'How to Stock your Pantry' has become a popular headline in the news these days, and one not limited to cooking publications. With restaurants closed in most cities, Americans are in their kitchens, cooking for loved ones and they often seek guidance as to managing their grocery trips. So how do you stock your pantry? Ideally, with staples like milk, peanut butter, bread, fruit. But ever wonder about the histories of those foods? The following books, all available online with a New York Public Library card, reveal the backstories of some basic foods, but with histories that are anything but. 

The Banana: Empires, Trade Wars, and Globalization by James Wiley (University of Nebraska Press, 2008). Available in Project Muse.

The portable, humble banana has a far more complicated story than one might imagine. Introduced to U.S. consumers in the late 19th century via refrigerated shipping, the banana quickly became popular in both the United States and Europe. This book peels back the layers of the banana's history, from the creation of a banana empire in Latin America to the recent, and seemingly ongoing, international banana trade disputes.
 

Comfort Food: Meanings and Memories by Michael Owen Jones and Lucy M. Long (University Press of Mississippi, 2017). Available in University Press Scholarship Online. 

Don't let the photos of macaroni and cheese and chocolate chip cookies on the cover of Comfort Food fool you. This is not a cookbook, but rather a compilation of essays written by anthropologists, folklorists, and sociologists on the idea of "comfort food": when did the concept of comfort food emerge? What kinds of foods provide comfort (or discomfort) and why? And how do childhood memories form comfort food attachments? A timely read indeed.
 

Creamy and Crunchy: An Informal History of Peanut Butter, the All-American Food by Jon Krampner (Columbia University Press, 2013). Available in University Press Scholarship Online. 

Speaking of childhood comfort foods, I offer two words: peanut butter. Or rather, Creamy and Crunchy—the title of this book that documents the very American love affair with  peanut butter.  Here you'll find chapters on the Big Three: Skippy, Jif and Peter Pan (and why Peter Pan lost its groove); the growing acceptance of peanut butter internationally;  and peanut butter's role in helping to combat world hunger with its inclusion in Ready to Use Therapeutic Food (RUTFs) packs. 

Nature's Perfect Food: How Milk Became America's Drink by E. Melanie DuPuis (NYU Press, 2002). Available in Project Muse. 

"Got Milk?" was the hugely popular dairy industry ad campaign of the mid 1990s, but Dr. DuPuis, author of Nature's Perfect Food,  prefers to start her book with Why Milk? She answers that question by looking at milk consumption as a food habit, a social practice, and as an ingredient of social reform movements. She also explores the sometimes fraught political and economic landscape that is the dairy industry in the United States. 

Baking Powder Wars: The Cut Throat Food Fight that Revolutionized Cooking by Linda  Civitello (University of Illinois Press, 2017). Available in Project Muse and University Press Scholarship Online.   

Baking powder is ususally dispensed by the teaspoon in baked good recipes, but that small measurement belies the  enormous impact it's had in how we cook and bake and eat today. Baking powder, a chemical leavening agent introduced in the 19th century, not only gives food height, but also reduces cooking times and changes the texture of food. That combination resulted in an increase in the consumption of sweet and quickly baked treats. As Civitello writes, "It is an American invention, and it was crucial in creating a uniquely American cuisine that has spread throughout the world."

The Economics of Beer edited by Johan F.N. Swinnen (Oxford University Press, 2011). Available in University Press Scholarship Online. 

Like its title suggests, this anthology explores the business of beer: consumption, production, and industry growth on a global scale. From beer production in the Renaissance to the origins of the craft brewing movement in the United States, this book takes you on a "flight" around the world and throughout history to help readers understand why beer has always been, and remains to this day, such an enormously popular beverage.

Of Sugar and Snow: A History of Ice Cream Making by Geraldine M. Quinzio (University of California Press, 2009). Available in Project Muse. 

For dessert? Ice cream. In Of Sugar and Snow, Quinzio begins her journey in 17th century Italy and travels around the world to Turkey to France to England and finally to the United States. In the process one learns about the history of ice cream, including the medical perspective on eating cold foods, the impact Prohibition had on ice cream-eating habits, and how the selling of ice cream has changed over time, from peddlers of the 19th century to artisans in the 21st. 

The e-books featured here can be found in two of the Library's academic e-book platforms: University Press Scholarship Online and Project Muse. These platforms contain hundreds of book titles, in a wide variety of subjects, which can be downloaded to read at home. If you have any questions about these, or any other online resource, feel free to email us. The Library may be closed, but staff are still available and eager to help.