In our final module, we considered substances which have been considered harmful historically. Here, we introduce you to the history of a couple of substances that you may expect, and one you may not…

Alcohol

Alcohol: Alcohol has been a consistent beverage throughout history in every region of the world. We have seen it brewed in Eastern Europe, Asia, Africa, and every other region of the world.  What is interesting is despite this immense consumption many seem to ignore the consequences and dangers of drinking alcohol. Alcohol has been known to heart disease, brain conditions, cancer, and various organ issues. It is a very addicting substance that many groups and governments have even tried to outlaw however, the demand for alcohol was still so high that most of the time the bans were never able to go into full effect.

Firstly, it is important to see why people drink alcohol. Many drink because they say it makes them more confident or lets them relax. Others drink to deal with mental health issues and push down issues of their own. Some drink socially to converse with others while not getting fully drunk. Many have their own reasonings for drinking.

In the United States, the federal government banned alcohol, during a period where something is outlawed, known as prohibition. Instead of being a productive step away from a reliance on the substance as the government had hoped for, many people suffered from alcohol withdrawals, which is caused by a physical reliance on alcohol that individuals can actually die from. Alcohol is one of the deadliest substances with a death toll of over 178,000 killed every year from alcohol poisoning to withdrawals.

It is not just governments that have banned alcohol, many religions in the world have done so as well. For example, Islam has banned alcohol because of how it makes people not act like themselves. Being drunk makes people behave differently and in Islam, it can harm one’s self and make them behave erratically. Some scholars have also said they believed Alcoohl to be the work of the devil.

Overall, alcohol is a substance that has been drunk around the world for centuries, however, it does not come without its dangers.

Tobacco

The effects of Tobacco have been prevalent throughout history, and it has become a very addictive substance that people have begun to abuse.  The nicotine that it contains is a very addictive substance that can make people crave it, and once you become addicte

d, it is very hard to stop, which could lead to many effects. Some side effects may be respiratory issues and cancer or lead to withdrawal symptoms from the dependency you had on it. It could also ruin your social life as many people become dependent on it as a way to relieve stress. Like people from the reading, people began to smoke so much that they would use it as a piece of jewelry because they became so accustomed to having it.

Tea?

In the context of European consumption of tea, when it was first introduced, Europeans were cautious of a foreign beverage and often associated it, as they did with other foreign things and people, as potentially dangerous and specifically addicting.

In the reading “Green Tea” by Jay Sheridan  Le Fanu, a priest is convinced he’s being haunted by an evil monkey that’s trying to convince him to harm himself and do evil things. Coincidentally, the priest also consumes considerable amounts of green tea which is extremely high in caffeine, which is an addictive chemical.

Caffeine is addictive, and if tea is fermented like Pu’er, or brewed for a considerable amount of time it can cause mild intoxicating affects. All of these can lead to varying levels of reliance upon those chemical reactions in the brain.

Tea, especially in the Southern U.S. is typically brewed with the addition of sugar, also mildly addicting, and also potentially detrimental to health and with the combination of the two it increases the potentially detrimental effects of tea.

Since the introduction of tea to Europe and the U.S. which was originally viewed with skepticism as a foreign drink, slowly became normalised over time and now is commonly consumed despite the potential for addiction and other detrimental effects because of its taste and the effect of caffeine.

Over the past few weeks, we have been looking at times when people have either chosen to restrict their food intake, or had food taken away from them, and considered what that tells us about the history of food. Here are our thoughts:

What Are God’s Food Rules?

Fasting has been a very common practice in religion for centuries, but there’s always been debate on whether or not fasting is pleasing to God. Julia Herzberg discusses a significant debate within Muscovite society about whether strict fasting genuinely pleased God. While the Orthodox Church promoted fasting as a way to deepen one’s spiritual life, not everyone agreed that simply following the rules of fasting truly honored God. Many people believed that inner faith and kindness were more important than strict adherence to dietary rules.

For some, fasting felt like an empty ritual if it was done only to avoid punishment rather than to grow spiritually. This raised questions: Did God care more about someone’s heart and actions, or about whether they stuck to complex rules around food? Critics argued that genuine faith meant loving others and living morally, not just following a diet. On the other hand, church leaders believed that fasting was an important spiritual exercise that showed discipline and respect for God. To them, skipping or bending the fasting rules reflected a lack of commitment to faith.

