Nancy Harmon Jenkins Kicks Off “Food History Month”

Nancy Harmon Jenkins Kicks Off “Food History Month” at the Camden Public Library January 10

 January is once again “Discover History” Month at the Camden Public Library. The theme this year will be food and how our culture is expressed through our food choices, and the impact of our history on our food. Nancy Harmon Jenkins will kick off the series on January 10 at 7:00 pm. Jenkins is a writer, traveler, food authority, and historian; she will present “food history from a more general perspective — why I think it’s important, why it’s not just about women’s doings, why it’s really a universal approach to human history, and also about where we go to find out food history, from recipe manuals to magazines to the wonderful diaries people kept.”

 Jenkins will draw upon a richly detailed diary of 1785-1812 written by Martha Ballard for her talk, “What’s Cooking in That Pot?” Jenkins says, “You might think it’s just the usual baked beans or fish chowder or venison stew, but what’s cooking, and what has cooked, in Maine and elsewhere in the world is really history. Because cooking isn’t just about women in the kitchen (or men tending a patio barbecue). Think about it: apart from the air we breathe, food is the one thing we cannot do with out and eating is the single most universal human activity. And a long time ago, when we learned that food is ever so much tastier and easier to digest when it’s cooked in a pot, human culture made a gigantic leap forward to something like civilization. I’ll talk about why food history is really a universal approach to human history, and also about where we go to find out food history, from recipe manuals to magazines to the wonderful diaries people kept and many still keep—a great example being Martha Ballard’s diary in the Maine State Library, a brilliant record of life and food in Gardiner, Maine, in the late eighteenth century.”

 Other speakers in “Food History Month” will include: author Jason Anthony, speaking on Hoosh: Roast Penguin, Scurvy Day, and Other Stories of Antarctic Cuisine on Tuesday, January 22, 7:00 pm; author and food historian Sandy Oliver of Islesboro, speaking on “Beyond Baked Beans: Early American Foodways,” on Tuesday, January 29; and Maine farmer Ana Antaki, speaking on traditional food preservation techniques on Thursday, January 31, 7:00 pm.

 Also, as part of “Discover History” Month, the library will be hosting “America’s Music,” a film and live music series on Sunday afternoons at 3:00 pm for six weeks beginning on January 13. Glenn Jenks will be the host for the series; check the library’s website for more information. Also during January, the Walsh History Center of the Camden Public Library will be displaying a series of B&W photographs and historical maps and charts in collaboration with the Camden Rockport Historical Society.

 Jenkins is a graduate of Wellesley College and the American University of Beirut. Before launching a free-lance career in 1991, she was a staff writer at The New York Times and later served as Publications Director of the American Institute of Wine & Food. She was a founding director of Oldways Preservation and Exchange Trust, an organization she continues to work with from time to time.

She says, “I grew up on the coast of Maine but couldn’t wait to shake the dust of Camden from my heels, setting off at an early age to experience the world, not at first as a food writer but simply as a curious cat. My travels led me all around the Mediterranean and on to Southeast Asia, China, India, and the Middle East, as I gradually came to the realization that there is a powerful connection between who we are and what we eat. I’ve lived, worked, traveled, gardened, cooked, eaten, and raised two children throughout the countries of the Mediterranean, at various times making a home in Spain, France, Italy, Lebanon, and Cyprus (as well as in England and Hong Kong). Now I divide my time between an olive farm in Tuscany and a home in Maine. That food is a dramatic (and delicious) expression of who and what people believe themselves to be and how they got that way. Is this cultural anthropology? Yes, I suppose it is, but it’s anthropology with the very important difference that you can taste the culture on your tongue and feel it between your hands, not to mention sniff its often heady aroma on the air.”