America's Melting Pot

America's Melting Pot

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America's Melting Pot

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America's Melting Pot

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America's Melting Pot

Depression Soup photo coming soon

1929-1939

Depression Soup

Depression soup is a simple, hearty soup made from inexpensive vegetables, beans, and pantry staples to stretch limited resources. Rooted in 1930s and 1940s home cooking, it embodies the resourcefulness of families coping with economic hardship.

New York and Chicago Depression relief kitchens and Hooverville camp cooking1 hour

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Food stories

Before 1776

The First American Table

American culinary history begins with Native nations that knew the land intimately. Corn, beans, squash, wild rice, maple, cranberries, pecans, peppers, tomatoes, and hundreds of regional foods were cultivated, gathered, preserved, traded, and honored long before the republic.

1776-early republic

A Young Republic Learns to Cook for Itself

The new nation had to feed itself in war, in taverns, in farm kitchens, and on working plantations. By 1796, Amelia Simmons's American Cookery gave printed form to a cuisine using American ingredients and American names.

1860s-1890s

The Chuckwagon, America's Working Kitchen on Wheels

The chuckwagon was a rolling kitchen and a center of order on the open range. Beans, sourdough, dried meat, coffee, potatoes, rice, onions, lard, and Dutch-oven desserts kept crews moving through hard country.

1865-1930s

Black Foodways and the Taste of Freedom

Black foodways are central to the American table. Rice knowledge, field peas, greens, oysters, barbecue, red beans, baking, market vending, church suppers, and Juneteenth foods carry stories of survival, skill, enterprise, and celebration.

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