This debate made the concept of fasting a source of tension in religion. It highlighted a larger question in Muscovite society: Should religion be about strict obedience, or should it be about personal spirituality? This ongoing conflict complicated the role of fasting in people’s lives, showing that religious practices can sometimes be a source of division rather than unity.

The Fish Fry

An important part of fasting is the religious aspect and the comparisons between the way different religious groups look at and incorporate fasting. There are differences in the reasoning behind fasting, the length of the fast, which foods are being fasted, and how strict fasting is taken in the religious culture. In Christianity, fasting is frequently observed during Lent as a way to recreate Jesus’ 40-day fast in the wilderness, symbolizing repentance and self-discipline. The first image represents a Fish Fry, a common tradition in Christianity during Lent, when people gather to consume fish, because they are abstaining from meat on Fridays. In Islam, fasting during the month of Ramadan is one of the Five Pillars of Islam and is seen as a way to develop self-control, spiritual awareness, and empathy for the less fortunate. Fasting involves abstaining from food, drink, and other needs from dawn until sunset, and it is broken each evening with a traditional meal called iftar. Overall, fasting is a meaningful and diverse spiritual practice across different religious traditions, each with its unique customs and significance.

Remembering Famines

The importance of famine in history is greatly shaped through the influence of memory politics. The way a famine is remembered or forgotten can be seen by how politicians and elites influenced history to gain more power and create a new future. In the case of the Kazakh famine of 1930-1933, Soviet authorities manipulated the event as a natural disaster, to avoid blaming the state and their policies, which had actually caused mass starvation. By controlling the narrative, the Soviet regime minimized public awareness and suppressed critical discourse about the human suffering that resulted from its policies. It wasn’t until after Kazakhstan gained independence, that the memory of the famine was reexamined and the truth about the soviet actions was revealed. This shift in narrative helped to reinforce national identity by highlighting the resilience of the Kazakh people and drawing attention to the trauma inflicted during Soviet rule. The influence of memory politics surrounding the famine shows how historical events can be reinterpreted or even changed over time to reflect the needs of different political contexts.

Soviet Famines

In the 1930s, forced collectivization in the Soviet Union led to horrible famines, hitting Ukraine and Kazakhstan especially hard. In Ukraine, this famine, known as the Holodomor, is remembered as a tragic event where millions died, seen as a brutal move by Stalin’s government to crush Ukrainian independence. This tragedy has become a big part of Ukraine’s identity, with many pushing for it to be recognized as genocide.

In Kazakhstan, the famine was also devastating, causing huge losses and forcing nomadic Kazakhs to settle into farming. But unlike Ukraine, the Kazakh famine isn’t as widely recognized, and it doesn’t play as big of a role in national politics. These different ways of remembering the famines show how each country’s experience has shaped their identity and politics today.

The past few weeks, we have been looking at the idea that cookbooks can be history. Here are our thoughts on this.

Historians often use several different sources to help them identify key elements from the past. Many times said sources include journals from the relevant time period or newspapers of current events. Recently in historical studies as food history has become more prevalent historians have turned to cookbooks to get an idea of what food may have been like in regions of the world and throughout different cultures. What is important to remember about cookbooks is that oftentimes they are not reliable to get a good idea of a staple diet. For example, suppose a historian was looking into the diets of 1940s Americans and they used a Betty Crocker holiday cookbook. In that case, it may give an idea of American holiday food, but not into an everyday diet.

Another element of using cookbooks as sources is the possibility that many staple recipes are passed down orally. Sometimes there is a familial recipe that gets passed down for generations and after time it may be recorded completely differently than how the recipe was originally crafted. For example, In the teaching kitchen where our class made a Tartarstan dish called Chak Chak, the presenter explained how she had been making it for years and no longer needed a recipe. We were given the recipe orally with no instruction other than what we saw. If all of us were to go home and attempt to make it from memory it is safe to assume that some things might change. The point of this is that if there is a staple recipe from for example Tartarstan, it may be completely different than it was one hundred years ago.  A great use of a cookbook is to see how cultures have evolved around or with food. While the Nestle company is not a culture, with the Nestle Everyday Milk cookbook from the 1930s Nestle made a big push to use their evaporated milk and recipes that could be made with it. In the back, there is a section on how to use it for baby formula. What is interesting about this is that there is a disclaimer that says babies should not only be formula-fed only and should be breastfed. Fast forward almost one hundred years in the future and Nestle is pushing only for formula-fed babies and created a baby food shortage in many countries around the world after pushing breastfeeding out as a social norm. In this instance, historians can use this cookbook to compare it to modern times to see how things like food in society have evolved.

