Customer Reviews

America Eats!: On the Road with the WPA - the Fish Fries, Box Supper Socials, and Chitlin Feasts That Define

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1 star:		(1)

 

 

I can attest that the author did yeoman's duty in the research for this book! The author became a member of our Brunswick Stew Crew during a competition in Richmond ... and with her culinary background she easily manuvered her way around the Stew pot with the rest of the Crew.

The book is an enjoyable read balancing some of the original manuscripts of the WPA writers in the 30's with updated information from the author ... including some good recipes.

If you enjoyed hearing stories from your parents and grandparents about regional cuisine from yesteryear at church socials, political gatherings, and the like this would be a good addition to your library.

I collect cookbooks and also enjoy reading history books so "America Eats" is a perfect combination to grab my interest. The original idea for America Eats was a part of the endeavors of the Works Progress Administration during the Great Depression. Out-of-work writers were sent all across the country and were to submit reports on group eating and its role in the various communities. Some reports were sent to Washington, but funding was discontinued before any final document report was assembled and printed. Some reports were retained in local offices and some reports have been totally lost.

Pat Willard went to the Library of Congress and read some of the reports housed there. Brimming with enthusiasm, she set off across the United States to visit the areas that had been documented. She was hoping to find some of the festivals and group dinners still being held. This book is a combination of many of the original reports submitted in the late 1930s and Willard's reports on similar festivals, picnics, and other celebrations she found. This book is not a cookbook in the usual sense but does have about 25 recipes as originally reported or with Willard's modern interpretation based on her travels.

I found the book to be an enjoyable read. It is easy to pick up and read a few pages when having only a few minutes or a pleasure for a longer read. There are about 50 black and white photos from the original project included. Some of the chapters cover various ethnic group influences on the eating habits of our country's people. Church suppers, funeral dinners, fairs, fund raisers, holiday celebrations, political gatherings: they all received their due recognition. The city life chapter focused on New York City and included a listing of soda fountain-luncheonette slang and jargon. I recognized some of the things listed; others I had never heard. I would definitely recommend this book as an enjoyable read for anyone interested in the history of food in the U.S. with emphasis on the 1930s.

This book makes me homesick for some great food and fun times at the county fair! Well written, with interesting old photos. Interesting to learn about traditions in food and fun around the country.

During the Great Depression, many programs were created by the Federal Government to provide jobs for those who had none. We are still benefitting today from the fruits of that labor which created many public buildings, roads, bridges and parks. One project, however, never saw the light of day.

The "America Eats!" project was about traditional American food. Out-of-work writers were assigned to write about the events in their communities and the food that was served at them. The final document was not meant to be a cookbook. It was more akin to a documentation of regional foods made by non-professional cooks and served at regional gatherings such as fairs, church socials and harvest festivals.

Author Pat Willard, who stumbled on to the project while reading a book for research, was intrigued enough to visit the Library of Congress where many of the original manuscripts are stored. Reading the surviving documents inspired her to make a cross-country culinary tour, visiting the places and events written about in "America Eats!" to find out if they still existed and if so, how they had changed if at all.

She was heartened to discover that many of the local events mentioned in America Eats! are still going on albeit with a few modern changes. Squirrel meat, once the main ingredient in Brunswick stew, has been replaced by poultry, beef and pork due to the dangers of Mad Squirrel Disease (who knew?). She traces the evolution of the foodie culture in Washington State from the local harvest festivals mentioned in America Eats!, which are still going on.

Other local gatherings never made it to the 21st century. The traditional southern barbecues that were once mandatory for political events have disappeared. The mile long trenches filled with smoldering wood have fallen victim to zoning ordinances forbidding them on public land. Tobacco, once an important crop in North Carolina, is being replaced by vineyards that have led to new festivals celebrating wine.

Each chapter covers a particular type of event such as rodeos, funerals, harvest festivals and social clubs, to name a few. A relevant essay from "America Eats!" is followed by the author's own experience followed by more essays and occasionally, recipes. Because each essay was penned by a different author, the reader is able to get a sense of the local customs and culture as they were experienced by the people living at that time.

The book begins and ends with what can only be called rants about American cooking. Ms. Willard is rather defensive about our indigenous cuisine. In the first chapter she defends its shortcomings compared to European cuisines and then in the last chapter laments its demise thanks to the entry of women into the workforce leaving them no time to cook.

This would be a much better book without the author's long-winded opinions of American cooking. If you excise the first half of the beginning chapter and all of the last chapter, you have a wonderful book about Americans, their customs and their food, past and present.

Interesting review of American food of a by-gone era. Many of these regional foods have disappeared in the fast food glut found in most of our cities today. Very interesting read for food and history buffs

"America Eats! On the Road with the WPA" is a great book for those interested in WPA, food, and changes in American Cuisine. Willard has an interesting interpretation of exactly what is "American Cuisine." She does a great job in preserving the original works for anthropologists/historians, rather than sterilizing the words for today's Politically Correct obsessed readers. Willard covers the differences between the final vision of the editors and the writers, as well as why so much of the original work is missing. She included minor background info on the New Deal programs that enabled this project to occur for those who may be unfamiliar with this era. There are brief snippets to cover major changes in areas, like NC tobacco farms being replaced by vineyards. A personal dislike was the absence of Lexington, NC, in the BBQ section. Here, BBQ is a religion, which would have fit with the anthropological interpretation. Overall, a quick and interesting read, but I was still left wanting more.

The Works Progress Administration was one of the glories of the New Deal. Although it employed millions of people, it is probably best known for the work it provided to artists and writers through the Federal Writers' Project and the Federal Artists' Project. One of the projects it embarked on was to document "how America eats", more specifically, to document local social gatherings at which food was served and thus describe "American" cookery and its importance to community. Despite the many writers and photographers who contributed to the project, the planned book (to be called "America Eats!" never came to fruition, but the papers were boxed up, and, though many were lost, many were preserved.

Decades later, Pat Willard had the brilliant idea of going back to the towns and gatherings visited by the FWP writers to find out if those traditions and foods were still around. Her book alternates excerpts from the original manuscripts with her own descriptions of what she found, grouped by themes such as "Agricultural Fairs", "Fund-raising Dinners", "Political Gatherings" and the like. (She also includes a few recipes, as lagniappe.) Willard found that many of the events memorialized by the FWP writers no longer existed or had been transformed (some weren't even remembered!), but others were still going strong.

As we travel the roads of the United States, eating dishes ranging from Brunswick Stew in North Carolina to barbecued salmon in Oregon, we learn, through the food and the reasons for the socializing, the history and culture of these places. Lucky Pat Willard, to taste so many good things. And I greatly appreciate her bringing the stories written for the FWP out of the boxes in which they'd been stores and into the light of day.

If I have any quibble with the book, it is with Willard's defensiveness about American cuisine. The food can speak for itself!

An entertaining and educational read, likely to spawn much culinary experimentation and perhaps regional exploration.

Completely disappointed in this book. I was hoping to locate some historical description of the function and possible menus of food for the box-Social American event, as that is what our church is trying to use for a fund-raising event. NO MENTION OF THE BOX-SOCIAL (AUCTION) SUPPER, NOT IN THE TABLE OF CONTENTS, NOR IN THE INDEX, NOR ANYWHERE ELSE IN THE BOOK; except as a caption under a picture on p.203 of a man holding up a pie that was being auctioned. Beyond that caption, I didn't find any use of the words "auction" or "box social".
THEREFORE, in my opinion, that phrase on the front cover is fraudulently deceptive.

What a way to spend the summer! all of the good food, the bad and great philosophy of american food!