WEBVTT 1 00:00:00.280 --> 00:00:03.680 Welcome. This is Rebecca Shore for Radio Eye and to 2 00:00:03.759 --> 00:00:06.040 day I will be reading from a special edition of 3 00:00:06.120 --> 00:00:12.240 Smithsonian Magazine America at two fifty the Revolutionary Spark. As 4 00:00:12.240 --> 00:00:15.359 a reminder, Radio I is a reading service intended for 5 00:00:15.400 --> 00:00:18.440 people who are blind or have other disabilities that make 6 00:00:18.480 --> 00:00:22.039 it difficult to read printed material. Please join me now 7 00:00:22.120 --> 00:00:26.039 for the first article, titled Harriet beecher Stowe wrote a 8 00:00:26.079 --> 00:00:29.280 work of fiction that seemed so real that it changed 9 00:00:29.359 --> 00:00:33.439 the history of the country. To fight against slavery, the 10 00:00:33.520 --> 00:00:36.640 author collected true stories, then picked up a pen and 11 00:00:36.719 --> 00:00:43.079 distilled them into Uncle Tom's cabin. By Geraldine Brooks, no 12 00:00:43.159 --> 00:00:46.159 one can have this system of slavery brought before him 13 00:00:46.479 --> 00:00:50.200 without an irrepressible desire to do something, and what is 14 00:00:50.240 --> 00:00:54.000 there to be done? Harriet Beecher Stowe was twenty six 15 00:00:54.039 --> 00:00:57.200 when she posed that frustrated question and a letter to 16 00:00:57.280 --> 00:01:01.079 her husband. She had been married only a had just 17 00:01:01.079 --> 00:01:03.840 given birth to twins, and didn't care much for the 18 00:01:03.880 --> 00:01:10.719 abolitionists she'd encountered, calling them unfashionable persons and moral monomaniacs. 19 00:01:11.280 --> 00:01:14.079 But if she could not join their movement, what could 20 00:01:14.079 --> 00:01:19.159 she do? Fifteen years later, she gave her answer. Her 21 00:01:19.200 --> 00:01:23.400 debut novel, Uncle Tom's Cabin or Life among the Lowly, 22 00:01:23.959 --> 00:01:27.920 was published in March eighteen fifty two. In its first week, 23 00:01:28.000 --> 00:01:31.239 it sold ten thousand copies in the United States. By 24 00:01:31.359 --> 00:01:34.560 year's end, three hundred thousand in the US and more 25 00:01:34.599 --> 00:01:37.560 than a million in Britain. It was the best selling 26 00:01:37.599 --> 00:01:41.359 book released in the nineteenth century, second only to The Bible, 27 00:01:41.760 --> 00:01:46.040 and the first American novel translated into Chinese. It was 28 00:01:46.120 --> 00:01:50.879 a radical, innovative book. Stowe had diligently gathered shards of 29 00:01:50.959 --> 00:01:55.959 factual evidence from multiple sources and painstakingly forged her fictional 30 00:01:56.000 --> 00:01:59.760 account from them. What she created was a story that 31 00:02:00.040 --> 00:02:04.799 moved people more profoundly than bare fact alone had. Its 32 00:02:04.840 --> 00:02:09.520 impact was enormous, galvanizing anti slavery sentiment in the North, 33 00:02:09.960 --> 00:02:14.319 infuriating the South, priming public opinion for the election of 34 00:02:14.360 --> 00:02:18.680 an anti slavery Republican president, and widening the divisions that 35 00:02:18.759 --> 00:02:22.840 brought about the Civil War. The novel made this Connecticut 36 00:02:22.879 --> 00:02:26.199 born preacher's daughter and minister's wife and mother of seven, 37 00:02:26.680 --> 00:02:31.039 previously a little known author of short stories and educational tracts, 38 00:02:31.360 --> 00:02:35.840 the most famous and influential woman in America is this 39 00:02:35.919 --> 00:02:39.199 the little woman who made this great war. Abraham Lincoln 40 00:02:39.319 --> 00:02:42.080 is reported to have said on meeting the five foot 41 00:02:42.120 --> 00:02:44.680 tall author at the White House in eighteen sixty two, 42 00:02:45.039 --> 00:02:48.199 where she had come to lobby for the Emancipation Proclamation. 43 00:02:49.520 --> 00:02:53.400 Stowe had grown up in a family disinclined toward orthodoxy. 44 00:02:54.120 --> 00:02:58.120 Her father, the preacher Lyman Beecher, had discarded the angry 45 00:02:58.159 --> 00:03:01.159 God of New England Calvinism in favor of a more 46 00:03:01.199 --> 00:03:05.879 inclusive faith, and Harriet's brother, Henry Ward Beecher, refined this 47 00:03:06.240 --> 00:03:09.479 further into the Gospel of Love, a term he coined 48 00:03:09.520 --> 00:03:13.520 in a series of lectures at Yale University. Uncle Tom's 49 00:03:13.560 --> 00:03:18.240 cabin is suffused with Henry's ideal of loving kindness. Tom 50 00:03:18.360 --> 00:03:21.639 himself is a christ like figure who dies to protect 51 00:03:21.680 --> 00:03:25.080 others and forgives the overseers ordered to lash him to 52 00:03:25.159 --> 00:03:29.599 death for refusing to divulge the whereabouts of two escaped women. 