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A Square Meal: A Culinary History of the Great Depression Kindle Edition

by Jane Ziegelman (Author), Andrew Coe (Author) Format: Kindle Edition
4.4 4.4 out of 5 stars 407 ratings
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James Beard Foundation Book Award Winner

From the author of the acclaimed 97 Orchard and her husband, a culinary historian, an in-depth exploration of the greatest food crisis the nation has ever faced—the Great Depression—and how it transformed America’s culinary culture.

The decade-long Great Depression, a period of shifts in the country’s political and social landscape, forever changed the way America eats. Before 1929, America’s relationship with food was defined by abundance. But the collapse of the economy, in both urban and rural America, left a quarter of all Americans out of work and undernourished—shattering long-held assumptions about the limitlessness of the national larder.

In 1933, as women struggled to feed their families, President Roosevelt reversed long-standing biases toward government-sponsored “food charity.” For the first time in American history, the federal government assumed, for a while, responsibility for feeding its citizens. The effects were widespread. Championed by Eleanor Roosevelt, “home economists” who had long fought to bring science into the kitchen rose to national stature.

Tapping into America’s long-standing ambivalence toward culinary enjoyment, they imposed their vision of a sturdy, utilitarian cuisine on the American dinner table. Through the Bureau of Home Economics, these women led a sweeping campaign to instill dietary recommendations, the forerunners of today’s Dietary Guidelines for Americans.

At the same time, rising food conglomerates introduced packaged and processed foods that gave rise to a new American cuisine based on speed and convenience. This movement toward a homogenized national cuisine sparked a revival of American regional cooking. In the ensuing decades, the tension between local traditions and culinary science has defined our national cuisine—a battle that continues today.

A Square Meal examines the impact of economic contraction and environmental disaster on how Americans ate then—and the lessons and insights those experiences may hold for us today.

A Square Meal features 25 black-and-white photographs.

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  1. Print length
    341 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Sticky notes
    On Kindle Scribe
  4. Publisher
    Harper
  5. Publication date
    August 16, 2016
  6. File size
    3850 KB
  7. Page Flip
    Enabled
  8. Word Wise
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  9. Enhanced typesetting
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Popular Highlights in this book
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  1. Unknown to them, spring fever was in fact a vitamin deficiency, mostly likely scurvy, brought on by the winter diet.
    Highlighted by 91 Kindle readers
  2. For city people, time was fractured into finite segments like boxes on a conveyer belt. On the farm, time was continuous, like a string around a tree, one season flowing inevitably into the next.
    Highlighted by 72 Kindle readers
  3. Casseroles were one of the Depression’s many “mystery foods,” inventions of necessity, which the cooking columns presented as feats of ingenuity.
    Highlighted by 49 Kindle readers
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Editorial Reviews

Review

A highly readable, illuminating look at the many ramifications of feeding the hungry in hard times.-- "Kirkus"

From the Back Cover

The idea of America as a place of abundance is enshrined in our culture, from Jefferson’s agrarian democracy to the immensity of our supermarkets. The Great Depression, which left a quarter of all Americans out of work and undernourished, tested our belief in this land’s unlimited bounty, and in the process changed the way America eats.

In 1933, after four years of deprivation and national debate, President Roosevelt reversed long-standing biases toward government-sponsored “food charity” and assumed responsibility for feeding the hungry. Championed by Eleanor Roosevelt, “home economists,” who had long fought to bring science into the kitchen, rose to national stature. Through the Bureau of Home Economics, these women led a sweeping campaign to impose their vision of a sturdy, utilitarian cuisine and instill nutritional recommendations, the forerunners of today’s Dietary Guidelines for Americans. At the same time, expanding conglomerates introduced packaged and processed foods, which led to a new American cuisine based on speed and convenience. This movement toward a homogenized national diet sparked a revival of American regional cooking that continues to this day.

A Square Meal examines how economic contraction and environmental disaster shaped the way Americans ate during the Great Depression, and shares the lessons and insights we may learn from those experiences today.

