You Are What You Eat: Heritage Food Revival

You know the saying, “You are what you eat.”  This has big a great message for the whole food movement, getting people to eat more healthy…  more fruits and veggies.  But I would like to take this to a new level, I want to explore the evolution of what I eat & why, and how my food preferences where shaped by my ancestors. 

How did I "brew" up this project?

When I was pursuing my archaeology degree in college, I took a class called, Ethno-Nutrition.  This was a class that taught us about nutrition through time and how it affected the population.  We explored different variables including famine, political strife, “plentiful” times, and other variables that dictated farming and cooking practices.  One project we had to do was explore the food we ate and why we ate it.  We were basically asked to trace the evolution of our diet.  The assignment had to be completed in two week so I didn’t get as involved with it as I wanted, but the subject has been an interest to me ever since. So, 15 years later, I have vowed to “REALLY” explore this topic.  What brought it up after all these years?  Well, I found my Grandma’s hand written “Go-To” list for cooking.  It’s a list she’s referred to when she didn’t know what to cook or had to cook for many guests. She also added to it when she liked something.  So over the next couple of month’s, I will be making these recipes, exploring how/why they were important to our family, and discovering why some recipes where passed on to the next generation, and why others were not.  Please follow along on my journey and I hope that I inspire you to explore your own food history!