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From Hardtack to Home Fries: An Uncommon History of American Cooks and Meals
An expert on women's and culinary history takes readers on a fascinating tour of American history using food as a main focus, drawing on diaries, journals, memoirs, and old cookbooks to provide a close-up look at two centuries of American culinary history. 35,000 first printing.
244 pages, Hardcover
First published April 2, 2002
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 32 reviews
December 8, 2018
What an odd little collection. The essays collected here are very mixed in that they veer all over the country, geographically (as well as heading to Ireland and the Philippines) and temporally. There just doesn't seem to be any organizing theme beyond "US history" and "women authors".
We visit Civil War hospital kitchens on both the Confederate and Union sides, head all across the West with the Harvey girls (who were a totally new-to-me historical quirk), then jog up to the White House during the Depression, visit the Philippines and Massachusetts during the second World War, then travel all over the place and time, with a survey of cookbooks written by Black women. A little jarring and disorienting.
But.
Most of the essays are really, really interesting in and of themselves. They're historical research-heavy, and the author takes the tack of focusing minutely on the lives of two or three women who wrote primary texts that inform the topic of the essay.
"Cooking Behind Barbed Wire", for instance, looks at how American women in POW camps in the Philippines fed themselves and their families on reduced and unfamiliar rations. And most of the chapter consists of an in-depth look at the lives of two women who wrote detailed diaries of the period.
"Food Keeps the Faith: African-American Cooks and Their Heritage" is a collection of mini-biopics of Cleora Butler (whose cookbook/memoir I am now going to request through inter-library loan), Sylvia Woods, Edna Lewis, Norma Jean and Carole Darden, and Vertamae Smart-Grosvenor.
Haber's writing is at its best when she's focusing in on individual women's lives and how it relates to a particular pocket of history. Strangely, it goes a little south when she tries to talk about the books they wrote and how those books relate to the larger literary canon, so overall the format works well. Haber also has an infrequent tendency to snark about her subjects, which is very unfortunate. But infrequent.
Only two of the nine essays fall a little short, one about famine in Ireland and the other about diet reformers of the early 19th century, but I admit, neither of those topics are as fascinating to me personally as say, how a group of European refugees opened a dry goods store / cake shop in Boston during WWII as a social safety net.
So overall, the book's a lot like many of the historically faithful recipes included in each chapter: odd but context-appropriate.
We visit Civil War hospital kitchens on both the Confederate and Union sides, head all across the West with the Harvey girls (who were a totally new-to-me historical quirk), then jog up to the White House during the Depression, visit the Philippines and Massachusetts during the second World War, then travel all over the place and time, with a survey of cookbooks written by Black women. A little jarring and disorienting.
But.
Most of the essays are really, really interesting in and of themselves. They're historical research-heavy, and the author takes the tack of focusing minutely on the lives of two or three women who wrote primary texts that inform the topic of the essay.
"Cooking Behind Barbed Wire", for instance, looks at how American women in POW camps in the Philippines fed themselves and their families on reduced and unfamiliar rations. And most of the chapter consists of an in-depth look at the lives of two women who wrote detailed diaries of the period.
"Food Keeps the Faith: African-American Cooks and Their Heritage" is a collection of mini-biopics of Cleora Butler (whose cookbook/memoir I am now going to request through inter-library loan), Sylvia Woods, Edna Lewis, Norma Jean and Carole Darden, and Vertamae Smart-Grosvenor.
Haber's writing is at its best when she's focusing in on individual women's lives and how it relates to a particular pocket of history. Strangely, it goes a little south when she tries to talk about the books they wrote and how those books relate to the larger literary canon, so overall the format works well. Haber also has an infrequent tendency to snark about her subjects, which is very unfortunate. But infrequent.
Only two of the nine essays fall a little short, one about famine in Ireland and the other about diet reformers of the early 19th century, but I admit, neither of those topics are as fascinating to me personally as say, how a group of European refugees opened a dry goods store / cake shop in Boston during WWII as a social safety net.
So overall, the book's a lot like many of the historically faithful recipes included in each chapter: odd but context-appropriate.