Overall, Cookbooks are a valuable resource that many historians and anthropologists can use to analyze a period. However, as valuable as it can be it is important to always look for implications of bias.

How is food connected to who we are as a community? Here students from this course give examples of how we should understand this

How Can Food Make Up Who You Are?

Food is a vital part of every culture and is used to identify regions and people. When looking at the Red Teahouses of Uzbekistan. The Bolsheviks understood the popularity and importance of “Black” Teahouse culture in the area and decided to use them as a central component to mobilize the masses and spread various agendas and ideologies of the party. The teahouses had pre-soviet roots in Uzbekistan and were the most widespread non-religious social institute in Central Asia. Due to the sociability and location of the teahouses which would usually be located within a town or city center, the teahouses served as the ideal location to spread agendas and ideologies.

Tea and Culture

Food and identity are often intertwined. A striking example of this connection is the Uzbek black and red teahouses. For context, tea houses were significant social institutions in Uzbek culture where men could socialize and gossip while drinking tea. This made black teahouses a place that discouraged certain vices such as gambling and drinking. When the Soviet Union came to power, they used this preexisting establishment to create “red” teahouses. Immediately, we see in the name of “red” teahouses how food and identity are connected. The Uzbek teahouses transformed into a communist-controlled political institution which changed its function and identity 

Thanksgiving As Food Identity

Food and identity correlate in many ways. Food brings on tradition and ritual that people spend with their families and friends. Whether it is a holiday, an achievement, or a ritual, food is always present in the time of celebration. Usually, these same foods are used around the same time each year, bringing culture and nostalgia to people.

Thanksgiving brings a lot of American people together, eating turkey, stuffing, etc. Thanksgiving is a big part of American culture and identity, as we celebrate nation wide with our families watching football, the parade, and eating the food. Other nations have their own holidays in which they celebrate, bringing them a different identity they celebrate with their families. After reading Inventing the American Taco, we learned about the “land of seven moles” where chefs turned festival foods into restaurants for people to enjoy. This brings Mexico a culture and identity with their own foods, specifically tacos. Overall, food plays a massive role in culture and identity, shaping the holidays and traditions people celebrate.

Cooking Our Lives

Did you know that cookbooks can be read as historical documents? It may seem a tad outlandish, but it is true! Cookbooks can be some of the most valuable historical documents that historians can have at their disposal. Cookbooks seemingly simple lists of ingredients and processes actually lead to countless questions. For example, what exact measurements (or lack thereof) does the recipe utilize? Are the measurements understandable to a modern audience? Does the average reader have the tools necessary to measure the amount listed in the recipe?

As another example, the list of ingredients themselves leads to a whole host of questions. How accessible are the ingredients in your location (in terms of cost or simply knowing where to find them)? How much labor, and who is doing this labor, does it take to prepare the ingredients in the way the recipe calls for? Lastly, contrasting the terminology of older versus modern recipes also points towards the evolving social context. Could the average reader understand what ingredients from a cookbook one hundred years ago are? They may be something still utilized today but under a different name it would seem completely out of reach.

As these questions show, cookbooks are a wealth of information. Information that the authors of the cookbook expect readers to understand explicitly to some degree. What is not clearly defined, in terms of process or ingredients, is just as important as what the authors of the recipe take the time to define.

Perhaps a concrete example would illustrate these ideas better than continued discussion. As you read the discussion of the following recipe keep these ideas in mind as about this seemingly simple Mongolian recipe! For reference, the first image is a reference image for a traditional
Chinese measure and the second is of sweet Börek.

Measurements when cooking with older cultural dishes can be quite confusing at times. There were measurements in place that are not used by places outside of the origin of the dish. For example, Sweet Börek is a Chinese/Mongolian dish with Turkish influence that is very similar to baklava. What is so unique about it is its recipe for 32 Liang or Chinese ounces of walnuts. Most of the ingredients are fairly normal like water or honey. Where it differs is that it calls for something called “Kürshäk” which promptly sits right next to it the recipe says, Barley?