53 00:03:30.639 --> 00:03:35.240 Stowe's anti slavery passions intensified when she moved from Connecticut 54 00:03:35.319 --> 00:03:38.800 to Cincinnati, where her father had been appointed president of 55 00:03:38.879 --> 00:03:44.039 the New Lane Theological Seminary. There, she witnessed slave catchers 56 00:03:44.439 --> 00:03:49.120 enabled by the eighteen fifty fugitive slave Act, requiring northerners 57 00:03:49.159 --> 00:03:53.120 to aid in capturing and returning enslaved people to their enslavers, 58 00:03:53.719 --> 00:03:57.599 actively hunting escapees who'd made it across the Ohio River. 59 00:03:58.400 --> 00:04:01.919 She was appalled when a pro slavery mob sacked the 60 00:04:01.919 --> 00:04:06.520 premises of an abolitionist newspaper and vandalized the homes of 61 00:04:06.599 --> 00:04:11.400 free black people in the city. A year later, Elijah P. Lovejoy, 62 00:04:11.800 --> 00:04:15.280 another anti slavery editor and a friend of the Beechers, 63 00:04:15.719 --> 00:04:20.360 was murdered by a riotous mob in Alton, Illinois. In 64 00:04:20.439 --> 00:04:25.199 her novel's concluding remarks, Stowe discloses that for many years 65 00:04:25.439 --> 00:04:29.120 she considered the subject of enslavement quote too painful to 66 00:04:29.160 --> 00:04:33.160 be inquired into end quote. In fact, the passage of 67 00:04:33.199 --> 00:04:37.199 the Fugitive Slave Act impelled her. She was appalled by 68 00:04:37.240 --> 00:04:41.399 the cowed complicity she witnessed among her neighbors and friends, 69 00:04:42.160 --> 00:04:46.040 But a more personal loss pervades her novel too. When 70 00:04:46.079 --> 00:04:49.439 her son Charlie died of cholera at eighteen months in 71 00:04:49.480 --> 00:04:53.319 eighteen forty nine, she wrote, it was at his dying 72 00:04:53.360 --> 00:04:55.959 bed and at his grave, that I learned what a 73 00:04:56.000 --> 00:04:59.120 poor slave mother may feel when her child is torn 74 00:04:59.199 --> 00:05:02.920 away from her thereafter, she decided she would work to 75 00:05:02.959 --> 00:05:08.959 show slavery quote in living dramatic reality end quote. Uncle 76 00:05:09.000 --> 00:05:13.120 Tom's Cabin is a deeply researched book. Its fictional plot 77 00:05:13.160 --> 00:05:17.399 lines draw directly from narratives of escapees, as well as 78 00:05:17.439 --> 00:05:21.279 from Henry's accounts of his encounters in slave states, from 79 00:05:21.319 --> 00:05:25.279 reporting in the abolitionist press, and from interviews with black 80 00:05:25.319 --> 00:05:29.600 people Stowe employed as domestic servants and those she met 81 00:05:29.600 --> 00:05:34.319 in academic and religious circles. She credits the inspiration for 82 00:05:34.399 --> 00:05:38.000 Tom's character to the experience of her cook, a free 83 00:05:38.040 --> 00:05:42.759 black woman whose enslaved husband in Kentucky quote with such 84 00:05:42.800 --> 00:05:44.959 a Christian I could not get him to run away 85 00:05:45.040 --> 00:05:48.399 in quote, even when his enslaver sent him on errands 86 00:05:48.439 --> 00:05:53.279 to Ohio. The character of Tom's wife, Chloe, is modeled 87 00:05:53.319 --> 00:05:57.639 on Stowe's housekeeper aunt Frankie, whom she admired for her 88 00:05:57.680 --> 00:06:03.680 resourcefulness and good humor. The Stowe family's own anti slavery acts, 89 00:06:03.720 --> 00:06:07.480 including transporting runaways in the dark of night, find their 90 00:06:07.519 --> 00:06:10.439 way into the novel's account of the flight of one 91 00:06:10.600 --> 00:06:16.240 enslaved person, Eliza. Eliza's tale is also inspired by the 92 00:06:16.319 --> 00:06:20.879 experiences of the abolitionist John Rankin, who gave sanctuary to 93 00:06:20.920 --> 00:06:23.319 a woman and her two year old who had crossed 94 00:06:23.360 --> 00:06:28.399 the Ohio River on planks and ice floes. When Southerners, 95 00:06:28.639 --> 00:06:33.439 appalled by the book's impact decried it as libelous exaggerations 96 00:06:33.480 --> 00:06:38.639 and sensationalized falsehoods, Stowe in eighteen fifty three published a 97 00:06:38.720 --> 00:06:42.160 Key to Uncle Tom's Cabin, in which she set out 98 00:06:42.240 --> 00:06:45.639 these and other sources she had drawn on, including slave 99 00:06:45.759 --> 00:06:49.759 narratives such as the life of Josiah Henson, formerly a 100 00:06:49.839 --> 00:06:55.240 slave now an inhabitant of Canada, as narrated by himself. Henson, 101 00:06:55.319 --> 00:06:59.360 who escaped grueling conditions in Maryland, called himself the real 102 00:06:59.439 --> 