May 28, 2010
Gee, I really wish this book was longer. I agree with another reader's review of From Hardtack to Homefries... that Haber could have more fully utilized her resources as curator of the culinary collection of Harvard University's Schlesinger Library. The book features nine essays detailing very specific periods of American eating history. Each chapter is fascinating and easy to read and feature plenty of good research and recipes, but the most interesting chapters are those regarding cooking and eating under strict socio-economic limitations. I found the chapters on the Irish Potato Famine and 19th Century food reformation (you'll learn that the namesake of the Grahm cracker preached culinary austerity and sexual repression and that the man behind Kellog's cereal was an enema-obsessed health quack)the most fun to read, but the profile of how female P.O.W.s in the Phillipines managed to eat was equally interesting. And this is where my complaint takes effect: Haber could have given us so much more!
The book begins in the 19th century and ends, essentially, in the 1940s, with a brief description of 1950s grilling machismo in the concluding chapter. Why stop there? Additionally, why begin there? I'm curious about the way new Americans ate in the 18th century, but perhaps the Schlesinger library just didn't have those materials.
Regardless of how little this book covers, what little it does it does in depth. It is written from a feminist perspective and profiles many strong women who worked hard and found fulfillment and empowerment through the domestic task of cooking. This is an entertaining, fast paced read. For a look at the history of American eating trends, read "Fashionable Food: Seven Decades of Food Fads" by Sylvia Lovegren.
The book begins in the 19th century and ends, essentially, in the 1940s, with a brief description of 1950s grilling machismo in the concluding chapter. Why stop there? Additionally, why begin there? I'm curious about the way new Americans ate in the 18th century, but perhaps the Schlesinger library just didn't have those materials.
Regardless of how little this book covers, what little it does it does in depth. It is written from a feminist perspective and profiles many strong women who worked hard and found fulfillment and empowerment through the domestic task of cooking. This is an entertaining, fast paced read. For a look at the history of American eating trends, read "Fashionable Food: Seven Decades of Food Fads" by Sylvia Lovegren.
December 22, 2017
Reading this book was almost like watching a Ken Burns documentary. It was mindless and riveting at the same time, full of historic information based on very personal as well as established histories. I probably best enjoyed the chapter on the FDR office's head cook. She was stern and did not seem to enjoy food. She purposely put foods in front of the president that he did not like. She served foreign dignitaries ice tea instead of coffee and used canned vegetables. However, by the end of the chapter we learn that she was truly interested in the health of the ailing president and that she felt it would be morally wrong to feed the White House crowd with lavish foods when the nation was under rationing. It was almost like a good mystery, having my initial reaction be completely turned around by the end of the read.
January 9, 2013
I learned a lot from this book, history made palatable. I bought it in a second hand store, for the great photo on the cover.
September 1, 2025
#Binge Reviewing my previous Reads #History of Food and Cuisine
From Hardtack to Home Fries is not just a history book; it is a culinary journey across American time and society, a narrative that brings to life the kitchens, tables, and palates of generations long past. The book’s charm lies in its ability to marry rigorous historical research with storytelling that is witty, engaging, and, above all, appetising. It demonstrates that food, far from being merely sustenance, is a lens through which we can understand culture, class, migration, and innovation.
From the opening chapters, the book situates the reader in the austere world of early American meals, where hardtack—dense, nearly indestructible biscuits—was a staple for sailors and soldiers alike. These early culinary artefacts are not presented as dull relics, but as evidence of ingenuity and resilience. The narrative deftly moves from these survival foods to the richly diverse contributions of immigrant communities, showing how German, Italian, Irish, and other diasporic influences transformed the American diet. Each chapter offers not just recipes or ingredients, but the human stories behind them—cooks improvising with limited resources, households adopting new practices, and entire communities redefining notions of taste and nutrition.
One of the book’s strongest features is its attention to social class and domestic life. It juxtaposes the elegant meals of the affluent with the improvisational frugality of working-class families, illustrating how economic circumstances shaped food culture. Recipes and menus are contextualised within the realities of labour, gender roles, and domestic technology, revealing the often invisible labour of those who prepared meals. The narrative honours these contributions without romanticising them, highlighting both the constraints and the creativity inherent in the act of feeding a family.
The author’s style is both informative and playful. Anecdotes are abundant—whether describing a 19th-century soup kitchen, a cook’s ingenious use of leftover ingredients, or the evolution of a beloved American breakfast item, like the home fry. Humour and curiosity run through the pages, making what could have been a dry, academic survey of culinary history instead a lively exploration. The book also occasionally pauses to reflect on broader cultural shifts: how urbanisation, industrialisation, and technological innovation altered what Americans cooked, how they ate, and even how they thought about food.
