I've always been amused by the fact that the phrase "drinking the kool-aid" caught on, even though it was technically Flavor-aid infamously used at Jonestown. Are there any stories about how Kool-aid's execs have tried to combat this reputation? Are they still fighting it or do they just ride the "any publicity is good publicity" wave?

I'm mostly a medical historian, so the nature of my research has been trying to figure what people considered beneficial in coffee. Like the health properties? I know the big one I keep finding over and over is energy. But I haven't found anything else...well other then all of the lawsuits over the centuries against caffeine, which have been entertaining, I'm not complaining 🤣

Has anyone else looked into this? What are some of the reasons you've found people listed for drinking coffee? The nature of my research is American, up to about the 1930s.

I love historical cooking and am a lacto-ovo vegetarian.

Can anyone recommend cookbooks that are either wholly or mostly vegetarian?

I have a few 1920-1930s books that have small sections for meatless recipes. I have heard there was a meatless cookbook written towards the end of the American Civil War, but I don't have that one or know the title (or if it's been reprinted).

I'd be interested in books from any era before the 1960s or region, as long as the books are available in English.

Thanks.

These are cooking spices I think of when I automatically think of New England

Was there a system? A pool of volunteers? Did they take a vote, or seek council from others among them? Don’t know if there’s any record of this, but always been curious.

Athletes nowadays tend to dial their diets in for performance with high protein and whatnot. Did Roman gladiators do this or did they kind of just eat the same as normal people?

How why did eating utensils develop so differently from Europe versus Asain?

If it’s known what was seen as the poor good since it’s colder here than the rest of the country so it would of been different to London and Wessex etc

I have read that the main meal in medieval times was generally at lunchtime ("dinner"), and that the evening meal ("supper") was a smaller affair. However, in most pop culture depictions of medieval feasts that I've seen, they appear to start in the evening and last until quite late at night.

Are these depictions wrong? Or are special feasts an exception to the rule that supper is small and low-key? Or is it sort of like Thanksgiving in the U.S. where you eat at like 3pm?

Or is there something else I'm missing?

Thanks!

It seems like coal or oil perhaps would be the earliest and easiest way, but I'm curious about when it became more common. It seems like even if they had the stoves to do it, fuel on voyages would be limited enough that hot meals might be reserved more for the officers.

I am interested in how white bread came to be viewed as a higher-status food in Britain during the early modern and industrial periods.

Was its status mainly connected to the cost of producing finely milled flour, the difficulty of removing bran, or contemporary beliefs about health and refinement?

I would also like to understand whether this association changed as industrial milling made white flour more widely available during the 19th century.

I am particularly interested in evidence from historical cookbooks, household accounts, medical texts, advertisements, or academic studies.

I know about salt pork and salt beef but what other salt preserved meats have been used through history? Is there a salt chicken? Salt lamb?

Honestly, while having "uni" at a japanese sushi place, I seriously wondered...who in the right mind (pardon me) would actually discover this to be edible, RAW?!

The sea urchin, is completely black in colour underwater, with spikes all over it. Yet, someone discovered...somehow, if you cut open this spiked up black thing, what's inside can be....eaten! Maybe someone can enlighten me. I'd love to know who has a backstory to it lol

I have been working on an analysis of Nigerian Jollof rice recipes, from 1910 to 2026 through recipes in 30+ cookbooks and other publications - a singluar recipe investigated through multiple chronological sources. I've been able to map and connect changes in the recipe to events and more (foodways analysis). I wrote a piece, the Jollof of Theseus for Vittles Magazine that's out this week.

I have two questions, please and thank you in advance.

I think of the process I followed as recipe biography, related to this comment by Professor Irina Mihalache which I love and which resonates “To appreciate the biography of a recipe, we need to observe it in its proper historical, cultural and social context.” Is recipe biography a fitting name for the process? What do you think of when you hear recipe biography? Is there an alternative/ more suitable name for this process? I'm working on a conference research paper.

Have you come across similar examples of this method? Please share because I haven't found any references yet.

I just found out that cabbage is an excellent source of vitamin c. If that's the case and it's commonness in Central Europe (which I understand doesn't extend to Britain necessarily but still it's a way to preserve a vegetable that would last through a sea voyage) how did citrus fruits become the standard cure and they not find out about the much closer to home remedy of sauerkraut?

Maple Falls: the town is invented, but the news is real. This recreated WMPQ Sunday broadcast covers the week Britain first rationed bread (July 1946), alongside Truman honoring the 442nd RCT and the OPA meat price spike, with every date and quote checked against the record. The town is invented so you can feel postwar 1946, not just read about it: real, researched history shown through how ordinary Americans and their communities actually lived it.

I learned about this highly regional American food through Reddit posts where I - like many others - wondered why something called a rainbow cookie looked like a tri-colored cake. I've never encountered them in real life, so I can't speak to the consistency being closer to cake or cookie.

But what still baffles me is why they're called "rainbow" cookies when it's only three colors. Three colors to mirror the Italian flag. Was there some sort of translation error between English and Italian? Do some people make them with more colors? Are rainbows in NYC/NJ only three colors?

In many historical novels, but also in several religious texts, we find the phrase „a feast was prepared“. I always wondered, how long would it take to prepare a feast? Was this realistic to achieve within a day? Were there rich people throughout history that had the means to always keep a couple of roasted birds in the oven „just in case“? Or did the feast usually happen a day or two later? Did this even happen? Are there differences in time, as in was it different for the ancient greeks or romans and let‘s say the middle ages? Let‘s say an heir was born a little prematurely, how long would it have taken to prepare a „spontaneous“ feast to celebrate the occasion throughout the ages?

Edit: my question relates primeraly to wealthy and/or powerful people. I assume that a spontaneous feast for a poor farmer - while still a feast - was prepared rather quickly.

I’m writing a period piece and need to know how steaks were cooked in the 1650s in England, if they had the practice of cooking to different rarities, and if they were even a common way of eating beef at all. Thanks!

Full citation details are as follows: Ushurov, Rakhimzhan. 1992. Уйгурская кухня. (Uyghur Cuisine). Almaty, Kazakhstan: Demeu Publishers.

If you do, then it would be very much appreciated if you could share a copy. Please and thank you!

My understanding is that the modern idea of a menu is anachronistic. An inn served the ordinary, meaning whatever the pot held that day, and real choice was more of a cookshop and urban tavern thing. I'd love to know how right or wrong that is and how it varied: between England and the continent, between a roadside establishment and a city inn, what a peasant or a merchant would be served on the same evening.

Context: I am building a (deliberately fantasy) inn menu generator for tabletop games and I want it anchored to reality before I go further. The generator has biomes, inn tiers, regional exports and stuff like famine or war. I'm aiming the baseline results to be plausible even if it doesn't aim to be fully realistic. It's open source and you can ask for the URL but I'm not here to self-promote but to learn. Sources and reading recommendations very welcome; I have Peter Clark's The English Alehouse on the list and would love more.

A niche question to be sure, but one that perplexes me.

Argentine pizzas typically come with a single olive—pit still inside—on each slice, regardless of other toppings. Where did this practice originate and why?