A Plate of American History

Helpful tips from 

Chef Jose Andres, famous for his PBS series and  Cafe Atlantico in Washington, D.C, “listened to the books” at the National Archives when he created the menu for his new restaurant, America Eats Tavern.  

In an NPR interview with Neal Conan, Chef Andres explained that he closed his popular restaurant, Cafe Atlantico, to temporarily open the America Eats Tavern in partnership with the “What’s Cooking Uncle Sam” exhibit showing this summer at the National Archives.  This is the kind of lesson that every teacher dreams of; delicious, social, hands on, using all the senses - these history lessons won’t be forgotten quickly.

The exhibit demonstrates the effect that the US Government has had on food choices in America.  Visitors can explore records, posters, photographs and film that trace the history of Washington’s involvement on the farm, in the factory, in the kitchen and at the table.  

The photographs are surreal; my favorite is “For Pep and Vigor:  Vitamin Donuts” - I kid you not.  If you aren’t headed to Washington this summer there is plenty to check out online in the digital exhibit.

If you are in D.C., you can go to the America Eats Tavern on 8th Street, after a day of learning and building up a good appetite and try out some of Chef Andres creations, all pulled from the historical records that he (and, I am sure, a few researchers) uncovered in the Archives. His team poured through records, menus and letters to uncover favorite dishes and rediscover some forgotten ones.  There are dishes from the gold rush, Lewis and Clark’s expedition, Thomas Jefferson and even Bill Clinton.  

What’s on the menu?

• Peanut Soup - thanks to the inventiveness of George Washington Carver.  He believed that African Americans needed more protein to get healthier and stronger.
• Hangtown Fry - Chef Andres explains, “Hangtown fry will be this perfect example of the 49ers with the Gold Rush, where eggs, bacon and, in this case, oysters were the three most expensive items that any miner that found gold could afford. So the hangtown fry become a very popular thing in mid-1800s”
• She-Crab Soup - from William Deas, of Scotland,  who cooked for the mayor of Charleston and made the soup popular in South Carolina.
• Grapefruit and Shrimp Cocktail from Irma Rombauer’s Joy of Cooking (Adres felt that Irma voice was being channelled through the cookbook).
• Paw-Paws - a fruit that Lewis and Clark took with them on their great adventure across the west.  Andres said, “we have reference of early 1500s, Hernando De Soto, one of the first Europeans to come to Florida. I found a peace treaty between United States of America, 1826, and the Indian tribes of Illinois talking about who was going to keep the paw-paw groves. In September, you're going to come to America Eats Tavern and you're going to find paw-paws from Ohio, from Maryland, from Virginia.”

Andres says, “I always say that I don't believe I'm a chef. I try to be a storyteller. And I do believe every dish has such a wonderful, rich story behind, that if we let any dish disappear, something about ourselves disappears with the dish.”

That’s why history matters; the stories aren’t about the food, the places, the people or the events, they are the stories of us, who we are and what we believe.  If they are forgotten than our past is lost and our cupboards are bare
.

You're Keeping That?

The National Archives

One of the best things about moving into our big, old house was the big, old barn.  Finally a place to put all our stuff, I thought. When we started packing everything up to move, it was clear that we had way too much stuff (I started referring to it as junk after the first five boxes).  

We packed up photo albums, cassettes, extra dishes, tons of old baby toys and clothes, yearbooks and, of course, stacks and stacks of books.  Did we really need to keep ALL this stuff?

What’s actually worth keeping?  Which photos, letters and books will my great grand kids want to see and what will they just end up tossing?  What special events should I record for posterity?  

These are the questions that archivists at The National Archives, and archives around the world, ask themselves everyday.  According to the National Archives, located at 700 Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, D.C., only about 2% of the documents created by the government are actually worth keeping (big surprise), and even at that rate there are still 9 billion items stored away for safe keeping.

As far as I’m concerned libraries and archives are kissing cousins, both protecting text and photos for people to read and learn and discover.  They both support the desire to ‘find out’ about the unknown and reflect its importance.  And they are packed with really cool stuff.

The National Archives and Record Administration (NARA) is our nation’s record keeper and hangs on to the really important documents of our country’s founding, like the Constitution, Declaration of Independence and Bill of Rights - they are all on display in hermetically sealed cases in the lobby - but they also have millions of documents that help individuals trace their family roots.  Veterans records, census reports, immigration documents, land records, passport applications and bankruptcy records can all help families discover their past.

Online you can visit a handful of digital exhibits that are packed with tidbits of history and wonderful pictures.  I tried out the ‘Docs Teach’ section for fun and found:

Ernest Hemingway’s high school notebook, with notes from his teacher

A photograph of two Titanic lifeboats with their survivors before being rescued

A report from the Wright brothers about their crash in 1908 and their intention to go back for another try.

A caravan of 1925 tourists in horse drawn wagons on a trip to the Badlands.

Each document holds a piece of American history, ready to be peeled back, investigated and understood.  Learning history through these artifacts is engaging and interesting, the stories feel relevant and alive, they are the opposite of the history book we had in high school.

It is fitting that Herbert Hoover was the one to lay the cornerstone of the National Archives since he was one of the first Americans to understand the value of the preservation of documents.  When he gave $50,000 to Stanford in 1919 to begin a war archive, Ray Lyman, Stanford’s President, wrote back to him asking for clarification.    Hoover understood the importance of saving documents in order to preserve our history but, more importantly, to help us understand the lessons of the past.  In 1926, seven years before the National Archives opened, the Hoover Institution had the largest library in the world devoted to document and artifacts from the war.  Two weeks before Hoover left the office of the President he lay the cornerstone of the National Archives Building and said:

"This temple of our history will appropriately be one of the most beautiful buildings in America, an expression of the American soul."

-- Herbert Hoover, February 20, 1933