The narrative structure allows the reader to see continuity and change simultaneously. We move seamlessly from colonial kitchens to turn-of-the-century dining rooms, from rural farms to burgeoning cities, tracing the transformation of American eating habits with keen attention to detail. Ingredients, tools, and techniques are meticulously documented, but always in service of the stories of people who cooked, shared, and innovated. By the final chapters, when the narrative reaches the comfort foods of mid-20th-century kitchens, the reader appreciates how food history is inseparable from social history, immigration, and the evolution of taste itself.
Ultimately, From Hardtack to Home Fries succeeds because it refuses to see food as mere consumption. It is both a cultural artefact and a lived experience, capable of reflecting values, ingenuity, and identity. The book invites readers not only to understand the past but also to savour it—conceptually, if not literally.
For anyone interested in the intersections of history, society, and cuisine, this work offers a rich, rewarding, and surprisingly entertaining read. It is a reminder that every meal carries a story, and every kitchen has witnessed history in action.
In sum, this is a book that feeds curiosity as effectively as it illuminates the past. Hardtack and home fries are just the bookends of a sprawling, flavourful exploration of American culinary life, and the journey between them is as satisfying as a well-cooked meal.
From Hardtack to Home Fries is not just a history book; it is a culinary journey across American time and society, a narrative that brings to life the kitchens, tables, and palates of generations long past. The book’s charm lies in its ability to marry rigorous historical research with storytelling that is witty, engaging, and, above all, appetising. It demonstrates that food, far from being merely sustenance, is a lens through which we can understand culture, class, migration, and innovation.
From the opening chapters, the book situates the reader in the austere world of early American meals, where hardtack—dense, nearly indestructible biscuits—was a staple for sailors and soldiers alike. These early culinary artefacts are not presented as dull relics, but as evidence of ingenuity and resilience. The narrative deftly moves from these survival foods to the richly diverse contributions of immigrant communities, showing how German, Italian, Irish, and other diasporic influences transformed the American diet. Each chapter offers not just recipes or ingredients, but the human stories behind them—cooks improvising with limited resources, households adopting new practices, and entire communities redefining notions of taste and nutrition.
One of the book’s strongest features is its attention to social class and domestic life. It juxtaposes the elegant meals of the affluent with the improvisational frugality of working-class families, illustrating how economic circumstances shaped food culture. Recipes and menus are contextualised within the realities of labour, gender roles, and domestic technology, revealing the often invisible labour of those who prepared meals. The narrative honours these contributions without romanticising them, highlighting both the constraints and the creativity inherent in the act of feeding a family.
The author’s style is both informative and playful. Anecdotes are abundant—whether describing a 19th-century soup kitchen, a cook’s ingenious use of leftover ingredients, or the evolution of a beloved American breakfast item, like the home fry. Humour and curiosity run through the pages, making what could have been a dry, academic survey of culinary history instead a lively exploration. The book also occasionally pauses to reflect on broader cultural shifts: how urbanisation, industrialisation, and technological innovation altered what Americans cooked, how they ate, and even how they thought about food.
The narrative structure allows the reader to see continuity and change simultaneously. We move seamlessly from colonial kitchens to turn-of-the-century dining rooms, from rural farms to burgeoning cities, tracing the transformation of American eating habits with keen attention to detail. Ingredients, tools, and techniques are meticulously documented, but always in service of the stories of people who cooked, shared, and innovated. By the final chapters, when the narrative reaches the comfort foods of mid-20th-century kitchens, the reader appreciates how food history is inseparable from social history, immigration, and the evolution of taste itself.
Ultimately, From Hardtack to Home Fries succeeds because it refuses to see food as mere consumption. It is both a cultural artefact and a lived experience, capable of reflecting values, ingenuity, and identity. The book invites readers not only to understand the past but also to savour it—conceptually, if not literally.
For anyone interested in the intersections of history, society, and cuisine, this work offers a rich, rewarding, and surprisingly entertaining read. It is a reminder that every meal carries a story, and every kitchen has witnessed history in action.