Product details

  • ASIN ‏ : ‎ B018E0YK4O
  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Harper; Reprint edition (August 16, 2016)
  • Publication date ‏ : ‎ August 16, 2016
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • File size ‏ : ‎ 3850 KB
  • Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
  • Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
  • Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ On Kindle Scribe
  • Print length ‏ : ‎ 341 pages
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.4 4.4 out of 5 stars 407 ratings

About the authors

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  1. Jane Ziegelman

    Jane Ziegelman

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    I was born and raised on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, but now I live in Brooklyn Heights with my husband, Andy, who also writes about food, and my two kids, Smacky and Buster.

    I studied history in college, then spent some time in publishing before attending the NYU graduate program in urban anthropology, and that's when I became interested in the culinary history of New York. When my first kid was a year old, I started a cooking program for children called Kids Cook!

    I spend most of my time cooking, eating, reading about food, and talking about food. The best place to eat in this city, at the moment, is the Chinatown in Flushing, Queens, a place we visit every weekend. If you're interested in recommendations for places to go, drop me a line.

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  2. Andrew Coe

    Andrew Coe

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    Full content visible, double tap to read brief content.

    Andrew Coe is a writer and independent scholar. He is a direct descendant of Henry Huttleston Rogers, one of the main subjects in his latest book, "Pirate's Gold: A Gilded Age Saga of Family, Money and (Maybe) Murder." Andrew and his wife, Jane Ziegelman, are co-authors of "A Square Meal: A Culinary History of the Great Depression," which won a James Beard award. His "Chop Suey: A Cultural History of Chinese Food in the United States" was a finalist for a James Beard award and named one of the best food books of the year by the Financial Times. He has written articles and blog posts on everything from the ancient history of foie gras to indulging in the tastiest bread in New York City. He has appeared in documentaries such as the National Geographic Channel's "Eat: The Story of Food" and "The Search for General Tso." Andrew and his wife live in Brooklyn with their two children.

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Customer reviews

4.4 out of 5 stars
4.4 out of 5
407 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

J. Niven
5.0 out of 5 stars A terrible time, seldom discussed
Reviewed in the United States on March 17, 2024
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The book was excellent, and honestly, yet fairly, discussed this difficult time in our country’s history. This topic needs to be taught more, as I never heard most of the happenings during my time in school.
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Prometheus
4.0 out of 5 stars Interesting lens with which to look at history of the depression
Reviewed in the United States on September 20, 2016
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I was surprised at the honest and objective examination of the politicians involved in the lead-up to and duration of the great depression. This book is not about the causes of the depression, nor the people to blame for the continuation and worsening of it, but about the role of food in the greater scheme of American life of the era. The examination of all walks and classes of people, the geographical differences, and technological advances were crossed with the times and tribulations of Americans to provide a very interesting, and compelling look at our ancestors' daily lives and struggles.

The only complaint I can think of is that this is not a temporally linear read; for sake of storytelling, chapter-to-chapter does not necessarily follow a straight timeline. But, this is a trivial matter and I am not the editor or storyteller.

This is a book I'd recommend to history buffs, depression era buffs, fans of Americana, foodies and bored people.
14 people found this helpful
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spqr_xli
5.0 out of 5 stars Engaging cultural history of American food in the Depression era
Reviewed in the United States on January 7, 2017
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A fascinating account of American food from WW1 to the end of the Depression. As background to examining the hunger and devastation of the Depression years, A Square Meal recounts the history of food relief and breadlines in turn-of-the-century New York City, the effect of the agricultural depression of the 1920s on the previously self-sufficient American farm household, and the ascendancy of convenience foods in the lives of young urbanites in the post-WW1 period. Ziegelman and Coe trace the influence of New England Puritanism on the distinction between the "deserving" and "undeserving" poor that contributed to failures in relief policy on the part of local governments, the Hoover Administration, and even to some extent the Roosevelt Administration's Federal Emergency Relief Administration (FERA).