00:07:03.560 Uncle Tom and took pride in his association with Stowe's book. 103 00:07:04.439 --> 00:07:08.480 Stowe took these first person testimonies as her scaffolding, then 104 00:07:08.600 --> 00:07:14.040 built upon them an imaginative edifice of intense emotion. While 105 00:07:14.120 --> 00:07:18.000 writers such as James Baldwin have blasted the stereotypes and 106 00:07:18.040 --> 00:07:22.560 minstrelsy in Stowe's novels, scholars such as Henry Lewis Gates 107 00:07:22.639 --> 00:07:26.360 Junior and David S. Reynolds's author of Mightier Than the Sword, 108 00:07:26.639 --> 00:07:30.279 which charts the novel's huge impact, have praised the book. 109 00:07:31.439 --> 00:07:34.560 There are moments of sharp wit and passages of great 110 00:07:34.639 --> 00:07:40.040 power throughout the dramatic, sometimes melodramatic action. Consider the response 111 00:07:40.120 --> 00:07:43.920 of an escapee, George, when chastised by a white business 112 00:07:43.920 --> 00:07:49.040 man for breaking the quote laws of his country. My 113 00:07:49.199 --> 00:07:52.480 country again, mister Wilson, you have a country? But what 114 00:07:52.600 --> 00:07:55.079 country have I or any one like me born of 115 00:07:55.120 --> 00:07:58.720 slave mothers? What laws are there for us? We don't 116 00:07:58.759 --> 00:08:01.199 make them, we don't cons sent to them, We have 117 00:08:01.279 --> 00:08:03.759 nothing to do with them. All they do for us 118 00:08:03.800 --> 00:08:06.480 is to crush us and keep us down. Heaven, I 119 00:08:06.560 --> 00:08:09.519 heard your Fourth of July speeches. Don't you tell us 120 00:08:09.560 --> 00:08:13.120 all once a year that governments derive their just power 121 00:08:13.199 --> 00:08:16.319 from the consent of the governed. Can't a fellow think 122 00:08:16.560 --> 00:08:19.360 that hears such things? Can he put this and that 123 00:08:19.519 --> 00:08:24.120 together and see what it comes to? Four months after 124 00:08:24.319 --> 00:08:28.240 Uncle Tom's Cabin was published, Frederick Douglas, who had praised 125 00:08:28.279 --> 00:08:32.159 the novel, delivered his famous oration What to the Slave 126 00:08:32.279 --> 00:08:36.360 is the fourth of July. The address contains powerful echoes 127 00:08:36.559 --> 00:08:40.919 of the arguments Stow created for George. Though thousands of 128 00:08:40.960 --> 00:08:45.840 Americans read the book, many more thousands saw theatrical adaptations 129 00:08:45.879 --> 00:08:49.879 of the story performed on stages across America long after 130 00:08:49.919 --> 00:08:54.879 the Civil War. In Lexington, Kentucky, in the early nineteen hundreds, 131 00:08:55.159 --> 00:08:58.440 the United Daughters of the Confederacy lobbied in Opera House, 132 00:08:58.720 --> 00:09:03.799 unsuccessfully to have the wildly popular play shut down. The 133 00:09:03.840 --> 00:09:07.480 group then turned to the state legislature, which in nineteen 134 00:09:07.519 --> 00:09:11.879 o six passed the Uncle Tom's Cabin Law, allowing censorship 135 00:09:11.960 --> 00:09:16.240 of any production depicting past race relations in a bad light. 136 00:09:17.000 --> 00:09:21.120 The daughters had argued that such depictions were injurious, especially 137 00:09:21.159 --> 00:09:25.000 to the quote plastic minds of children and quote unjust 138 00:09:25.080 --> 00:09:29.320 to the memories of their fathers. Harriet Beecher Stowe would 139 00:09:29.320 --> 00:09:33.799 not have agreed. In her novel's concluding remarks, she wrote, 140 00:09:34.360 --> 00:09:37.720 nothing of tragedy can be written, can be spoken, can 141 00:09:37.759 --> 00:09:41.799 be conceived that equals the frightful reality of the scenes, 142 00:09:41.879 --> 00:09:45.919 daily and hourly acting on our shores beneath the shadow 143 00:09:46.000 --> 00:09:49.440 of American law and the shadow of the Cross of Christ. 144 00:09:50.200 --> 00:09:53.320 And now, men and women of America, is this a 145 00:09:53.399 --> 00:09:57.440 thing to be trifled with, apologized for, and passed over 146 00:09:57.559 --> 00:10:03.639 in silence? And with this article? Did you know? The 147 00:10:03.679 --> 00:10:08.440 prolific mind of Stowe, though most famous for Uncle Tom's Cabin. 