I agree. This is presentism run amuck.
What people seem to forget is no matter how PC or sensitive we get, your grandchildren will look upon what you feel as acceptable with horror. Even the most enlightened of you will be held to the standard of 2100.
This is just pitching a bitch for the sheer sport of it.
There really weren’t any website entries after July 1 2018 as of November 11, 2018, according to the Internet Archive’s snapshot of the homepage on November 11, 2018. It was probably a response to a tweet posted near that date rather than a post on the website.
~Max
No. Aunt Jemima was a racist caricature in the 50 too. This is not presentism.
What happened is that the algorithm she had set up to share things on social media shared this recipe: https://www.midcenturymenu.com/mid-century-menu-its-come-to-this-hard-boiled-eggs-in-ketchup/ on Facebook immediately after the 2021 shooting in Atlanta where several women were killed because they were Asian. There was no context added to the post that if you click on this you’ll see a super racist image. People accused her of being horribly insensitive because of the timing (i.e., they thought she had written this immediately after that tragedy). Several of her followers on social media pointed out to each other that they thought it wasn’t a recent post and it was probably just an automation problem. Some called her names (and honestly if she had posted that recipe at that time intentionally, she would have deserved to be called those names), but many had pretty respectful conversation and were requesting acknowledgement that this is something fairly racist and wrong. I was actually the person who pulled the Facebook post down because a follower wrote something like, “I am Asian, I love your blog and what you’re doing but this is really offensive and I’m asking you to take it down”. And to me that was reason enough to pull it down. Anyway. Rather than just shut things down for a bit or apologize, the person who ran the blog doubled and tripled down arguing that people shouldn’t get mad at her because she didn’t write the recipe. It was actually a perfect (sad) example of white fragility, and I ended my friendship with her over it (I’m a person who made recipes for her reasonably often). I apologized to some on Facebook for the insensitivity and tried to move on. She didn’t and actually told me off privately with language including “You do not speak for me”. Does it suck that people threatened she and her family? Absolutely. But she could have easily side-stepped the whole thing without even apologizing (though I thought she should apologize, which is why I apologized for my part in not stopping that post from going out into the world). I don’t think she should be defended, though it was kind of you all to give her the benefit of the doubt. I’m writing this in part because I know she’s active again and I think people shouldn’t give her money, so if they find this post they can read about what happened and know it wasn’t fully “this is why we can’t have nice things”. It was at least a little bit “midwestern white lady doesn’t like that she messed up and got called out”. There are others curating and sharing old recipes who deserve that support instead.
The OP may enjoy Glen and Friends channel on youtube.
He does a weekly vintage cookbook recipe almost every week.
Now, I understand why he doesn’t show the entire page on camera. There might be content that isn’t acceptable anymore.
Glen does a lot of cooking videos. He likes researching subjects. He’s been on pecan pie recipes for months. He spent a year trying to recreate KFC recipe.
His vintage cookbook recipes are my favorite.
I used to follow a retro recipe Facebook page until one day they posted a recipe from a cook book with a racist caricature on the recipe page (if memory serves it was a tiki drink but had an African caricature)…it seemed like a weird CHOICE because even if you wanted to share the recipe…you didn’t have share the recipe from that book or even include that image with it. Or at the least address it in the initial post. Once commenters called it out, the person doubled down and started pulling “I’m not racist, YOU’RE racist!”
How does it compare to Tasting History?
Glen posts written recipes. He doesn’t scan the page. A lot of his 1930’s cookbooks were locally printed by churches and other local organizations. Family recipes.
He gets into odd research. Glen was on a soda kick a couple years ago. Glen recreated several brands.
IIRC Tasting History goes back hundreds of years? The Middle Ages?
The majority of Glens recipes are published within the past 100 years.
Glen & Friends is great! I really think I could be IRL friends with him and Julie.
Yeah, what people fail to understand is that it’s not like internet mobs go around randomly picking targets for shits and giggles like the conservative media wants you to imagine. It’s the reaction and doubling down on criticism that gets people riled up. And I doubt almost anyone in the “internet mob” even wanted her to shut down, they just wanted her to see the kind of hurt she was putting out into the world, acknowledge it and resolve to do better moving forward.
@servonine 's post earlier in the thread seemed to indicate that it was her own white fragility’s fault rather than any internet mob that ultimately brought her down. She probably could have kept doing what she did and eventually most of her critics would have written her off as a lost cause but she prized her image of being a “not racist” more strongly than continuing a passion that she enjoyed and brought value to the world.
Yes, but not always. He did a show, recently, on WWII Thanksgiving meals for the army.
Tasting History primarily uses food as a framework to discuss history. Sometimes an episode will be about the history of a food, but it’s just as often about a person, place, or non-culinary practice.
Right. Max Miller of “Tasting History” sets the dish he’s preparing in a historical context, then discusses the history around it. The people who ate it, where it was popular, and how it came to be are often discussed. I’d guess that one-third of his show deals with cooking and tasting the dish; the other two-thirds are talking about the history surrounding the dish.
He’s done some ancient things, some Middle Ages things, and for the 20th century, he’s done meals at Alcatraz and on the Titanic. And a lot in between. It’s always seemed to me that he doesn’t use cookbooks published by commercial operations (so you won’t see Aunt Jemima or Uncle Ben images, or “Cooking With 7-Up,” as Lileks displays), but you will see pages from the Glenview Church Ladies’ Cookbook in 195X, the US Army’s recipe for chipped beef on toast from a mess hall manual in WWII or Korea, the menu for the second day out on Titanic in first class, and so on.
Thing is, that everything he does is set in a historical context. He puts you in 1944, in the shoes of an American GI, having to eat chipped beef on toast—or “shit on a shingle,” as he explains. But nothing he presents is offensive in any way. Except, perhaps, for the profanity involved in the dish names (e.g. “Shit on a shingle”).
Interesting research. I’ve eaten the custard style pecan pie at cafes. It’s interesting how the base filling has changed.
And the show that really kicked his channel off was about Garum, the ancient Roman condiment of fermented fish which they put in absolutely everything including desserts. 
The is not justified at all. Roast peaches with honey, cumin and garum - is divine.
Well, I’ve never had it, so fair’s fair. I always get liquamen mixed up with garum, but one or the other is so refined (per Max’s demo) that it’s a lovely crystalline liquid I imagine doesn’t taste very fishy, so I’ll allow how that might be all right in some desserts.
But do they really make garum in South Africa? Like, on restaurant menus? Serious question, if I’m remembering correctly that that’s where you live.
B Dylan Thomas does the recipes from vintage cookbooks on TikTok, and now on YouTube.
I think the really short format worked really well for him. He edits those videos down to just the action which gives it real energy.
He’s a hoot, worth checking him out
The two word are sometimes used interchangeably, though. There is garum nobile which is supposed to be the very mild stuff.
IMO, that defeats the purpose. Might as well just use salt, then.
It’s mostly just umami and salty. You’re only using like a couple teaspoons in the sauce for a whole tray of peaches.
That, the cumin’s eathiness, the honey’s sweetness, the olive oil unctuousness and the wine and peaches’ slight tartness means you get every flavour, and a rich mouthfeel. But it still very much tastes dessert-y overall.
It’s the kind of complex dessert I very much prefer over overly sweet or simple desserts.
No, I had to order it from Italy. It’s just not called garum or liquamen any more. Not cheap, either. So I just had the one bottle, ever. Otherwise, I use a good-quality Thai nam pla when I cook Roman recipes, it’s really pretty much the same, taste-wise, at 1/10 the price.
I made the peaches myself, not in a restaurant.