Of special interest to baby boomers (as well as to any American who has ever eaten a hot school lunch), A Square Meal documents the rise of home economics and nutrition as sciences during the 1920s and '30s, a period which dovetailed with the marketing of canned foods as "scientifically engineered" convenience foods. Combine all that with Eleanor Roosevelt's influence on the nation as a devotee of the New England Puritan food ethos (her son, James, asserted that "Victuals to her are something to inject into the body"), and it becomes pretty clear why so much midcentury American food was so very, very bad. Ziegelman and Coe describe meatloaves made of canned chicken mixed with canned peas; salads made with lime Jell-O, canned grapefruit, canned pimento-stuffed olives, and mayonnaise; and so on. The book even includes recipes for abominations such as Liver Loaf and Chop Suey with Milkorno, a 1930s breakfast cereal developed (scientifically, of course!) at Cornell University and made from corn and powdered dry milk.

A culinary heroine emerges toward the end of A Square Meal: Sheila Hibben, author of The National Cookbook (1932). Long before the back-to-the-earth and natural-foods movements of the late 1960s and '70s, Hibben traveled through the United States, collecting simple, traditional, regional recipes made with fresh, local, minimally processed ingredients. Like the nutritionists and home economists of her era, Hibben "saw economic disaster as an opportunity to mend our gastronomic ways." But "[w]hile dieticians tended to our vitamin intake, Hibben was interested in the spirit-healing properties of humble food well prepared."

A Square Meal is a thoroughly engaging, beautifully written account of Americans' relationship with food during the first forty years of the twentieth century. Highly recommended.
22 people found this helpful
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Jon Hunt
5.0 out of 5 stars From breadlines to frozen food
Reviewed in the United States on August 30, 2016
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When one pairs the Great Depression and what Americans ate during those years, a reader could infer that this book might be a dull compilation of facts and figures from that time. The more than pleasant surprise is that authors Jane Ziegelman and Andrew Coe have given us a book of sheer delight. Covering those years between the two World Wars, we discover not only what Americans ate but how they did and how many of them managed with the bleakest of monetary assets.

"A Square Meal" gets into the political side of feeding a nation...from the Hoover administration's great reluctance to offer public food relief to the turnabout when Franklin Roosevelt became president. In fact, the book's most charming moments come when the authors describe the Roosevelt's housekeeper, Henrietta Nesbitt, who kept the president (and White House Guests) in great yearning for tastier meals, to put it mildly.

The menus offered in the book are wonderful in their mirrored timeliness. And it ends with the introduction of frozen foods, which opened many eyes to the new possibilities of food consumption. "A Square Meal" is insightful, humorous and educational. I highly recommend it.
40 people found this helpful
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MassBookworm
3.0 out of 5 stars Good book, more like a series of essays
Reviewed in the United States on November 5, 2016
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Great concept, fascinating facts, but a book in search of an editor. A bit too loosely organized and rambling, a little hard to follow. Overall definitely worth it but just understand the rambling structure.
10 people found this helpful
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Kristopher M. Schnee
5.0 out of 5 stars Food For Thought
Reviewed in the United States on March 31, 2017
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As a libertarian I'm troubled by this history, which talks about the evolution of food science and the marriage of nutrition and government. This book has some vivid accounts of exactly what US eating habits were like around the 1930s and earlier. Eg. we learn about the early cafeterias, the soup kitchens and bread lines, the rise of government-provided school lunch programs, and the politics of how federal food assistance became a widely accepted thing. Coolidge, Hoover and others were well aware that putting Washington in charge of directly feeding people would lead to a subtle but major shift in the role of government and federal power, while FDR embraced that shift because to him, immediate mass starvation mattered more than the principles at stake. Was that the right decision? The author doesn't explicitly say, but she does talk about what happened, how and why, and about how the debate went down.

My main complaint is that I would have liked to see the story continue into the 1940s, the period when FDR began directly dictating what food Americans could buy through rationing.
16 people found this helpful
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Top reviews from other countries

Kathleen Moore
4.0 out of 5 stars A very interesting look at the 1930s Depression in the ...
Reviewed in Canada on October 9, 2016
Verified Purchase
A very interesting look at the 1930s Depression in the USA from the perspective of food. Very readable. The ending was less than satisfying however.
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