Time fries: The Food of a Younger Land 

During the Great Depression, the U.S. government sought to put Americans with a variety of skill sets back to work. The Works Progress Administration (WPA), established in 1935, included innovative programs for writers, visual artists, musicians and theater companies. The Federal Writers' Project was designed to give employment to scores of unemployed writers, journalists, editors and researchers. These writers, totaling as many as 6,600 at one time, were instructed to gather oral histories, write guide books for the (then) 48 states and U.S. territories, and collect folklore. Over 1,000 pamphlets and books were produced by this group until it was disbanded after the Pearl Harbor attack in 1941.

Under the direction of Katherine Kellock, who had originated the American guide books, a group of these writers were cobbled together to work on a project called "America Eats." These writers, organized into five regions, were directed to write essays on the eating habits, mores and traditions of Americans throughout the 48 states and were instructed "not to worry about" the writing but gather information. Indeed, the writing styles of these collected essays range from well-established journalists and anthropological researchers who produced well-crafted works to short laundry lists of recipe ingredients.

The deadline for these essays was late November 1941, but with the abrupt entrance into WWII that December, the writing that had been submitted sat in files in the U.S. Library of Congress until food writer and historian Mark Kurlansky, the James Beard-winning author of Salt and Cod, sorted through the typed pages, many of them carbon copies on onionskin paper. Some stories, essays, poems and anecdotes were unedited versions and did not include bylines. Additionally, the regional files were incomplete: The essays from New York City, for example, were missing, but Kurlansky later found them in that city's archives.

Within his anthology The Food of a Younger Land, Kurlansky includes a diverse group of writing styles and writers. An essay on Mississippi food by Eudora Welty as well as a short piece, "Diddy-Wah-Diddy," by Floridian author Zora Neale Hurston, are featured. But the strength of this collection comes from the assignment and how each individual writer sought to fulfill it: Tell the story of the local people and their food.

The essays range in topic from Coca-Cola parties in Georgia to the Basque sheepherding culture thriving in Idaho. The latter was written at the time the population of sheep in Idaho outnumbered people. Some essays show how American eating habits have changed in the past 70 years. Today's common foods such as tacos, garbanzo beans and prosciutto are explicated at length, while other foods -- such as depression cake and beaver tail -- have become rarities.

Some of the most moving pieces are those that depict fragile culinary histories. In "Sioux and Chippewa Food," Frances Denmore's observant writing produces a vivid account of the seasonal nature of foods. Denmore (born in 1867) spent decades studying and recording the music (now in the Smithsonian) of 30 tribes which had vibrant cultures during her time of field research. She describes the Sioux method of preparing and storing buffalo pemmican -- the high energy bar of the Native Peoples, as well as detailing how the Chippewa froze, and thus stored, sunfish for later use.

The northeast chapters contain stories about clam bakes, baked beans, Pennsylvania mushroom cultivation, and New York City drugstore counter lingo -- as in "Blind 'Em" (two eggs over easy), "Deep Down Bleeding" (root beer with cherries), and "Ice the Rice" (ice cream on rice pudding). Many other pejorative terms would not be used today. Furthermore, some language used in the essays is offensive, but Kurlansky explains that this work is unedited and is a snapshot of not only the food but the social constructs of the 1930s.

In "Food a la Concentrate in Los Angeles," writer Don Dolan reminds us that some regional food cultures have only become more so. He writes that health food restaurants circa 1930 in L.A. had "nothing as ruinous as sugar, salt and pepper," but rather raw sugar, sodium glutaurate, and alfalfa dust. Yet other writers reveal a time vanished: Katherine Palmer captures the dialect and an occasion past in "North Carolina Chitterling Strut" with the practiced prose of a shrewd short-story author.

Any food writer or food lover can understand the appeal of finding this extraordinary cache from times past. Is there still a Booya culture in Minnesota? You bet. The story of Alabama eggnog with bootlegged liquor on Christmas Eve rings true with my family stories as well. What would a collection of unemployed journalists (a growing number in the current recession) come up with if Obama's administration sent them on a regional food search? Would they write about the fast-food drive-thru or the farmers market? Did these writers look to the future to tell memorable tales which required time to research or merely jot a ditty for the next paycheck? Judiciously, Kurlansky collected a bit of both in his delicious time capsule.

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