148 00:10:08.879 --> 00:10:11.720 Stowe wrote thirty odd books over the course of a 149 00:10:11.799 --> 00:10:16.679 five decade career. Her novels included Dread, A Tale of 150 00:10:16.720 --> 00:10:21.200 the Great Dismal Swamp eighteen fifty six, The Minister's Wooing 151 00:10:21.360 --> 00:10:25.879 eighteen fifty nine, and more. Her travel and memoir writing 152 00:10:25.960 --> 00:10:30.360 included Sunny Memories of Foreign Lands eighteen fifty four and 153 00:10:30.519 --> 00:10:35.399 Palmettow Leaves eighteen seventy three. She also wrote short stories, 154 00:10:35.399 --> 00:10:40.279 including The Mayflower or Tales and Pencilings eighteen forty three 155 00:10:40.799 --> 00:10:45.240 and Old Town Fireside Stories eighteen seventy two, as well 156 00:10:45.279 --> 00:10:49.399 as instructive books for children, such as Primary Geography for 157 00:10:49.519 --> 00:10:55.840 Children eighteen thirty three, and also with this article how 158 00:10:55.960 --> 00:11:00.759 America found its literary voice. It didn't take long for 159 00:11:00.799 --> 00:11:03.919 the young country to achieve a controlling interest in bookish 160 00:11:03.960 --> 00:11:09.960 innovation by Ted Scheinman. When did America seize English from 161 00:11:10.000 --> 00:11:13.399 the English? It's a leading question, yet it can be 162 00:11:13.480 --> 00:11:19.200 answered simply and truthfully. America began to reinvent anglophone literature 163 00:11:19.639 --> 00:11:23.279 some time between Anne Bradstreet's arrival in the Colonies and 164 00:11:23.360 --> 00:11:28.559 Benjamin Franklin's first pamphlet, long before Ralph Waldo Emerson declared 165 00:11:28.600 --> 00:11:32.039 in eighteen thirty seven that we will work with our 166 00:11:32.080 --> 00:11:35.559 own hands, we will speak our own minds. A new 167 00:11:35.679 --> 00:11:41.320 artist had emerged, the American speaker a radically self authorizing eye, 168 00:11:41.879 --> 00:11:46.000 unlike other peoples. The British critic Christopher Dawson wrote, the 169 00:11:46.120 --> 00:11:49.480 United States found their origin in a deliberate act of 170 00:11:49.559 --> 00:11:53.879 corporate self assertion, and ever since the Revolution, every little 171 00:11:53.919 --> 00:11:57.960 American has been taught to associate himself personally with this 172 00:11:58.159 --> 00:12:04.279 creative act. Between the eighteenth century and modernism, America produced 173 00:12:04.320 --> 00:12:08.919 many of the most revolutionary innovations in Anglophone letters. The 174 00:12:09.000 --> 00:12:12.559 continent was new, at least to Europeans. It was a 175 00:12:12.600 --> 00:12:16.879 time to make literature new as well. So American authors 176 00:12:17.000 --> 00:12:23.039 reinvented tradition based on long ago sources, theologian Jonathan Edwards 177 00:12:23.120 --> 00:12:26.440 rediscovering the Wrath of the Hebrew God, or T. S. 178 00:12:26.519 --> 00:12:31.279 Eliot drawing on Hindu scriptures and Dante. They also surpassed 179 00:12:31.360 --> 00:12:37.399 tradition entirely. Hermann Melville expanded the Maritime Romance into an 180 00:12:37.440 --> 00:12:42.759 epic metaphysical odyssey, and Tony Morrison used enslavement narratives and 181 00:12:42.879 --> 00:12:47.879 African folklore to create an entirely new form of historical consciousness. 182 00:12:48.440 --> 00:12:51.960 By nineteen fifty five, the American critic R. W. B. 183 00:12:52.240 --> 00:12:57.159 Lewis could sketch and critique the singular progress of the 184 00:12:57.279 --> 00:13:01.000 authentic American, poised at the start of a new history, 185 00:13:01.679 --> 00:13:05.480 whose sense of newness made possible a series of original 186 00:13:05.519 --> 00:13:11.840 inquiries and discoveries about human nature, art, and history. The 187 00:13:11.919 --> 00:13:19.000 American voice thus reoriented the language toward psychological immediacy, conceptual immensity, 188 00:13:19.360 --> 00:13:24.120 and ceaseless self reinvention, toward the frontier within as well 189 00:13:24.159 --> 00:13:31.480 as without. Next, there was no American regional cuisine until 190 00:13:31.519 --> 00:13:36.480 one Virginia housewife thought to compile a diverse collection of recipes. 191 00:13:37.240 --> 00:13:40.440 Mary Randolph, an in law of the Jefferson family who 192 00:13:40.480 --> 00:13:44.720 was influenced by enslaved cooks and traditions of European immigrants, 193 00:13:44.960 --> 00:13:48.360 didn't change Southern cooking with her eighteen twenty four cookbook. 