In sum, this is a book that feeds curiosity as effectively as it illuminates the past. Hardtack and home fries are just the bookends of a sprawling, flavourful exploration of American culinary life, and the journey between them is as satisfying as a well-cooked meal.
September 11, 2023
Read more of it than not, but I think I’ve read all of it that I care to, for now (has to go back to the library).
Some parts I found more interesting than others; I found the chapter on the Irish Famine quite interesting, the chapter on America’s food reformers interesting and sometimes horrifying, and the chapter on the White House cook for FDR initially intriguing but ultimately a bit repetitive.
It’s quite well done in some respects, and a… product of its time in others (which feels weird to say about a book from 2002 but it’s true- mainly in regards to race and gender, but also to some extent dieting/weight as well).
I loved the recipes littered throughout the book; I always love it when there’s recipes!
Overall, it was interesting (for the most part) and informative, while also serving as a good reminder that even with history an author does bring their own beliefs and biases to the page.
Some parts I found more interesting than others; I found the chapter on the Irish Famine quite interesting, the chapter on America’s food reformers interesting and sometimes horrifying, and the chapter on the White House cook for FDR initially intriguing but ultimately a bit repetitive.
It’s quite well done in some respects, and a… product of its time in others (which feels weird to say about a book from 2002 but it’s true- mainly in regards to race and gender, but also to some extent dieting/weight as well).
I loved the recipes littered throughout the book; I always love it when there’s recipes!
Overall, it was interesting (for the most part) and informative, while also serving as a good reminder that even with history an author does bring their own beliefs and biases to the page.
March 21, 2022
Considering the incredible wealth of resource material at the author’s disposal, this was not the riveting read I had anticipated. I did enjoy the chapter about the advent of the railroad restaurants and the Harvey girls that staffed them, and I was totally surprised to learn how consistently terrible the White House meals were during the 12 years of the FDR presidency.
November 25, 2018
A bit dry, but interesting read on the food/health phenom. Goes from the Irish potato famine, to the Kellogg family, to modern day diets and diet books, plus an overview of the history of food... Includes a few recipes - for historical context mostly. It was thoughtful, if a tad academic.
Want to read
December 7, 2022Like people, there are books that give and books that take. My Heart is a Chainsaw is a book that takes an awful lot from its readers.
June 17, 2013
While Haber's writing style was very readable - as in, I didn't get bored with dry material and give up on the book - the book was not quite what I was hoping for. I think I was expecting a more linear history with an overarching theme (cooking moving out of the home, dietary changes with Westward expansion or city growth, something like). This, however, is more like the author found a few buried biographies of people who happened to cook and wrote book reports on them as separate chapters. The author tends to get bogged down in (I think) unimportant details in some areas, while being far too vague in others where I wanted to know more.
I was confused right from the beginning, as the first chapter has nothing to do with American cooking and history, it starts out with the Irish Potato Famine and Ireland, not even the Irish immigrants to America and cooking traditions brought along.
I was confused right from the beginning, as the first chapter has nothing to do with American cooking and history, it starts out with the Irish Potato Famine and Ireland, not even the Irish immigrants to America and cooking traditions brought along.
March 29, 2013
A peek at the history of eating in homes and restaurants, battlefields and the White House, seen through cookbooks. Much of it is just fascinating and opens doors to private places like no other source. The Civil War accounts can be touching, sad; the health crusader stories a bit jolting (even though I've known about them before). Mrs. Nesbitt in FDR's White House was less interesting, but still told a story we should know. (An entire book could tell the stories of food and presidents, starting -- at least -- with Jefferson.)
Food is such a fundamental human need, but its significance goes well beyond -- fads, fashion, commerce, culture, change... Barbara Haber gives us ways of understanding them.
Food is such a fundamental human need, but its significance goes well beyond -- fads, fashion, commerce, culture, change... Barbara Haber gives us ways of understanding them.
April 20, 2015
Very much an academic historian text, reminded me of some economic histories I've read though it was very much meant to be more along the lines of a combination of oral history coupled with academic thesis given the subject matter and what we've been left for study. I found it quite entertaining, though the journey through the different historical cooks, their academic sources, and societal impacts were a bit scattered--some very much drawing the reader in and others barely touching the reader all.
