:15 min.)

Caricature of Irish cook, 1881 and similar caricature, 1883
Caricature of Irish troublemaker, 1889

Caricatures of Irish immigrants as drunken troublemakers:
http://contexts.org/socimages/files/2008/10/powder.jpg
http://contexts.org/socimages/files/2008/10/lodging-house.jpg

Sign: “Help Wanted (No Irish Need Apply)”
Similar newspaper advertisement
Rebuttal in song: “No Irish Need Apply”

“Bringing Up Father” comic strip: Jiggs at a restaurant:
http://davescupboard.blogspot.com/2010/03/vintage-sunday-bringing-up-father.html

“Dinty Moore” canned beef stew was named for the tavern-owner in the comic strip:
http://www.backofthecerealbox.com/2008/02/too-many-dinty-moores.html

Casta paintings (Mexico, 18th century):

Miscegenation in Spanish colonies: terms used

African
——
Spaniard
——
Spaniard
——
Amerindian
——
African
Mulatto Criollo Mestizo Zambo

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/dd/CastaSystemVirreinato.JPG
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e8/Casta_painting_all.jpg
Details: Mestizo, mulatto, coyote (or cholo), and lobo
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5a/Mestizo.jpg
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/37/Mulatto.jpg
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/4/4d/Coiote.jpg
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/50/Zambo.jpg