194 00:13:48.759 --> 00:13:54.480 She originated it by Michael W. Twiddy. There was no 195 00:13:54.519 --> 00:13:58.000 instruction manual for Mary Randolph to refer to during the 196 00:13:58.080 --> 00:14:03.360 thirteen years she spent running Richmond, Virginia boarding house a wife, mother, 197 00:14:03.399 --> 00:14:06.759 and entrepreneur in the early eighteen hundreds, she had to 198 00:14:06.799 --> 00:14:09.919 figure out the most efficient ways to complete her many 199 00:14:10.000 --> 00:14:14.360 tasks in the kitchen. Once she discovered what worked, Randolph 200 00:14:14.480 --> 00:14:19.159 compiled her refined cooking techniques and recipes into eighteen twenty fours, 201 00:14:19.360 --> 00:14:24.320 The Virginia Housewife. Widely recognized as the seminole Southern Cookbook, 202 00:14:25.399 --> 00:14:29.840 Randolph's work inevitably represents the melding of traditions, without which 203 00:14:29.960 --> 00:14:32.399 Southern cooking could not be what it is to day. 204 00:14:33.320 --> 00:14:38.200 The book's nearly five hundred recipes, many originating and plantation kitchens, 205 00:14:38.600 --> 00:14:42.240 not only speak to the South's unique culinary heritage, but 206 00:14:42.279 --> 00:14:47.320 also tell the story of Transatlantic nations. Born in seventeen 207 00:14:47.360 --> 00:14:50.679 sixty two on her family's plantation in what is known 208 00:14:50.679 --> 00:14:54.080 today as the Black Belt of Virginia, where some fifty 209 00:14:54.120 --> 00:14:57.320 to seventy percent of the population were of African descent, 210 00:14:57.759 --> 00:15:02.200 Randolph was exposed to the first cuisines early on. The 211 00:15:02.360 --> 00:15:06.320 enslaved cooks who prepared meals for her family upheld West 212 00:15:06.360 --> 00:15:10.519 African cooking traditions, using the ingredients that were most similar 213 00:15:10.559 --> 00:15:14.399 to those of their homeland. When visiting her brother Thomas 214 00:15:14.559 --> 00:15:20.159 and his wife, Martha, Thomas Jefferson's daughter at Monticello, Randolph 215 00:15:20.200 --> 00:15:23.720 would likely have enjoyed the cuisine prepared by enslaved cooks 216 00:15:23.840 --> 00:15:27.480 Edith Fawcett and Fanny Hearn, who had been taught by 217 00:15:27.480 --> 00:15:32.759 White House culinarian Honore Julien at Monticello. The women continued 218 00:15:32.799 --> 00:15:37.039 the work of formerly enslaved French trained master chef James Hemmings, 219 00:15:37.320 --> 00:15:40.360 who became the first to prepare macaroni and cheese in 220 00:15:40.399 --> 00:15:44.120 the United States. The Virginia Housewife is said to be 221 00:15:44.200 --> 00:15:47.279 the first U s cookbook to include a recipe for it. 222 00:15:48.360 --> 00:15:51.799 The enslaved Africans and free people of color working around 223 00:15:51.879 --> 00:15:55.159 Randolph were central in introducing her to the foods and 224 00:15:55.200 --> 00:15:59.919 flavors that became the core of Southern cuisine. West Africans 225 00:16:00.039 --> 00:16:04.799 were fond of layered, spicy one pot stews with various starches, 226 00:16:05.240 --> 00:16:10.080 deep fried proteins, vegetables and fritters, grilled and barbecued meats, 227 00:16:10.120 --> 00:16:14.480 and braised leafy greens. They used peppery spices to amplify 228 00:16:14.679 --> 00:16:19.120 or temper the key ingredients allowed them. For example, a 229 00:16:19.200 --> 00:16:23.559 muddy flavored catfish became pleasant under the influence of turmeric, 230 00:16:24.000 --> 00:16:29.039 ginger and cayenne pepper. Randolph drew on other traditions too, 231 00:16:29.519 --> 00:16:34.279 incorporating oysters, wild games such as rabbit, and indigenous crops 232 00:16:34.399 --> 00:16:39.000 like squash and pumpkin into her recipes. She included popular 233 00:16:39.039 --> 00:16:42.840 British dishes such as plum pudding, as well as Spanish 234 00:16:43.039 --> 00:16:48.240 espacho gumbo, described as a West Indian dish, East Indian curry, 235 00:16:48.639 --> 00:16:53.159 Scottish collops of veal, and French macarons, offering a glimpse 236 00:16:53.279 --> 00:16:58.320 at Virginia's distinct demographics. Having closed her boarding house in 237 00:16:58.360 --> 00:17:02.240 eighteen twenty, Randoff was retired and caring for her ailing 238 00:17:02.360 --> 00:17:05.759 son when she decided to collect and publish her expertise 239 00:17:06.119 --> 00:17:11.000 for a new generation of homemakers. The difficulties I encountered 240 00:17:11.039 --> 00:17:13.640 when I first entered on the duties of a housekeeping 241 00:17:13.720 --> 00:17:17.440 life from the want of books sufficiently clear and concise, 242 00:17:17.880 --> 00:17:22.359 compelled me to study the subject, Randolph wrote. Her instructions 243 00:17:22.400 --> 00:17:27.839 also standardized recipes using proper weights and measures reducing waste. 