January 12, 2009
This volume is written by the curator of Harvard’s vast collection of cookbooks and addresses such topics as the role of food in the diaries of American women in prison camps in the Philippines, the notoriously bad food served in the White House under Roosevelt, and the strange appeal of celebrity diet books. Everyone eats, and there’s fascinating history and vital meaning to be found in what we eat, how we cook it, or how we define ourselves based on culinary traditions.
February 18, 2009
ultimately disappointed in this. She was eloquent and hyper-informed about Civil War nurses, POW camps, etc., but completely fell apart when it came to the African-American experience and our contemporary cookbook-obsessive culture. Someone with the entire resources of the Schlesinger at her fingertips has no excuse to go soft in the middle, as it were. Ok, here's the necessary culinary pun - the book's wholesome, but ultimately I found it lacking in some essential nutrients...
June 11, 2011
This is why I love nonfiction: there are just so many things out there to learn about that I don't know and find interesting. Harvey girls. I didn't know about Harvey girls. And some of train history and what food prep would have been like in the 1800's before refridgeration (makes me grateful that the food I eat, yes even airplane food, might be tasteless but at least it's not literally rotten!). History through the lens of food, my kind of combo!
April 11, 2016
I was hoping for more on how the food shaped America or how America shaped food which isn't what I got.
This is about distinct people or groups and their connection with food. And I might need to read through again but, I'm not sure how the food told us more about major events in all the essays.
So I'm not sure how well the thesis held up with the evidence but, it was still enjoyable to read and I aquired many interesting facts.
This is about distinct people or groups and their connection with food. And I might need to read through again but, I'm not sure how the food told us more about major events in all the essays.
So I'm not sure how well the thesis held up with the evidence but, it was still enjoyable to read and I aquired many interesting facts.
July 24, 2008
I tend to enjoy those "How'd They Do That" and "The Making Of..." types of shows and books, and this definitely falls into that category! Each chapter features one way that food has influenced America -- the Irish Potato Famine, the Civil War, the Railroad Race. A great new way to show our history through the great equalizer -- our stomachs!
June 19, 2010
A charming and engaging overview written in a nicely chatty tone by the Curator of Books at the Schlesinger Library at Harvard University's Radcliffe Institute.
You won't get a lot of in-depth evaluation or history but you will come away, as I did, with a nice long list for future reading on the subject of food history.
You won't get a lot of in-depth evaluation or history but you will come away, as I did, with a nice long list for future reading on the subject of food history.
July 26, 2010
Recommended by my mother in law, this book explores how the recipes of different eras reflect on the social times. The chapters about the great potato famine, recipes from POWs in the Philippine islands during World War II, and the new "Gourmet" were most interesting to me. The recipes were interesting, but sometimes the chapters seemed to veer off on tangents.
March 6, 2011
Mildly interesting. The part about America's food reformers like Sylvester Graham (the cracker), William Miller (Seventh Day Adventist who foresaw Christ's return to earth on Oct. 22, 1844 followed by the Great Disappointment -pg. 69), John Henry Kellogg with his Battle Creek Sanitarium, and others was the most interesting part.
October 2, 2010
This was a quick but enjoyable read. It is more a collection of essays than one longer narrative. I think that kept it from getting boring. My favorite essays were about the Irish potato famine and the food reformers of the 19th century.
September 22, 2010
Good, but Laura Shapiro's similar book is better. This book plucks some interesting little events out of American food history, but Shapiro does a better job of connecting the small events to the larger social landscape.
October 25, 2013
A quick read with loads of interesting antidotes and biographies of cooks (mostly women) who were/are not famous but who made a large difference in our food culture. A very diverse look at the history of food in America.
January 31, 2011
Ugh. Uninteresting.
June 18, 2012
A cool social history of America through food. I really enjoyed the historical snapshots, particularly why the food was so notoriously bad at the FDR White House.
August 8, 2014
Awesome read. She does a wonderful discussing parts of the cookbook collection at her university and how it represents world and women's history. Need to look for a copy.
August 11, 2012
I really enjoyed this look into the history of our country through cookbooks! Also leearned about a library dedicated to cookbooks! Maybe my cookbook collecting wasn't such a bad hobby after all!
April 23, 2014
Some stories within the book are more interesting than others. The last one about collecting cookbooks was probably my favorite, along with the chapter about the Irish Potato Famine.
March 20, 2014
Very interesting and easy to read
January 9, 2015
Brilliant lens through with to look at history. Fascinating.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 32 reviews