Thank you for sharing this with us. I would be interested to see what the genesis of your menu turns out to be.
For some reason, your working method reminds me of my own. I do a lot of research before starting a new body of work (usually sculpture or printmaking). I love how the past informs the present here - thank you...your blog is inspiration!
wow! did you ever get in touch with the lady from the library??
sounds like you must have been in heaven in their archives!!
one thing i just noticed, SO much food on the menu! the amount of options are over the TOP.
Thank you for the kind compliments, Ladies!
I come from a visual arts background, and that's how I approach food. I'm so pleased I can provide inspiration for other media!
Ilana--yes TONS of food. But I do think this was for several hundred people, not a sit-down dinner of 12. I did get ahold of the woman at the library (Rebecca Federman, head of the culinary arts collection). She was really nice and extremely patient, and took the time to teach me how to browse the museum's collections. It was so helpful!
This was part of DIckens' bad American experience. He thought we were rude hicks. When he returned years later, he was feted at Delmonicos and took back all the nasty things he had said.
During the writers strike I wrote an article about the food at the Player's Club in NYC and had so much fun researching it... made Nesselrode pudding from old recipes.
do you know: http://digital.lib.msu.edu/proje...ects/cookbooks/
??
The Delmonicos book is great fun... I want to cook my way through it.
i thought about doing that for a blog...how do you find the time??
Do you have a link to you Dicken's article? I'd love to read about. Does he write about the dinner in American Notes?
Yes, I rely very heavily on Feeding America. I have many of the actual cookbooks that the online collection does, but being able to search the collection by recipe name or ingredient is indispensable.
How do I find the time? For me, it helps to stick to a schedule and strike a balance between how much i want to do, and how much I have time to do. I try to write three times a week, which for me is not an overwhelming amount of work, but keeps the blog updated frequently. plus, it's fun! so it's easy to find time.
Please let me know if you start your Delmonico's blog. I'd love to read it!
I spent a few days with the incredible menus at the players club in NYC. Loved the menus and then researched the food. The Dickens article is : http://www.americanheritage.com/
...1980_5_96.shtml
it was fun researching but i must say, delmonicos doesn't make it easy... they named things for patrons for special occasions so who knows what the preparation might have been!
thank heavens for the cookbooks.
my new blog is:
http://lostpastremembered.blogspot.com/
It's going to be about players at first because the menus are amazing, then... who knows. I would like to cook my way through the centuries.
you also may be interested in the great researchers at: http://www.foodtimeline.org/
when i couldn't figure out what snowbirds were, lynne oliver came to the rescue.
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