244 00:17:28.599 --> 00:17:32.359 For when the ingredients employed were given in just proportions, 245 00:17:32.400 --> 00:17:37.079 she wrote, the article made was always equally good, some 246 00:17:37.279 --> 00:17:41.680 recipes had to be modified. She adapted British food staples 247 00:17:41.720 --> 00:17:46.039 made from cool weather grains to her native environment, substituting 248 00:17:46.119 --> 00:17:51.000 maize and creating authentic American fair corn Bread and hominy 249 00:17:51.119 --> 00:17:55.839 replaced quick breads and porridge. Chicken, hogs, catfish, and shad 250 00:17:56.200 --> 00:18:00.400 were consumed far more than beef and lamb. African dishes 251 00:18:00.400 --> 00:18:04.079 were modified to Western constraints, and they all learned from 252 00:18:04.160 --> 00:18:08.440 Native Americans who'd mastered how to best use the resources 253 00:18:08.480 --> 00:18:12.720 of the land. Other expensive and sometimes difficult to find 254 00:18:12.759 --> 00:18:18.519 groceries were imported from across the Atlantic. Randolph's Cacophony of 255 00:18:18.599 --> 00:18:24.240 recipes includes beers, preserves, breads, and desserts. You won't find 256 00:18:24.319 --> 00:18:28.680 lists of ingredients followed by numbered instructions, the familiar format 257 00:18:28.720 --> 00:18:32.640 of today's recipes. Randolph wrote as though she were speaking 258 00:18:32.680 --> 00:18:35.759 to the reader, and some might also hear the voices 259 00:18:35.759 --> 00:18:40.079 of enslaved cooks, although they were denied in education or 260 00:18:40.119 --> 00:18:44.079 publishing opportunities of their own. The black chefs who influenced 261 00:18:44.160 --> 00:18:48.279 Randolph left their imprint on the book. Words with West 262 00:18:48.319 --> 00:18:52.599 African origins like okra O, c h r A are 263 00:18:52.680 --> 00:18:57.000 peppered throughout, yet it never explicitly credits those men and 264 00:18:57.039 --> 00:19:01.200 women of African descent. Although she came from a notable 265 00:19:01.240 --> 00:19:06.599 slaveholding family, Randolph understood that her business success was dependent 266 00:19:06.680 --> 00:19:09.960 on the Black Virginians, who had been integrating food ways 267 00:19:09.960 --> 00:19:14.119 from different lands since sixteen nineteen, when the first enslaved 268 00:19:14.160 --> 00:19:21.000 Africans arrived. On paper, Randolph emphasized method and order. In reality, 269 00:19:21.400 --> 00:19:24.160 she allowed her cooks a modicum of freedom in the 270 00:19:24.240 --> 00:19:28.039 kitchen they shared. The book was a huge success for 271 00:19:28.119 --> 00:19:32.559 the era, republished nineteen times before the Civil War, and 272 00:19:32.680 --> 00:19:36.880 it spawned similar efforts from other chefs, including The Carolina 273 00:19:36.960 --> 00:19:41.000 Housewife Domestic Cookery in fifty years in a Maryland Kitchen, 274 00:19:41.920 --> 00:19:45.559 Randolph wrote that an extensive circulation of her recipes would 275 00:19:45.559 --> 00:19:51.079 be satisfying. Should they prove serviceable to the young, inexperienced housekeeper, 276 00:19:51.440 --> 00:19:55.240 it will add greatly to that gratification, she said. Some 277 00:19:55.279 --> 00:19:59.240 two hundred years later, new editions of The Virginia Housewife 278 00:19:59.400 --> 00:20:03.680 are still being being printed, and with this article fun 279 00:20:03.759 --> 00:20:09.440 facts more family ties. James Hemmings, the chef credited with 280 00:20:09.559 --> 00:20:13.240 creating the recipe for macaroni and cheese, was enslaved at 281 00:20:13.240 --> 00:20:16.960 Monticello until he was thirty, along with many other members 282 00:20:17.000 --> 00:20:21.079 of his family. With some seventy members over five generations, 283 00:20:21.400 --> 00:20:25.440 the Hemmings were the largest family group living at Monticello, 284 00:20:26.519 --> 00:20:30.720 cookbook author Mary Randolph was married to David Meade Randolph, 285 00:20:30.880 --> 00:20:34.240 who was appointed U S. Marshal of Virginia by George 286 00:20:34.279 --> 00:20:40.160 Washington in seventeen ninety five. Detailed genealogical records suggest Mary 287 00:20:40.240 --> 00:20:46.000 Randolph was a sixth generation descendant of Indigenous American Pocahontas. 288 00:20:47.559 --> 00:20:51.519 And with this article Five chefs who changed the way 289 00:20:51.559 --> 00:20:55.039 we eat. Even if you never ate their food, their 290 00:20:55.079 --> 00:20:59.279 influence has been a key ingredient in American cuisine by 291 00:20:59.440 --> 00:21:05.559 Terras Grescoe James Beard. Long before the Food Network turned 292 00:21:05.599 --> 00:21:09.200 chefs into celebrities, Beard brought the first cooking show to 293 00:21:09.319 --> 00:21:13.240 National TV with I Love to Eat in nineteen forty six. 294 00:21:14.000 --> 00:21:18.200 Known for his eccentric persona, Beard published twenty six books, 295 00:21:18.519 --> 00:21:23.000 championed everything from Sloppy Joe's to Lobster Newburgh, and established 296 00:21:23.000 --> 00:21:27.440 a culinary brand, a cooking school, a foundation annual awards 297 00:21:27.880 --> 00:21:33.640 that confers enduring bravitas on U S cookery Leah Chase. 