THE FOOD OF A YOUNGER LAND

The subtitle of this book is A Portrait of American Food—Before the National Highway System, Before Chain Restaurants, and Before Frozen Food, When the Nation’s Food Was Seasonal—rather clunky, but it does sum it up. During the 1930s, the WPA launched a project to document American regional food traditions, but Pearl Harbor put an end to its funding and the piles of unedited manuscripts were never transformed into the planned book, America Eats. Mark Kurlansky dug the materials out of the Library of Congress and has assembled them more or less in their raw state, with commentary. I loved the idea of exploring these quirky lost foods (fried beaver tail, anyone?), as well as the background from Kurlansky describing the WPA project, but found the actual reading a little dry. Because it was meant to be assimilated and polished into a series of longer essays, and perhaps also because the writers were not always very accomplished, the writing is uninspired, often no more than lists of ingredients or sketches of recipes, so it can be exhausting to read from cover to cover. It was fun to page through (I was happy to see both booyah and lutefisk representing Minnesota), but I ended up skimming most of it and feeling unsatisfied afterward. This is an interesting historical document, but not an especially compelling read.

Just now, in double-checking the correct spelling of Kurlansky’s name on Amazon, I came across a link to another book, America Eats! On the Road With the WPA, by Pat Willard, that sounds like what I wish I’d read: Willard details the WPA project and includes excerpts, but also takes her own roadtrip across the U.S. to investigate how many of these foods still exist today. Darn it, why didn’t I find that book first? I’ve put it on my to-be-read list, but will need a break before I tackle it, as The Food of a Younger Land may have burned me out on the subject for right now.