In modern times today, we can convert Liang to ounces. It equates to about 1.33 ounces per liang. With technology like this, it is not too hard to develop these unusual scales of measurement. What is difficult is the phrasing or wording that is used for ingredients. Like i previously stated the ingredient kürshäk is relatively unknown. The authors who translated this cookbook seem to know it is similar to barley but could be something entirely different.

Finally, on the recipe it calls for the cook to knead the dough, after a thorough mixing, into sanbusak shapes. If someone was creating this recipe without any prior knowledge to Persian cuisine or had images to look at of Sanbusak shapes they would have no idea how to create this pastry.

The average reader may find this specific recipe slightly difficult. Without technology to look certain elements up like measurement conversions, kneading patterns, or names of unknown ingredients I think it could be quite difficult for the average cook. If you get into the outside world around Europe Asia or the Middle East there may be an easier attrition to the recipe, but here in America the average American would have difficulty completing it.

Take, for example, this Bal-po Soup. Upon first glance, it seems fairly simple- just mutton, cardamoms, chickpeas, and Chinese radish. Yet, looking in the preparation, multiple other ingredients emerge. Saffron, black pepper, coriander leaves, vinegar, salt, and rice. Without reading through the entire recipe beforehand, an eager chef may find themself sorely unprepared for the recipe.

Even with all the ingredients, an American cook will struggle to understand the measurements. Rather than the standard measuring systems, the chinese ounce is heavily referenced. Additionally, the cardamoms are just described as “five.” It can be hard to find cardamom in its pod form in the United States, as the recipe refers to. This may cause challenges without preparation. Further, the chickpeas are described as half a sheng. A sheng is about 35 fluid oz. Does this mean that the chickpeas are dry or canned? The lack of description makes these ingredients hard to understand. Without a proper knowledge of the culture and region the recipe comes from, it may be difficult to correctly produce the ingredients and recipe.

Assuming we have all the ingredients and proper measurements, the recipe’s complexity continues. To make the soup, the first step is “to make a soup.” This makes little sense and does not become any easier to understand as the recipe progresses. In fact, it becomes more convoluted. Sub-instructions are embedded in larger ones. For the “Strain” step, the recipe discusses making a broth but does not explain how we get here or how it is used.

This Bal-po Soup would be nearly impossible to replicate without a working knowledge of the culture and soup itself. As the ingredients are embedded in the preparation, you must read the full recipe beforehand or have the traditional spices used in Mongolian cuisine. Not to mention expensive!

In the first blog in our series, students of We Are What We Eat: A Cultural History Of Food In Eastern Europe, Russia, And Central Asia explain what food history is, and what it can tell us about the world.

The Globalization of Tex-Mex 

“Tex-Mex” or Texas-Mexican cuisine is a cuisine that began in the United States and has become extremely popular within the states beyond Texas and other areas of the South-West where it originated, as well as globally. The food that is considered Tex-Mex or Cali-Mex in some cases has been transformed so significantly it doesn’t resemble the original dish it was intended to emulate at all, and in other cases, cuisine was simply made up and given a name that “sounded” Spanish. Today Tex-Mex can be seen throughout the world. In France, there’s a restaurant called “Indiana” that claims to offer Tex-Mex, and carries on many of these stereotyped dishes as well as using stereotypical images within their marketing and restaurant atmosphere.

In restaurants that claim ethnic-style cuisines, similar stereotyping is used. For example, in many Tex-Mex or American Mexican restaurants adobe-style houses and sombreros as well as stereotypical moustachioed men are a frequent collection of images for diners to “enjoy” while eating heavily Americanised dishes. The culture of these stereotype-heavy restaurants, prevalence of tequila drinks as well as massive amounts of food being served has created an image of Mexico and Mexicans for Americans (as heavy drinkers and over-consumers of laden foods,) interestingly, based off of a very American collection of foods. The idea of the acceptability of stereotypical images and stereotyping in restaurants is an interesting one. Why is it largely socially acceptable to keep these images that have largely been condemned as used in media still existing in restaurants, particularly in Mexican restaurants. What is it about eating a chicken hard-shell taco with the mildest hot sauce under a sombrero with mariachi music playing faintly that Americans, and a large portion of the rest of the world, love? Lastly, where is the line that tips over from a fun night out to seriously offensive reinforcement of negative stereotypes? It is important to be cognisant of the meaning behind foods and food culture, and what ideologies cuisine can carry, and examining the history of Tex-Mex and how modern Mexican food in America and abroad can perpetuate a false narrative about the culture it originally was attempting to emulate.

