Cornel Notes 1
Ivan Wongso
FST 10
4/11/17
A Brief History of Food, American Food and the Health Food Movement
QUESTION
How to know what food we
can eat?
When is food traditions is
cultivated?
When and where did table
manners first introduced?
What is table manners?
What had influence
American food culture?
What are 4 major American
food traditions?
What makes American diet?
What are the forces of
dietary change?
NOTES
Trial and error
Medieval Food (500-1459 AD)
The poor eat barley and vegetables, and the rich eat wheat and meats.
Mesopotamia (3000 BC)
Start grain crops and barley beer fermentation
Egypt (4000 BC)
Beef and yeast bread
Greece
Wines and plant cultivations
Middle Ages
Fancy food and table manners developed
Renaissance
A tradition of haute cuisine for social elite, everything with fancy eating
utensils spoons, forks, and knives (first introduced by Louis XIV).
Food is a symbol of National Identity
Bronze Age & Iron Age (9000 years ago)
Began cooking soups in pots
Table manners: basically, is certain standards to consume and handle food.
Every region has their own manners
Early European table had banquets with food on large platters. People eat
with dry breads called trenchers.
On Civility in Children a Dutch book about manners.
European colonists: Brought their European taste and food to America
British traditions, a lot of meat and breads.
In 1800s: American food began to be distinguished. The local ingredients and
taste were incorporated in American food tradition.
1. New England Tradition
Usually simple, boiled and baked. Based on seasonal ingredients.
2. Southern Tradition
A lot of spices. Frying and simmering.
3. Middle Atlantic (Quaker) Tradition
Quakerism Plainness. Plain and simple
4. Frontier/Backcountry Tradition
Whatever in the backyard! Meat and vegetables.
Abundance in meat and Liquor Excessive eating
German Influence BBQ, coleslaw, hotdog, etc. & holiday = food
Industrialization Mass production of food, canned, prepackaged, cereals,
Refrigerated Railroad Car Fruits and meats were able to be delivered long
distance. Gustavus Swift era of cheap beef
Frozen food Clarence Birdseye
Refrigeration for home and industry.
Fast Food Increasingly processed food and nationally distributed food.
Cornel Notes 1
Ivan Wongso
FST 10
4/11/17
WWII & Foreign wars introduce variety of foreign cuisine, trade market.
Revolution in Food Technology & Agriculture
Big business and production of food.
What are the dietary reform Health Food Movement (HFM) vegetarianism, temperance (no alcohol)
movements? movement
Americas First Health Craze (1820-30)
Band medicine from outside America. Invent their own drugs.
Commercialization of food.
Who had invented these 1. Sylvester Graham importance of whole wheat, vegetarian lifestyle, You
foods and those ideas? are what you eat, inventor of Graham cracker.
2. Dr. J. Caleb Jackson Hydropathy (The Water Cure), first introduce
breakfast cereal granula, first market of health product.
3. Sister Ellen White opened the Western Health Reform Institute in Battle
Creek.
4. Dr. J. Harvey Kellogg take over the sanitarium and change the name to
Battle Creek Sanitarium. Obsessed in making healthy food items: peanut
butter, granola, flaked cereal.
5. Elie Metchnicoff want to live long, learn about yogurt from Bulagarian.
6. Horace Fletcher The Great Masticator Chew your food!
7. Henry D. Perky Nabisco Shredded Wheat, first mass-produced and
nationally distributed ready to eat cereal.
8. Charles W. Post Postum coffee substitute, Grape Nuts cereal.
9. Nicholas Appert French candy-maker & brewer, inventing canning process
the first modern food processing.
What is the new Health A new movement concerning about the modern industrialization of food
Food Movement? production. Not to mention GMO, chemicals, etc. in food productions. This
new HFM focuses on organic foods, functional foods, etc.
SUMMARY
There is a history behind the food cultures adopted by America today. Besides the ancient traditions and manners,
the intelligence, and inventions of food products by the people in 1800-1900s did change peoples life. Not only the
advancement in technologies had triggered the mass productions of food for the greater good of people, the rising of
the Health Food Movements has advocated humans health through healthier consumable foods.