298 00:21:34.319 --> 00:21:37.759 In the nineteen sixties, Chase turned her in law's restaurant, 299 00:21:37.880 --> 00:21:42.039 Dukie Chase's and New Orleans Tremet District into a temple 300 00:21:42.079 --> 00:21:46.799 of Creole cuisine. Jim Crow Laws still banned black diners 301 00:21:46.960 --> 00:21:50.839 from French quarter restaurants, so Chase fed. Leading lights of 302 00:21:50.880 --> 00:21:56.759 the civil rights movement, James Baldwin favored her gumbo. Remarkably influential, 303 00:21:57.039 --> 00:22:00.680 she spread the gospel of shrimp, Clemenceau and each cobbler 304 00:22:00.720 --> 00:22:06.640 in cookbooks and on TV. Julia Child Child's nineteen sixty 305 00:22:06.640 --> 00:22:09.880 one Mastering the Art of French Cooking was the first 306 00:22:09.880 --> 00:22:14.599 cookbook to demystify bechamel and roue for home cooks. After 307 00:22:14.880 --> 00:22:19.000 a wartime stint for US intelligence, Child followed her husband 308 00:22:19.000 --> 00:22:23.039 to Paris and graduated from La cordon Bleau Culinary School. 309 00:22:23.720 --> 00:22:27.319 Her live public TV show The French Chef made her 310 00:22:27.359 --> 00:22:31.960 a beloved celebrity for her uncompromising approach to casslet and 311 00:22:32.039 --> 00:22:38.200 cocavet Alice Waters. The enduring buzz around farm to table 312 00:22:38.240 --> 00:22:42.559 cooking began with New Jersey born Waters, who taught Americans 313 00:22:42.599 --> 00:22:46.839 to follow the seasons as she'd seen Europeans do. After 314 00:22:46.880 --> 00:22:52.000 studying at the Sorbonne, Waters opened her organic restaurant Chepanice 315 00:22:52.160 --> 00:22:56.920 and Berkeley, California, in nineteen seventy one. In the nineteen nineties, 316 00:22:57.039 --> 00:23:01.079 she pioneered the edible schoolyard which teach middle and high 317 00:23:01.079 --> 00:23:05.720 school students to grow and cook organic produce, and finally, 318 00:23:06.039 --> 00:23:09.759 Sean Sherman. In two thousand seven, while living in a 319 00:23:09.799 --> 00:23:14.839 Mexican fishing village, Sherman met nearby Huichal people who'd never 320 00:23:14.880 --> 00:23:20.359 stopped using traditional ingredients in Aglala Lakota, who grew up 321 00:23:20.359 --> 00:23:23.759 in South Dakota, Sherman was inspired to study what his 322 00:23:23.839 --> 00:23:28.839 people ate before European contact. Starting small in twenty fifteen 323 00:23:28.880 --> 00:23:31.640 with the Food Truck in Minneapolis, he went on to 324 00:23:31.680 --> 00:23:36.319 write The Sioux Chef's Indigenous Kitchen twenty seventeen, and his 325 00:23:36.440 --> 00:23:42.400 Minneapolis restaurant Owomni has won awards for its pre colonial cuisine. 326 00:23:42.440 --> 00:23:48.119 He's part of a wave of chefs charting the culinary future. Finally, 327 00:23:48.559 --> 00:23:51.039 when Clarence Bird's Eye tasted the trout that had been 328 00:23:51.079 --> 00:23:55.119 frozen by Inuit fishermen, it changed the way we buy food. 329 00:23:55.759 --> 00:23:59.599 The inventive entrepreneur concluded that the faster things were frozen, 330 00:23:59.799 --> 00:24:02.519 the less damage was done to the structure of the food. 331 00:24:03.079 --> 00:24:06.880 Once thawed, they were exactly like fresh. By Michelle Stacy, 332 00:24:08.079 --> 00:24:11.200 It's a Tail Ripe for the Screen in nineteen twelve. 333 00:24:11.240 --> 00:24:14.200 A twenty five year old Brooklyn native with an adventurous 334 00:24:14.240 --> 00:24:18.039 streak journeys to the icy reaches of Northeast Canada, where 335 00:24:18.079 --> 00:24:21.880 he spends the better part of five years learning indigenous ways. 336 00:24:22.480 --> 00:24:28.279 One particular practice fascinates him Inuit fisherman's method for preserving fish, 337 00:24:28.559 --> 00:24:31.279 which involves simply pulling a trout out of a hole 338 00:24:31.319 --> 00:24:34.480 in the ice and letting it freeze almost instantly in 339 00:24:34.519 --> 00:24:37.960 the minus thirty degree air. When thawed and cooked, the 340 00:24:38.000 --> 00:24:41.720 fish tastes remarkably fresh. The young man has just learned 341 00:24:41.759 --> 00:24:44.519 a trick to freezing food in a palatable way, which 342 00:24:44.519 --> 00:24:46.799 will bring him a fortune in the decades to come. 343 00:24:47.359 --> 00:24:51.039 His name is Clarence Bird's Eye. The key to maintaining 344 00:24:51.079 --> 00:24:56.319 freshness Bird's Eye realized was crystallization. When a food freezes slowly, 345 00:24:56.680 --> 00:25:00.319 the liquid within forms large ice crystals, which d damage 346 00:25:00.359 --> 00:25:04.400 its cell structure. The result, when thawed a leaky, greeny, 347 00:25:04.480 --> 00:25:07.359 mushy product, which was the only kind of frozen food 348 00:25:07.400 --> 00:25:10.720 available in the United States in the early nineteen hundreds. 