Global Food Technologies

When discussing food history, it can seem hard to focus on one point because every culture has its own recipes, ingredients, and cooking methods. However, when you dig deeper, you start to notice how much inspiration cultures take from each other, and how technology changed food over time. This idea of globalization of food is fundamental to understanding how food has changed over the years. For instance, before cultural integration, you would never find someone using chopsticks in the United States; now, you can find them at any local Chinese restaurant. As for ingredients, you can see in the video that Spanish conquistadors famously brought potatoes back from the americas, becoming one of the most popular foods throughout Europe and Asia.

However, cultural fusion is not the only affect of globalization. As technology changed, food changed along with it. As we know spices now, they are simple ingredients that help enhance our meals. This is a stark difference from the way that people would use spices before; preservation of spoiled meat!? Yes, as you can see in the attached video, the invention of the refrigerator ushered out a practice of covering raw or even rotten items in spices to keep them considered edible. Luckily, we now keep our meat safe in our fridges, and save our spices to make our meals taste better.

Rationing Then and Now

If you are interested in learning food history, but don’t know where to begin think about what you eat on a day to day basis and where the meal came from. Boom you are already a food historian. Now think about what your grandparents ate, think about the first ever mcdonalds or the rations during the war, every meal you eat, every bite you take is full of a long winding road of history. Now a days we dont worry about where our food came from or “rationing” but as the saying goes “history repeats itself”, remember back to when the first reports of covid hits the news channels. Most grocery stores would “ration” the amount of meat or toilet paper you were aloud to buy at one time. Now imagine this in the 1940’s, no technology, no fast food, no doordash, no real options, you ate what was available to you, you had no choices.

Now these two time periods could not be more different, but the rationing idea is the same. Although these two events happened decades apart, the history of rationing and the history of the food you eat everyday all ties back into one another. Rationing plays a huge part in not only regular human history but it plays a huge role in the idea of food history, it shapes what we eat and enjoy, it’s a show of hard times and a point of something major in history, so the next time you go to the grocery store or you go get fast food think about the ingredients and how far we have come.

Food as Morality

Food studies extends out to a surprising degree. Since foodways, a term that can be roughly understood as all of the beliefs, methods, and production of/around food, are so central to our lives, any serious study of food quickly extends past the plate or kitchen.

Food studies even reaches into serious social and ethical questions. For instance, morality. Here we can actually break down further to help understand the topic better! The first group is questions of self-morality. That is, what is okay to eat to you personally? Is there anything that you do not consume personally because of strong moral feelings? Obviously, you may not eat something simply because you do not like the taste or texture. But, if you think about it, morality also dictates what we consider okay to consume and what is taboo for us personally. Moving beyond the personal scale, food studies can also touch questions of group morality towards food. What is the first thing that comes to mind? Fasting perhaps? Religious prohibitions on eating certain foods? Or perhaps certain animals, like how cows are considered sacred in Hinduism? Morale opposition or celebration can even dictate what whole groups of people eat! Blurring this distinction is the question of cannibalism, where personal beliefs are influenced by group social attitudes towards it, while individuals also have strong personal moral feelings on the matter. Keep these ideas in your mind as you read the rest of this blog!

Food as morality is such a rich and layered topic because it touches every aspect of how we live, from the most personal decisions to broad social and cultural frameworks. Take, for example, the rise of plant-based diets—many people choose to cut out animal products not just for health reasons but because they feel a moral obligation to reduce animal suffering or environmental harm. On the flip side, others might feel a strong cultural or family tie to certain foods, making it difficult to remove them from their diet, even if they grapple with the ethical implications. And then there are more extreme moral debates, like the ethics of lab-grown meat or genetically modified organisms (GMOs)—both of which raise questions about our relationship to nature, technology, and what we value in the foods we consume. Whether it’s an individual decision or a societal movement, food and morality are deeply intertwined, shaping not just what we eat, but why we eat it.

Welcome to the class blog of We Are What We Eat, a course on how food is important to society. Here, students will create a series of blogs explaining what food studies is, and major themes in the study of food