349 00:25:11.359 --> 00:25:15.440 Flash freezing, however, results in tiny ice crystals, preserving the 350 00:25:15.480 --> 00:25:19.640 food's texture and flavor. That discovery led to the creation 351 00:25:19.759 --> 00:25:22.920 of the Bird's Eye Company in nineteen twenty three, opening 352 00:25:22.960 --> 00:25:25.319 the door to what is now an almost three hundred 353 00:25:25.359 --> 00:25:29.240 billion dollar global frozen foods industry and to a larger 354 00:25:29.319 --> 00:25:33.599 universe of ready made, packaged and processed foods. But Bird's 355 00:25:33.640 --> 00:25:37.720 Eyes innovations went far beyond simply importing the quick freeze method. 356 00:25:38.440 --> 00:25:41.400 His ideas were so new that he had to pioneer 357 00:25:41.519 --> 00:25:45.680 every step of production, inventing machines along the way. The 358 00:25:45.720 --> 00:25:49.000 first of his more than two hundred patent applications was 359 00:25:49.039 --> 00:25:52.839 for insulated containers to keep his products cool. He also 360 00:25:52.920 --> 00:25:57.480 developed new waterproof inks, glues, and cellophane that could withstand 361 00:25:57.640 --> 00:26:02.079 freezing and thawing. A popular Science monthly headline called Bird's 362 00:26:02.079 --> 00:26:06.720 Eye products exactly like Fresh in September nineteen thirty. Two 363 00:26:06.799 --> 00:26:10.279 years later, The New York Times declared his innovations a 364 00:26:10.359 --> 00:26:15.680 scientific miracle. But Bird's Eye still faced challenges to overcome 365 00:26:15.799 --> 00:26:19.279 a stigma of frozen goods. He called his first line 366 00:26:19.279 --> 00:26:25.240 of products frosted foods. Another earlier barrier was infrastructure. Electric 367 00:26:25.279 --> 00:26:29.319 refrigerators began to replace ice boxes only in the late twenties, 368 00:26:29.519 --> 00:26:32.119 and the freezer compartment was just a tiny slot for 369 00:26:32.160 --> 00:26:36.319 ice cube trays. Free Standing home freezers were rare, and 370 00:26:36.400 --> 00:26:39.400 there were no trucks or train cars equipped to transport 371 00:26:39.440 --> 00:26:44.160 frozen foods or warehouses cold enough to keep them. It 372 00:26:44.200 --> 00:26:46.559 took a Second World War for the country to catch 373 00:26:46.640 --> 00:26:50.400 up to Bird's Eye's vision, when America's armed forces created 374 00:26:50.440 --> 00:26:53.759 the means to preserve and transport food to troops overseas. 375 00:26:54.519 --> 00:26:58.759 Items like frozen orange juice concentrate, and prototype frozen meals 376 00:26:58.839 --> 00:27:03.400 fueled a postwar boom and processed food technology. In nineteen 377 00:27:03.440 --> 00:27:07.519 forty seven, the two door refrigerator freezer debuted with more 378 00:27:07.559 --> 00:27:11.240 space for frozen goods. At the same time, more women 379 00:27:11.319 --> 00:27:14.880 were entering the workforce. According to the Department of Labor, 380 00:27:14.960 --> 00:27:19.119 by nineteen fifty three, thirty percent of married women had jobs. 381 00:27:19.440 --> 00:27:22.759 By nineteen sixty, twice as many wives were employed as 382 00:27:22.799 --> 00:27:27.240 had been a decade before. Food marketers identified a new consumer, 383 00:27:27.680 --> 00:27:30.240 the harried mom who works but still has to put 384 00:27:30.240 --> 00:27:34.440 dinner on the table. Frozen and processed foods saved time, 385 00:27:34.759 --> 00:27:38.160 so the industry advertised speed as the most important concept 386 00:27:38.200 --> 00:27:42.559 in cooking, says food historian Laura Shapiro, author of Something 387 00:27:42.559 --> 00:27:46.960 from the Oven, reinventing dinner. In nineteen fifties, America. The 388 00:27:47.039 --> 00:27:50.759 Swanson brothers attempt to save consumers time came in nineteen 389 00:27:50.799 --> 00:27:54.559 fifty four when they introduced the brilliantly branded TV Dinner, 390 00:27:54.920 --> 00:27:57.319 an entire meal in a tray that went straight from 391 00:27:57.359 --> 00:28:01.359 the freezer to the oven. This concludes readings from the 392 00:28:01.359 --> 00:28:05.200 Smithsonian Magazine for today. Your reader has been Rebecca Shore. 393 00:28:05.640 --> 00:28:07.720 Thank you for listening, and have a great day.